Montana’s Fish and Wildlife Commission spent nearly five hours Thursday doing the very Montana thing of letting everybody talk, and when the dust settled on the virtual meeting, two citizen petitions had gone down unanimously: one requiring 24-hour trap checks on public land (courtesy of Footloose Montana and the Gallatin Wildlife Association) and one mandating bear spray for hunters, trappers and guides in grizzly country (submitted by Patty Ames of the Flathead-Lolo-Bitterroot Citizen Task Force, speaking for roughly 65 groups and individuals). Commissioner Jeff Burrows, who represents Region 2, summed up the trap-check bid bluntly, saying he moved to deny because “I don’t think it’s ready for primetime.” Under the Montana Administrative Procedure Act, an interested party can always petition an agency to create, tweak or kill a rule — and if the commission declines to advance it, that’s the end of the road, though the idea itself can still resurface later during regular regulation setting, as FWP legal chief Jeff Hindoien pointed out.
The third item on the agenda fared much better: a proposal authorizing FWP staff to draft a predator management policy sailed through unanimously, and that draft will come back for more review, comment and possibly a full MAPA process with public notice, legislative oversight and all the legal weight that follows. Director Christy Clark called it “a fundamental first step,” adding there will be plenty of chances to air concerns down the road. And people clearly had opinions — the trap-check petition pulled in more than 600 comments, the bear spray mandate over 300, and the predator policy about 100. Want to watch the recording, dig through every written and online comment, or just keep tabs on what this crew does next? Point your browser at FWP.MT.GOV and poke around.
Montana's outdoor week, in your inbox at 7am Friday.