Population Growth and Hunting in Rocky Mountain States

[BlazerBeam]

I see a lot of “me”, “my” and “I” in your posts. Generally sums up the most discontented folks.

It seems pretty off target to blame hunting for all the people moving to any western state. Some, yes. But many more people moving here do not hunt at all and just want their 30 acres next to open space. Randy, or any other hunting media, have very little to do with the overall mass desire for proximity to space and recreation, especially after Covid. Has been happening in a lot of states for a long time now, long before Randy or before western hunting was “a thing”.

The wheels of progress keep turning. That is usually a painful process. Nothing you, me, Randy, hunting media can do about it. People either find ways to adapt and enjoy their lives, or don’t and live a miserable one. In the end, that choice is completely up to you.

You’re right. Absolutely right. Very well said. I can’t argue with that. This thread has caused me to analyze many of the pre existing feelings that I have held for sometime on western migration of people. It has been good for me to think and read about this for the past couple of days. I apologize for rubbing anyone the wrong way. Especially with being a first time poster. I am obviously passionate about the subject, but realize that my line of thinking probably needs some refinement and is not entirely correct. I will work on this, and for now will go back to being a silent lurker
@ElkFever2 sorry man. No hard feelings I hope

 

[Hilljackoutlaw]

You’re right. Absolutely right. Very well said. I can’t argue with that. This thread has caused me to analyze many of the pre existing feelings that I have held for sometime on western migration of people. It has been good for me to think and read about this for the past couple of days. I apologize for rubbing anyone the wrong way. Especially with being a first time poster. I am obviously passionate about the subject, but realize that my line of thinking probably needs some refinement and is not entirely correct. I will work on this, and for now will go back to being a silent lurker
@ElkFever2 sorry man. No hard feelings I hope

You will find its ok to feel things and think alot of things around here. Its when you start feeling or thinking out loud when it becomes a problem.

Its all good I found your posts refreshing you don't beat around the bush and there is nothing wrong with that. If most people native to the rockies on here say they don't feel the same way as you to an extent I would say they are fibbing.

 

[Desk Pop]

It is just the reality. There isn't a way around it. Populations grow. Animal populations decrease as man's footprint increases, and wild places get further apart.

I escaped midwestern suburban hell the first chance I could 12 years ago. I finished school in my home state and after a year and a half of supporting my new wife as she finished her grad degree it was time. With her diploma in hand and two jobs waiting, we drove to Idaho and never looked back. We found a place a bit out of town where I could shoot guns and pee off my back porch. I picked Idaho to live because of the public land mountains and hunting. Specifically. That is why I am here. There aren't other reasons.

I didn't do it because some meathead instagram hero who thinks bench pressing his car is the test of hunting abilities or a "huntress" posing with dead stuff in a bikini and an Only Fans account on the side glorified living and hunting in the west. I am not sure if Instagram existed then.

Where I choose to live as an adult tells more about me than where my mom happened to be when I popped out of her. This whole "if you weren't born here or came after the 90s" stuff is bs.

I support hunters and support people who love it so much that it is a big enough part of their life that they relocate to be able to do it more.

I read Rinella's brother's deal about how hunter recruiting should stop as well as Steve's response to his brother's article. Both were crap, but I was almost more disappointed in Steve's follow up. Steve's response ends by basically saying his brother isn't selfish for wanting the mountain to himself (despite the obvious) and saying his brother even helps new hunters out sometimes (and gave examples)....which to me read, "if my bro can bask in the glory from directly helping a hunter or two and be their hero he is fine with hunter recruitment but he thinks you peasants should stop supporting growth and advocacy in the sport because it is hurting his hunting spots."

If I consider which kind of new resident will effect my hunting the most, it isn't other hunters who are coming to hunt. It is Californians who escape unlivable conditions to come here and vote the same way that led to California's metamorphosis from a decent state to a complete shit hole they themselves deemed unlivable. I realize all Californians who move here do not vote that way, but it would be ignorant to think that in a place as conservative as Idaho they aren't or won't have an effect. Ballot box biology and banning of hunting certain animals and/or certain ways scares me more than a few more people at the trailhead. Thankfully Idaho has actual state constitutional protections against the right to hunt and fish, as well as traditional means of take specifically, but there is still a ton of damage that can be done.

Hunters moving to the west won't change the landscape of the sport as much as the influx of voters who vote to change the policies. But this is America, and despite the illogical insanity of leaving a place destroyed by shitty policies only to vote the same way that made that happen, they have just as much of a right to live wherever they want in America.

