Resident hunters question intent of landowner-led group
Laura Lundquist
(Missoula Current) Montana’s resident hunters want to hunt in their own state with minimal pressure from out-of-state hunters, but that’s becoming increasingly difficult. Sportsmen’s groups have tried to prevent nonresidents from getting more licenses, but they’re being opposed by a new organization operating under what sportsmen say is a deceptive name.
In mid-January, the House Fish, Wildlife & Parks committee heard a bill that would increase the base nonresident license fee to $100 from $15. Montana is fairly inexpensive for nonresidents compared to other states, and the increase could add up to $8.5 million to FWP’s funding.
The Montana Outfitters and Guides Association, or MOGA, opposed the bill, and their lobbyist asked that the fee be reduced. MOGA regularly lobbies for more nonresident tags and cheaper nonresident fees, because many of their clients come from out-of-state so they don’t want changes that would reduce their customer base.
The only other opponent of the bill was Mark Taylor representing the recently formed Montana Conservation Society. Taylor testified that his group was working on an amendment to lower the fee increase. The bill ended up being amended to lower the fee to $50.
After a few weeks, the bill sponsor amended the bill again to return the fee to $100. But a few hunters who watched the hearing wondered who the Montana Conservation Society was and why they’d be siding with MOGA in pushing for a lower nonresident price. But that isn’t all the Society is doing.
The Montana Conservation Society also talked another legislator into changing his bill that would have increased the price for nonresident upland bird licenses to $150. Now it’s been reduced to $127. Montana Conservation Society lobbyist Ben Lamb told both bill sponsors that the increases would make nonresidents stop coming and hurt FWP’s revenue.
“We are supportive of the increase but expressed our concerns relative to unintended consequences based on decades of experience working on licensing and budgets,” Lamb told the Current.
The Montana Conservation Society is also behind Senate Bill 270, which would allow nonresidents with big game licenses to get more cow elk tags if approved by the FWP commission. Nick Gevock, Sierra Club campaign organizer and former Montana Wildlife Federation conservation director, said the bill is a sequel to HB 635 from the 2023 legislature, which mandated that nonresidents who have owned 2,500 contiguous acres or more for more than three years are eligible for three elk licenses. Gevock said SB 270 would give landowners at least one more license.
Most sportsmen adhere to the North American model of wildlife conservation, which says, among other things, that wildlife belongs to the public so it’s illegal to sell wildlife or wildlife hunts. In addition, there should be opportunity for all. So giving elk tags away to a select few in exchange for participation in state efforts is also not allowed under the North American Model.
“What’s really going on here is the privatization of our public wildlife resources to cater to a handful of large outfitters and landowners. SB 270 would create a system in which outfitters control nearly every aspect of wildlife, to their benefit to sell trophy hunts while elk herds continue to grow over the objectives set by the state,” Gevock wrote in a recent op-ed.
Who is the Montana Conservation Society?
According to its website, the Montana Conservation Society, which registered with the Secretary of State in September 2022, is “focused on finding lasting, equitable solutions for wildlife management issues on private and public lands, while restoring the strong bonds between landowners, outfitters and hunters.”
But the group’s organizers, staff and its legislative strategy don’t sound like they’re supportive of resident hunters or the North American model, hunters groups say.
“If you look at their webpage, it’s led by a outfitter who leased up hundreds of thousands of acres for exclusive access, and it doesn’t even mention that in his bio. And some of the directors are massive landowners in Montana,” Gevock said.
The executive director, Rob Arnaud, is an outfitter in Montana and Wyoming, was the president of MOGA for a few years starting in 2013, and was on the board of directors of the Utah-based Sportsmen for Fish and Wildlife.
According to Secretary of State filings, the group’s directors include state Sen. Wylie Galt, who served in the Montana House from 2013 to 2021. In 2021, when he was Speaker of the House, Galt drafted HB 505 to provide up to 10 landowner-sponsored nonresident elk-only combination licenses. The bill was supported by MOGA and the Montana Stockgrowers Association, but opposed by all public land hunters. The bill died in process. Near the end of the session, Galt then inserted language into HB 637, a FWP “clean-up bill,” to allow nonresidents who hire outfitters to buy extra bonus points, which improves their odds of getting hunting licenses. Resident hunters argued that this would drive more business toward outfitters but HB 637 passed after being pushed through a final conference committee. Bozeman hunter and talk-show host Randy Newberg dubbed the result “Bulls for Billionaires.”
