@Brad W I don't think you should comment on the sponsor's ranching & outfitting background. That kind of stuff generally gets the good points ignored and let's opposition focus on your "personal attacks." Regardless of what people may think, Representative Galt is the duly elected Speaker of the House, and deserves respect. It's a rough job, and adding more grief onto those shoulders is a good way to get an inverse reaction.
Keep it clean & above board, but do highlight that this is the wrong approach to how wildlife management should be done, and that it sets the stage for future privatization of wildlife, while ignoring the real issues at play: Elk distribution, indiscriminate pressure on elk, and refuges of private land that negate any impact that shoulder seasons were supposed to have.
Remember: We were told that shoulder seasons would be the cure for over-objective elk. How many years later and we're still over objective? We were told that access would be forthcoming, and that nobody would charge for shoulder season hunts, when in reality, that's what's happening across MT.
As for testimony: In person is the most effective. Then over zoom, then phone calls, then emails. Legislators get thousands of emails a day on a variety of issues. Those little stacks of notes handed to them are the phone calls, and they can do a quick survey of one color card versus another.
Be polite, be professional and be succinct. The desire to go down the rabbit hole of minutia is strong, but resist. There will be a lot of other folks in line to testify, so be cognizant of their time, and let them make some points as well.
From my perspective, here are the topline themes to return too over and over:
1.) This cuts out the largest segment of FWP's customer base - the hunter - from the discussion. Pushing a major rewrite of hunting law in MT during a pandemic session of the legislature is a sure-fire way to cause controversy, rather than get folks in a room and talk through issues, like the MT Elk Council & rewriting the EMP does. That's a better place to have these discussions, rather than the frenetic pace of a legislature. We need calm, cool heads, not amped up rhetoric.
2.) This bill, while well intentioned, does nothing to change the issues on the ground that hunters & landowners are dealing with: Elk distribution. When large herds of elk are inaccessible to public hunting, either through hunt club leases, non-traditional landowners, etc, then adding more cow hunting pressure only exacerbates that issue. While new incentives for landowners to allow hunting on properties that have unnatural concentrations is welcome, handing that same recourse over to one group to control is anti-democratic and ignores Montana's over 100 year history of wildlife management.
3.) Point creep: This bill would ensure that only a very select few would ever draw an Elkhorns, Breaks, Rocky Mtn Front, Bearpaws, etc tag. It would make elk hunting in MT even more exclusionary than it is now. This is a major slap in the face to kids who are just now starting to build points, and those who are sitting on points, plus it could make pulling NR Limited Entry Permits even more difficult, causing more heartache for public land outfitters, etc.
4.)Sportsmen-Landowner relations are always a live wire. Bills like this are extra current through that wire. We don't need the extra controversy, we need leaders to step up and engage both communities in an honest discussion about the issues at hand, and solutions that everyone can agree too.
You've got less than 3 hours to sign up if you want to testify remotely. Showing up in person will have outsized impact on this bill.