 

[RobertD]

You’re right. Absolutely right. Very well said. I can’t argue with that. This thread has caused me to analyze many of the pre existing feelings that I have held for sometime on western migration of people. It has been good for me to think and read about this for the past couple of days. I apologize for rubbing anyone the wrong way. Especially with being a first time poster. I am obviously passionate about the subject, but realize that my line of thinking probably needs some refinement and is not entirely correct. I will work on this, and for now will go back to being a silent lurker
@ElkFever2 sorry man. No hard feelings I hope

Thumbs up to everything in this post except the part about going back to being a silent lurker. Stick around dude! I'm new here too but it's a fun place. Plus you probably have plenty to contribute about hunting.

 

[OverlordBear]

Until we close all immigration both (legal and illegal) to this country we are going to continue to bust at the seams everywhere. This is a simple supply and demand problem. America only has supply for maybe 250 million people to live comfortably without taxing the resource, if we are careful. With our race to 400 million and politicians welcoming all the third world to our shores it will be like a swarm of locusts when we reach one billion people in the US. And you ll be thinking any house under a million will be a steal. Until people realize the earth is at carrying capacity there is no realistic solutions.

 

[Rancho Loco]

The "Third world", "Immigration" and "Locusts" are what created this country.

 

[HSi-ESi]

One item that hasn't been brought up that has had the biggest change in hunting MT is the advent of the land-ownership mapping programs (OnX, goHUNT, etc). Knowing that a person can drive out on a specific road until they hit BLM ground and just start hunting is a huge shift. We used to spend countless hours obtaining maps and researching land ownership - then when you get into the field it could be tough to pin down exactly where you were.

Also, knowing that the land (State or Fed) was leased by someone, we would usually stop in at places to chat. As with anything, life gets busier and its harder to devote time - so there is a degradation of relationships. Now add in folks from out-of-state, social-media influencers or not - that have the ability to jump out of a truck and start hunting after driving X number of hours - just increases traffic to these areas and can increase tension. Don't get me wrong, we all have every right to do this - but a little conversation goes a LONG way.

A large part of Randy's platform is to create advocates for hunting - which I believe he has been successful at - but you also see a shift for him on the education side for making the advocates more effective.

 

[SAJ-99]

You’re right. Absolutely right. Very well said. I can’t argue with that. This thread has caused me to analyze many of the pre existing feelings that I have held for sometime on western migration of people. It has been good for me to think and read about this for the past couple of days. I apologize for rubbing anyone the wrong way. Especially with being a first time poster. I am obviously passionate about the subject, but realize that my line of thinking probably needs some refinement and is not entirely correct. I will work on this, and for now will go back to being a silent lurker
@ElkFever2 sorry man. No hard feelings I hope

Please don't be a lurker. What we need to do is start addressing possible solutions. Asking people to stop moving here is not a workable solution, but we should consider different season structures to distribute the pressure. @mtmuley might say this is able as workable as asking people to stop moving here, but the discussion needs people with different views. More realistic, and immediate, put more pressure on elected officials to stop cutting funding to things like Habitat Montana which increase access. This legislative session shows they are all for public access when they are running, but not when they get to Helena. We ned to hold elected officials accountable. It's good to be fired up, but it can't stop at complaining on the internet.

 

[PrairieHunter]

I was over in Saratoga the other day and there was an old WY native yelling at Californians across the pool to "leave your bag of shit where you came from". Good times.


Fortunately Wyoming will not have the jobs which are available in CO, MT, ID, etc... so it should not be as bad here.


Out of curiosity have you folks back East noticed people moving to no growth coal states like WV to get away from DC, Pittsburg, etc...

 

[MTGomer]

This is why people aren’t huge fans of transplants.
It doesn’t take many of these to move to your little town to change it not for the better.
Would you move to San Francisco and complain about gays? Or Odessa and complain about oil? Does @wllm1313 complain about their funny little accents in Cambridge?
Of course not. No body with any manners, decency or self awareness would.

 

[jlmatthew]

One item that hasn't been brought up that has had the biggest change in hunting MT is the advent of the land-ownership mapping programs (OnX, goHUNT, etc). Knowing that a person can drive out on a specific road until they hit BLM ground and just start hunting is a huge shift. We used to spend countless hours obtaining maps and researching land ownership - then when you get into the field it could be tough to pin down exactly where you were.

Also, knowing that the land (State or Fed) was leased by someone, we would usually stop in at places to chat. As with anything, life gets busier and its harder to devote time - so there is a degradation of relationships. Now add in folks from out-of-state, social-media influencers or not - that have the ability to jump out of a truck and start hunting after driving X number of hours - just increases traffic to these areas and can increase tension. Don't get me wrong, we all have every right to do this - but a little conversation goes a LONG way.

A large part of Randy's platform is to create advocates for hunting - which I believe he has been successful at - but you also see a shift for him on the education side for making the advocates more effective.