Other directors listed in the filings include Mark Anderson, Jeff Southworth and Justin Sliter. Other staff include Kenton Hickitheir, a former highway patrol officer, and Bob Hoverson. Hoverson’s bio says he manages “a large private Montana ranch for hunting.”
Mark Taylor isn’t listed on Montana Conservation Society paperwork, but he’s registered to lobby for them, and he has his own anti-public-hunter history. After Galt’s elk tag language passed in 2021, Taylor lobbied FWP to get eight bull elk permits for the Wilkes Brothers to hunt on their ranch near Lewistown. Meanwhile, the Wilkes Brothers, one of Montana’s largest landowners, have tried to block public access to the Durfee Hills, public land locked within their ranch, and some public roads in the area. Taylor's family owns a 1,500-acre livestock operation - Taylor Land and Livestock Company - also near Lewistown.
Ben Lamb is the Society’s Policy Director, but he is familiar to Montana sportsmen because he lobbied for the Montana Wildlife Federation in 2017 and 2019, working under Gevock. In November 2020, Lamb moved with his wife to Cedar, Mich., so now he’s a nonresident. But he returned temporarily to lobby for the Montana Wildlife Federation during the 2023 Legislative session. That’s when he started to change his stripes, hunters say.
“Ben had credibility when he was working for (Montana Wildlife Federation), and people haven’t realized that he’s changed,” said Andrew Posewitz, son of conservationist Jim Posewitz, founder of Orion - The Hunter’s Institute. “But for me, the story is bigger than (the Montana Conservation Society). There are a number of people who grab these catchy nicknames that don’t represent who they are. This is just the newest fool on the block. The buyer really has to beware.”
When asked about the outfitter/private landowner makeup of the group’s leadership, Lamb said he liked the fact it was a diverse group.
“That diversity of opinion is necessary to try and bridge some divides, rather than seek to make them larger. These people have agreed to put ideology aside and find policies that seek to elevate everyone and not just try to pick winners and losers,” Lamb wrote in an email. “Our all-volunteer board consists of (do-it-yourself) public hunters, multi-generation ranchers, legacy landowners, business leaders and yes, a former outfitter is our executive director, but he is a well-recognized leader in land management and conservation.”
When asked for the names of the public hunters on the board, Lamb didn’t respond.
The Montana Conservation Society has no membership and uses Billings attorney as its registered agent, instead of a Society member. So sportsmen are questioning where the group gets its money. John Sullivan III, Backcountry Hunters and Anglers Montana Chapter board member, said his organization gets all its money from its membership and it’s all spent in Montana.
“I don’t know who the Society really is, and I don’t know where they get their money. What I do know is they don’t have any membership, and they don’t ask for donations. That tells me they’re not looking for buy-in from residents,” Sullivan said. “With Backcountry Hunters and Anglers Montana chapter, we ask for buy-in from locals and we’re very transparent about where we get our money and what we do with it. That should be the standard for any conservation organization operating in Montana.”
Lamb said MCS gets its funding from a variety of sources including numerous individual donations, as well as grants, including one from the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation. When asked for more specifics, Lamb didn’t respond.
“I’ve always said that you should judge an organization by the work they do, and not their funding. That remains true for MCS,” Lamb wrote in an email.
What is the Montana Conservation Society doing?
Erik Nyland, Montana Sportsmen Alliance board member, acquired a four-page document that Lamb wrote for the Montana Conservation Society in December detailing issues and likely bills they would support or oppose. Some bills favored by the Society are also favored by other hunter groups such as Block Management funding. But other issues have caused major concern for resident sportsmen.
But most concerning for the Montana Sportsmen Alliance and others is the Society’s stated goals of shunting state money toward their own programs.
The Society recently took over the Master Hunter Program from One Montana, an organization formed in 2010. The program was intended to improve hunter/landowner relations by improving hunting skills and acquainting hunters with private land operations and access. But One Montana broke up last year, and the Montana Conservation Society moved in. According to the Master Hunter website, enrollment for classes was supposed to start in January, but there’s been no update.
Lamb said the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation grant they got would fund the Master Hunter Program, now called the Montana Access Program. But the Society is also trying to get money from the state through the appropriation process to pay for their staff, according to the December document.
