Hunters gather in Kalispell

Game damage took center stage Saturday at the biennial Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks public meeting on hunting regulations, with increased opportunities for deer, elk and turkey harvest getting support from hunters.

More than 70 people from as far away as Eureka and Proctor attended the meeting. Officials outlined proposed changes to hunting regulations for the next two years and invited comments from the public.

State wildlife managers in Northwest Montana Region One have proposed elk shoulder seasons during the next two summers to address crop damage in the Eureka area.

As proposed, the seasons would extend from Aug. 15 to Oct. 16 this year and Aug. 21 to Oct. 22 in 2017. The agency would sell up to 50 permits for the special hunt, which would be limited to private land in Hunting Districts 101 and 109, excluding property owned by timber companies.

Gary Wolfe, the region’s representative on the Montana Fish and Wildlife Commission, said the commission and the agency spent about a year and a half drafting the proposed management tool.

He said there are 44 shoulder seasons proposed statewide.

Several bow hunters suggested the shoulder hunt, which would overlap with the deer and elk archery season, could make the elk skittish and prohibitively difficult for archers to harvest.

“If you need additional people out there to move the animals, I think archery would be the way to go with that,” Larry Rattray of Proctor said during the public comment period.

However, state wildlife biologist Tim Thier said after the meeting that the shoulder season would give landowners the ability to decide what type of harvest is permissible on their property.

“It’s the landowner’s prerogative what he wants you to use,” Thier said. “Rather than me dictate where you can and where you can’t [use a gun], let’s just leave it up to the landowner.”

Several commenters objected to the early-season nature of the proposal, noting that shooting a cow elk could also result in the loss of dependent calves during that time of year.

“I don’t like the idea of killing elk in August, either,” Thier said. “But because elk respond to hunting pressure, hopefully we won’t have to kill more than a few of them.”

HE ADDED that a shoulder season in late fall and winter likely would remove elk migrating from their summer range in Canada rather than targeting the local herd, which causes damage to alfalfa fields and hay stores in the summer.

And Wolfe argued that archers could potentially benefit from the proposal.

“It could quite possibly actually move quite a few elk from the valley bottoms and pastures down there and move them up to the public lands to give archers some opportunities,” he said.

And if it doesn’t work as planned, he said, the commission could cancel the 2017 shoulder season and go back to the drawing board.

“It is an experiment. We’re not sure exactly how they’re going to work out,” Wolfe said. “If it is creating some problems that need to be resolved and addressed we’re not going to wait until the 2018-2019 season-setting process.”

Proposed expansion of white-tailed doe hunting also drew support from many hunters.

The proposals include a one-week either-sex deer hunt in Region One districts outside the Flathead Valley and the Bob Marshall Wilderness Complex. The last week of the season would also be either-sex, although only on private land not owned by a timber company.

Hunters would also be able to shoot antlerless deer in Kuhns National Wildlife Management Area north of Kalispell with a B tag.

Karl Schrade, who owns a farm northwest of Glacier Park International Airport, asked the agency to go further.

“What I’m looking for is an off-season kill,” he said. “It doesn’t make any sense to me when I see 40 or 50 deer grazing on my peas in June and July, to have to wait.”

Likewise, most of the comments on the proposed increase in available turkey licenses received praise, and several attendees attested to nuisance flocks of the game birds occupying the Flathead and Tobacco valleys.

The meeting also gave local hunters the opportunity to comment on perennial wildlife management issues — especially predator management.

“There’s only two ways you can manage fish and game — you can either manage it for predators, and we have lots of predators — or you can manage it for game animals,” said Michael Baer of Kalispell. “Very few people are even getting deer because there are so few deer left.”

Baer suggested unlimited hunting of the region’s wolves, which he blamed for what he said is a dramatic decline in game species including deer, elk and moose.

And while the state’s ongoing study of the declines in Montana’s moose population does not rule out predation as a reason, state wildlife biologist Jessie Coltrane noted a number of factors have been linked to the species’ decline throughout the northern Continental United States.

“YES, PREDATORS play a part, but disease and habitat are also part of it,” she said at the meeting’s close. “Those are some of the questions they’re trying to get at. ... We just don’t really know at this point.”

The state biologists tasked with the 10-year research project have only compiled several years of data, and the last portion of the study will include an investigation into how big a role predation plays in the animals’ decline.

Some Kalispell residents who live near the Owen-Sowerwine Natural Area complained about hunters shooting in close proximity to homes. Several asked that hunting in the area be restricted to archery.

“Every once in a while I go out and check the side of my house to see if we have any bullets in it,” said Paul Martin. “I’m amazed we haven’t had anybody killed.”

Fish, Wildlife and Parks will accept comments on the regulations until Jan. 22 at 5 p.m.

After analyzing and responding to public comments, the agency will recommend a final version of the proposed regulations to the state Fish and Wildlife Commission, which will vote on them Feb. 11 in Helena.

“Some [regulations] will be exactly the same as we saw in December. Others will be tweaked and changed,” Wolfe said.

Details on all the proposed hunting regulations are available at fwp.mt.gov/hunting. Click “2016-17 Hunting Season Changes - Proposed” to comment online and find additional information on the proposals.

Comments can also be mailed to Wildlife Bureau, Attn: Public Comment, P.O. Box 200701, Helena, MT 59620-0701.