Thank you for the replies. You have really piqued my interest in this transfer business. I'll do some research and educate my core group of like minded hunters. Is anyone aware of a current push in Montana to transfer or sell public land?
Since I'm stuck at homee this weekend cleaning before wee list our house, I'll take the bait.
There is a continued push to transfer & sell public lands in MT from a certain subset of Republican legislators like Theresa Manzella, Kerry White & Jennifer Fielder and their followers, but since 2015, it has been met with fierce resistance from hunters, hikers, anglers and a host of others, culminating in a rally in 2017 with over 3,000 opponents of the transfer & sale of public lands showing up at the legislature to shut it down. Since then, the conservation lobby team has been able to work with moderate republicans and the entire democratic caucus to create a better dynamic related to the conservation of state and public lands, access to those lands and stopping the transfer agenda. Having the backstop of Governor Bullock also has been instrumental in keeping the transfer & sale movement from advancing in MT.
Candidates running for federal office like Matt Rosendale have supported the transfer and sale of public lands in the past, but have pulled that support back conditionally but still make extremely poor decisions relative to access & conservation, giving us a reasonable expectation of what their vision of management looks like. Rosendale's attack on the Stenson family is a prime example here: following the behest of oil lobbyists, Matt tried to kill a conservation easement that opened up over 20,000 acres of private land to public hunting while also putting the ranch in jeopardy of being lost due to the commitments that were made relative to the easement purchase & other land deals.
Senator Daines, for example, ignored the will of the vast majority of Montanans when he introduced the second largest elimination of protections for critical wildlife habitat inside of Wilderness Study Areas, and his votes to eliminate BLLM 2.0, which put more local input on the books for BLM decision making, and in his support for William Perry Pendley, the illegally installed head of the BLM whose decisions relative to land us planning put wildlife on the back burner in favor of expedited resource extraction.
Gianforte has publicly stated that if elected governor, he would end the purchase of land altogether, which means no more Habitat Montana land purchases that open up the over 3 million acres of landlocked state and federal land, as well as no new management areas devoted to wildlife. Greg Gianforte also introduced the largest elimination of protections for wildlife habitat in his bill to erase conservation management of over 700,000 acres of Wilderness Study Areas in favor of expedited extraction, and his running mate is one of the people who, along with William Perry Pendley, have sued to eliminate Montana's stream access rule.
So, the TLDR of all of that is, yes the move to transfer is still alive in MT, if the tactics may alternate based on which party is in power. If the presidency goes to Biden, you will see increased calls to transfer & sell public land. If Trump remains POTUS, then we will continue to see the same management scenarios, just under federal mgt. The end result isn't so much outcomes for land as it is retaining power to make the decisions on how that land is managed.
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