OnX, Basemap, etc... has had a huge impact here in Colorado. I've spent so much windshield time and gas money over the years to find hunting spots and now I'm crowded out by the OnX phone scouters. I always ask guys I meet how they found the spots and it never fails with the OnX response. Farms & ranches I have access to say they get letters from guys asking to hunt, and these are places that don't have houses on them, but thanks to OnX with the owners info available they can figure out how to reach em. I know I need to accept reality but its hard. The older I get the more I want things to go back to the way they were, so I totally get where some of the posters like BlazerBeam on this topic are coming from.

 

[Beignet]

This is why people aren’t huge fans of transplants.
It doesn’t take many of these to move to your little town to change it not for the better.

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Give old Dawn a few years and she’ll soon be complaining that she has to drive to Idaho to hunt these things over a bait station.

 

[Hilljackoutlaw]

This is why people aren’t huge fans of transplants.
It doesn’t take many of these to move to your little town to change it not for the better.

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Single...

 

[MTLabrador]

Single...

@DouglasR, take a ski trip to Big Sky and get to Tinderin’. Maybe she just needs to meet the right hunting ambassador.

 

[Deleted member 28227]

You’re right. Absolutely right. Very well said. I can’t argue with that. This thread has caused me to analyze many of the pre existing feelings that I have held for sometime on western migration of people. It has been good for me to think and read about this for the past couple of days. I apologize for rubbing anyone the wrong way. Especially with being a first time poster. I am obviously passionate about the subject, but realize that my line of thinking probably needs some refinement and is not entirely correct. I will work on this, and for now will go back to being a silent lurker
@ElkFever2 sorry man. No hard feelings I hope

U.S. County Migration Patterns

Housing Data

Note: We make frequent changes to the download paths for CSVs and ask that users who have standard code to ingest our data consider switching to the Econ Data API to avoid that code being affected by these changes.

www.zillow.com

You might be interested in some of these resources, I find that sometimes we can get bogged down in anecdotal experience and it's important to look at trends.

Lots of interesting things to talk about here but some of the ones that jumped out at me.

-Montana is tiny... the entire state population wouldn't make it a top 10 US city. Very little net migration, all things considered, can have a huge effect. Most people are moving to Texas, AZ, GA, WA, and FL.

-Are people leaving high prices in CA, yes, but mostly they are dispersing into other parts of the state from the expensive cities, and the total state pop is increasing.

-CA prices despite what anyone says about the state being a shit hole are still increasing, it is still a very desirable place to live and lots of people are moving there, many from MT.

I included Eagle county where I am from, one of the epicenters of herds dwindling because of an explosion of pressure on winter range habitat from development and non-consumptive. Prices are coming down slightly in Eagle, I'm not sure why... perhaps enough affordable housing developments have been built to offset all the mega mansions being built.





Blue, counties people are leaving to
Orange counties people are coming from

 

[OverlordBear]

The "Third world", "Immigration" and "Locusts" are what created this country.

Yeah and a billion is too many. 100 more million than what we have is too many. 8 billion people on this planet is way too many we are going to consume all the fish in the sea and all the nutrients off the face of the earth at the rate we are going.

 

[Deleted member 28227]

I was over in Saratoga the other day and there was an old WY native yelling at Californians across the pool to "leave your bag of shit where you came from". Good times.


Fortunately Wyoming will not have the jobs which are available in CO, MT, ID, etc... so it should not be as bad here.


Out of curiosity have you folks back East noticed people moving to no growth coal states like WV to get away from DC, Pittsburg, etc...

My college roommate lives in DC and just bought a farm in WV... does that count?

Does @wllm1313 complain about their funny little accents in Cambridge Dorchester?

I've been told my accident is getting decent from a couple of friends.

 

[westbranch]

This is why people aren’t huge fans of transplants.
It doesn’t take many of these to move to your little town to change it not for the better.
Would you move to San Francisco and complain about gays? Or Odessa and complain about oil? Does @wllm1313 complain about their funny little accents in Cambridge?
Of course not. No body with any manners, decency or self awareness would.
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I pulled up her FB profile and it looks like she is also one of the transplants turning MT more red.

 

[antlerradar]

The "Third world", "Immigration" and "Locusts" are what created this country.

The last time there was near unrestricted immigrating 100+ years ago, those immigrants homesteaded millions of acres of public land and put the plow to a whole lot of land that should have never been farmed.
I am all for some form of regulated immigration, but if the current free for all continues for very long it is not going to end well for wild places and the animals that need them.

 

[DouglasR]

@DouglasR, take a ski trip to Big Sky and get to Tinderin’. Maybe she just needs to meet the right hunting ambassador.

I had to delete my Twitter because I was worried my tinder girls were gonna find me on there telling people like dawn that I hope her and her pack of what I can only assume to be misbehaved dogs end up like the mature bull elk in this video from the bbc that they refuse to watch.
It wasn’t good for conservation.