Habitat Montana benefits agriculture and hunters

Montana’s incredibly popular Habitat Montana program is a favorite target of state lawmakers because it allows the state to purchase land for wildlife through a fund that hunters pay into.
What’s often left out of the conversation is the contribution that Habitat Montana makes to traditional farm and ranch operations. Habitat Montana primarily funds conservation easements that protect working agricultural lands – which tremendously benefit wildlife – and can help farmers and ranchers add to their operations and stay on the land.
That was well illustrated through four major conservation easements that recently came before the Montana Fish and Wildlife Commission for initial consideration. The proposals total 33,800 acres on four ranches located in central and eastern Montana. These stunning landscapes include key habitat for mule deer, antelope, elk and numerous other wildlife species.
Among those are the greater sage-grouse, a native prairie grouse that was nearly listed as endangered last year. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service opted not to list the bird, thanks to extensive state and federal conservation plans aimed at protecting and restoring crucial sagebrush-steppe habitat. Montana’s conservation plan strongly emphasizes working with private landowners to protect sage-grouse habitat on working farms and ranches. One of the proposed projects – the Machler property in Fergus County north of Roy – includes nine sage-grouse leks. The easement would protect 2,700 acres of the ranch that is located in core sage-grouse habitat.
In addition to protecting sage-grouse habitat, the easements include a public access component allowing public hunting. And they also have the potential to improve public access to adjoining public lands, which would create more public hunting opportunity.
Another easement, the Rumney Foothills located near Cascade, would allow the rancher to expand the operation by purchasing more property. The area is comprised of foothill grasslands that provide important winter range for elk and mule deer, as well as riparian and shrub habitats where white-tailed deer thrive. In total the easement would protect 7,512 acres.
Last session, the Legislature limited the ability of Habitat Montana to be used for new land protection projects. Several lawmakers had tried to end the program entirely. Some legislators who don’t like Habitat Montana criticize FWP for owning too much land. Montanans need to understand that when politicians attack FWP lands, they are referring to the wildlife management areas that many of us hunt every fall.
By protecting key wildlife corridors and winter range, Montana’s wildlife management areas also help reduce conflicts between big game and farming and ranching operations. Elk on a wildlife management area aren’t raiding haystacks or causing fence damage to private operations. The alternative is the Wyoming model, which involves feeding thousands of elk in feed grounds that are a major vector for disease spread and other health issues. That’s not good for wildlife or agricultural operators, and it certainly goes against our strong conservation record in Montana.
Eliminating Habitat Montana would be bad for Montana’s hunters, anglers and wildlife watchers. It would be bad for the numerous businesses that thrive because of our abundant wildlife and the public lands that support it.
And as these projects demonstrate, eliminating Habitat Montana would also be bad for our agriculture industry as well. It’s vital that in the next legislative session we fully restore Habitat Montana.
Nick Gevock, Conservation Director
Montana Wildlife Federation