by Marc Cooke, President, Wolves of the Rockies, Stevensville
It’s pretty rich for Greg Gianforte’s Fish, Wildlife and Parks Department to put out propaganda in its magazine telling hunters to “do the right thing” when it comes to ethical hunting. But hypocrisy runs deep in Gianforte’s world, and the agency that he’s destroyed will do his bidding for his rich buddies and outfitters every step of the way.
Last month’s Montana Outdoors magazine had a piece decrying that hunting ethics and a sense of fair chase have gone downhill and are essential to maintain hunting. It recalled an incident on a ranch in central Montana a few years ago in which 100 hunters surrounded an elk herd and started firing, leading to numerous wounded animals and a few citations.
While I don’t condone that type of behavior, and in fact support ethical, fair chase hunting, FWP doesn’t share my views. At least when it comes to some animals, a mentality of kill as many as possible, through all means, is prevalent with this governor and his agency.
Take gray wolves. We had a successful recovery of wolves, thanks to the federal government’s move to reintroduce them into the Northern Rockies. They were playing their role in the ecosystem, and elk numbers in our state are dramatically higher than when wolves were reintroduced. And although some, including myself, didn’t like it, there was a wolf hunt, which while very liberal in season length and other factors, maintained a sense of fair chase.
Then we got the new sheriff in the governor’s office, and ethics and fair chase were thrown out the window. They instituted baiting, snaring, night shooting, use of night vision, 20 wolf bag limits, bounties and more. The state’s justification since has been that we’re not killing more wolves than in the past. But with only an estimate of wolf populations, and no hard counts, it’s likely this insane approach has led to a wolf population that is struggling in many areas.
A definition of what constitutes fair chase is simple, from legendary hunter-conservationist Jim Posewitz: the animal has a reasonable chance to get away. But wolves held in traps, shot at night and snared have no reasonable chance.
I guess that’s what we should expect from Gianforte, who himself had a wolf held in a trap for two days before he flew in to shoot it in the head. Ethics be damned, he was going to get a wolf.
If hunters don’t think it matters that what happens to one species will happen to others, they should think again. Idaho gunned down more than 200 elk in one night. And Wyoming legislators are discussing aerial gunning of elk.
Now Gianforte wants to set his sights on grizzlies, which is why he’s so eager to get federal protection removed for our state animal. We all know what a disaster and disgrace that would be.
We can handle Gianforte’s lack of personal ethics when it comes to hunting and our wildlife. But using the staff at FWP to peddle this kind of BS when we all know the agency doesn’t practice what it preaches is an embarrassment to a once proud agency, and to our state as a whole.