Roadhunter,
JLS pretty well summed it up in regard to the lion issues facing Montana and the agenda of the vocal portion of houndsmen.
The reason that attending meetings matter, is because unlike you, I am not forced to "guess" what was said and who said it.
I heard many things in public testimony on this issue. Things like houndsmen asking for a ban on snaring bobcats, splitting bobcat quotas between houndsmen and trappers, trying to stop general season hunting of lions by archery and rifle hunters, reducing lion quotas, forcing trophy cat designation across a large portion of Western Montana, reducing female lion harverst, and the list goes on.
I have no problem with any of that. However, when the need to pass an agenda creates a situation where those driving the agenda resort to lies, fabrications, and ignore science...well that I can't abide.
That's exactly what I heard countless times, were fabrications of the truth, hear-say, and out-right lies in regard to lion Management. Further, the existing harvest data, lion densities, and other science were ignored by the vocal houndsmen.
Those are facts, and I'm not going to apologize for calling out those that pulled this chit for many years and whined enough to finally get their way. I don't care if they're fellow hunters or not, that is immaterial to the issue.
I believe in science based wildlife management, and the data from (from the area I hunt) was showing that from about 1985-early 2000's that lion harvest was being maintained at right near 90 cats, with a range of between 80-110. This is not made up data, that is the hard numbers provided by personal conversations I had with area biologists and pulled from MTFWP records.
Despite the science, the agenda driven houndsmen were able to get trophy cat designations. They did so with a pack of lies and by using up nearly every hour of every public meeting. The whining got so bad, that the last few meetings I attended, the MTFWP had to have mediators to keep the meetings moving forward and shut up the lion hunting whine fest.
So, that is why I will not apologize for my comments on this thread regarding my initial post. Its more likely than not, that this latest stunt is just another page out of the "I want my way, no matter what, and no matter how it impacts anybody else" attitude that I witnessed first hand on many occasions by the houndsmen.
They didn't want to look at the science, they didn't care about how their agenda would impact "trash" species like deer and elk, didn't care about trappers, and sure as hell didn't care about elk and deer hunters.
I lived it...