Sure, I understand that. But just say that and explain the "graver consequences". I heard plenty of legislators complain that shoulder seasons weren't working when trying to pass some other bat-$hit crazy idea, but expanding shoulder seasons was approved in a New-York minute. The group looks (and we both know, is getting) more and more political each year. How can a staff-level biologist or warden say anything negative when losing their job means moving to a new state. The hunting-Thanksgiving thing is both real and an excuse. I don't sense there is a high level of transperancy or an openness to new ideas at the higher levels of management.
I encourage all HT'er to give $$ to an organization like MWF that understands the lobbying aspect of how stuff gets done in MT. I doubt the trend will change.
Mostly it's in response to these folks:
https://leg.mt.gov/
The collective is never as smart as the individuals, so of course they'll try to pass something poorly crafted & thought out next session and FWP is going to have to either decide to fight it or support it or sit idly by and let others fight their battles for them.
These legislative folks don't want to know what managers think, let alone what the average sportsman thinks because they've convinced themselves that they're the arbiters of what's right & wrong regardless of facts or information. They also control FWP's budget and have starved them in the face of unprecedented changes, then complained that the agency isn't doing enough.
Shoulder seasons started because a legislator (now Senate leadership) was pissed about there being too many elk and they had a great idea to bring back a management tool that had been left by the roadside a long time ago. Being a smart legislator, he made the bill non-mandatory after the agency talked to him about why the bill was a bad idea (this was in 2015), yet he persisted. The bill was vetoed and Bullock instructed the agency to do the original, short-term shoulder season, and then the commission approved the worst expansions in subsequent years, up until this commission, which seemingly takes marginal ideas and makes them worse.
To be sure, the agency is running roughshod over open-meetings laws, transparency issues and slow-walking FOIA requests in order to shut down public knowledge of what they're doing. Vengeance is the political currency of this administration in some ways. The perceived slights of the commission over the last 16 years, especially among those who would sell the last elk for a buck, means that the anger and hate they have is being enacted in terms of policies that punish the public while rewarding those who are currently in favor. FWP hasn't been free from political influence for a long time, no matter who the governor was. We all remember the fiasco that was Joe Maurier, right? Jeff Hagener tried to tell about this and many refused to listen because Bullock was in for 8 years.
