Lex Anteinternet: A Potential Wildlife Management Disaster or A Redefinition of Unoccupied. The Montana Game and Fish and the Gallatins.

Hunters in the Gallatin National Forest, early 20th Century.

I've written twice on this topic already, those entries being here, where I discussed the overall situation;

A Potential Wildlife Management Disaster or A Redefinition of Unoccupied.

and here, where I discussed a potential approach for Wyoming:

Lex Anteinternet: A Potential Wildlife Management Disaster or A Redefinition of "Unoccupied". Where forward from here.

One of the things I mentioned in the first one, more than once, is that the decision had ramifications for states other than Wyoming.

Montana clearly agrees with that.

Sheep in the Gallatin Valley, 1930s.  Contrary to the way those not familiar with it imagine it, National Forest land is in fact used by agriculture.  Indeed, that fact sometimes angers some people who don't appreciate that recreation is in fact not part of the original reason for designating lands as national forest, and isn't even close to the reason.

The details of what will occur will take some time to sort out, but the head of the Montana Game & Fish (which sends out some of the niftiest emails, such as the one I got this Fall warning pheasant hunters to watch for grizzly bears), has directed his wardens not to cite Crow Indians hunting in the Gallatin National Forest in Montana.

For those who are now aware of the Gallatin National Forest is an over 1,800,000 acre stretch of National Forest of which has been joined for administrative purposes to the Custer National Forest which is considerably to its east.

The Gallatin National Forest borders Wyoming, with most of that border laying to the immediate north of Yellowstone National Park.  About 1,000,000 acres of the combined Custer Gallitin has been designated as wilderness.

In my earlier post on this topic I predicted that the predicament faced by the Wyoming Game and Fish would soon confront the entire region's wildlife management agencies.  My only surprise here is how quickly that it impacted Montana, but otherwise I was right on the mark here. This suggests to me that Montana may already have been having a bit of a problem in this area as in fact Wyoming was in the Pryor Mountain area. Be that as it may, Montana is taking a much different approach than Wyoming is, so far. 

Gallatin Valley, 1921.

Montana and Wyoming actually face different geographical challenges here.  One of the original issues in the Herrera matter was whether or not Herrera was in Wyoming or knew that he was.  That did not become a feature of the Supreme Court case however and would have been totally irrelevant to it.

Indeed, the differences don't stop there.  The Big Horn National Forest, which was the area involved in the Wyoming matter, is 1,100,000 acres in extent. That's big, but it's small compared to the Gallatin.  Indeed, the wilderness areas inside the Custer Gallatin exceed the size of the Big Horn.  That actually makes the logic of the "unoccupied" argument much stronger for the Gallatin.

Indeed, with some of the dust having been settled, a quick look at the map of the areas administered just by the Forest Service in Wyoming shows that a lot of it clearly is occupied.  A lot of it isn't even forest.  The Gallatin situation, however, is considerably different.

Also different is how the border areas work out.  The Big Horn is bordered on its north, as noted, by the Crow Reservation.  The Gallatin doesn't border any reservations, although the Custer National Forest does, as it borders the Crow Reservation to the north.  But the Gallatin shares a long southern border with Yellowstone National Park.

Train going over Bozeman Pass in the 1930s.

That may seem alarmist, but I don't intend it to be.  I think it's simply pointing out the facts as they are.  The Montana Game and Fish obviously believe that Herrera will result in unlicensed native hunters in the Gallatin and they've instructed their wardens not to interfere with them, meaning that they've conceded to unlicensed and unregulated hunting in the Gallatin this year. This year, and likely next if this continues on, will therefore be a test as to how this will impact things.

But beyond that, thinking that this doesn't spread over at least a little bit into Yellowstone is naive.  Even in this era of GPS people can get off course, and under the Herrera decision there's no rationale legal basis to argue that Yellowstone National Park, which is a national park because it is unoccupied, isn't open under the decision.

As I noted in my earlier commentaries, while I think this could rapidly turn into a wildlife management disaster, I feel somewhat differently about Yellowstone which, in actuality, suffers from having too much game that isn't hunted.  This could alleviate that problem, although a lack of regulation to continue on for years will create a new problem.

Which gets me back to my earlier point.  I don't think that Herrera goes as far as people suppose, but I do think that this is the time that the regional game departments might want to think about incorporating its decision into their license draw systems.  Wyoming hasn't shown an inclination to try that and Montana is demonstrating a seeming intent to just stand back, although I think that's likely a temporary action designed to avoid conflict.  In both cases, the states might want to consider some revisions along the lines I noted earlier, as the other states in the region might want to as well.