“We do expect there to be opposition in the form of smaller rod and gun clubs and some of the more vocal statewide groups like Montana Sportsmen Alliance, but that opposition will be late in the play, and not likely to be organized significantly since most of the hunting groups do not pay much attention to the budget,” Lamb wrote in the document.
Gevock said the Society represents only a small number of people now, but their influence could increase once they get state money.
Each session, bills related to elk management come up in the Legislature. Hunters will pay big bucks to hunt bulls, so outfitters and large landowners can charge thousands of dollars for elk hunts. Some harbor elk on their land for the purpose of hunts but those herds can also cause damage to agricultural lands. The best way to disperse elk is to allow several public hunters to come into an area, but some landowners are resistant to that.
In 2021, worried about how the new Gianforte administration would manage elk, several hunters’ groups came together with outfitters and landowners to form the Montana Citizens’ Elk Management Coalition. The group sought to find common ground and promote programs that could garner mutual support, such as boosting reimbursement for landowners in Block Management, a public access program.
Lamb became the Elk Management Coalition’s campaign manager in 2022. By the time the coalition produced some bills for the 2023 legislature, Lamb was working closely with MOGA and Arnaud, in addition to 11 regional hunter’s groups.
One of the bills proposed by the coalition leadership was HB 635, which allowed nonresidents owning 2,500 contiguous acres or more to be eligible for elk licenses. Lamb and proponents sold it as a way to take pressure off of public lands. Many coalition members, critical of more nonresident license handouts, withdrew from the coalition and opposed the bill. But the bill passed and then Governor Greg Gianforte amended it to allow landowners to get three elk tags instead of one. The Legislature was able to overrule the amendment, but many sportsmen were still angry because landowners don’t have to allow any public hunters on their property, unlike with other FWP programs.
Arnaud praised Lamb at the end of the 2023 session and gave him a handmade fishing net for his efforts. Lamb told the Current he was asked to join Arnaud in the Montana Conservation Society six months later in December 2023. Now, in the 2025 Legislature, Lamb and Taylor are working for the Montana Conservation Society to influence several FWP-related bills.
“They seem to be advocating on the opposite side of every conservation issue,” Posewitz said. “HB 635 - that was the precursor to this. There’s not a conservation bone in that bill’s body. But (Lamb) actually had people testify that it’s not inconsistent with the North American Model, which is absolutely crazy. Those people feel terrible about that now, by the way.”
Having lobbied in Montana for several years, Lamb knows the ropes. But this session, he didn’t register with the Commissioner of Political Practices as a lobbyist for the Montana Conservation Society. On Feb. 25, sportsmen noticed that and reported Lamb to the commissioner. Lamb said in an email that it was an oversight and miscommunication on his part, and that he registered as soon as the commissioner notified him.
An important bill that resident sportsmen were watching this session is HB 519 sponsored by Rep. Jedediah Hinkle, R-Belgrade. HB 519 would have repealed HB 635, the 2023 bill that gave three elk licenses to nonresident landowners. HB 519 was scheduled for committee hearings twice last week, but both were cancelled. Resident sportsmen suspect that the Montana Conservation Society pressured the sponsor to cancel the bill. So it probably won’t pass the House before the transmittal date at the end of this week.
“It’s a greenwashed group. They’re behind so much bad stuff in this session. They’re really fighting HB 519 hard,” said Jock Conyngham, Montana Sportsmen Alliance board member. “In 2023, Ben cut all ties to the responsible hook and bullet crowd and went full landowner lobbyist.”
Lamb said his organization is backing conservation bills and cites his efforts to increase funding for Future Fisheries, FWP wardens and conservation programs like Habitat Montana, The Upland Game Bird Enhancement Program, and the Waterfowl Mitigation Account.
“We have also been supporting HB 256, an effort to create a $100 million trust that would go towards maintaining and improving state owned water projects to help alleviate issues related to low flows of rivers and streams during low water years and help ensure irrigators have some water to grow crops,” Lamb said in an email.
Nyland said the Montana Conservation Society supports certain issues in name only. For example, the Society may say it supports fee increases that go toward a particular program, but then it recommends reductions in proposed fees for other reasons. Nyland uses the nickname “Dams for Donors” for HB 256 and the related appropriations.
“The Montana Conservation Society is behind the Dams for Donors effort in appropriations, which would redirect $100 million of public funds to private ponds and reservoirs on large ranches,” Nyland wrote in an op-ed.
Lamb denies that the Montana Conservation Society tries to tweak bills in favor of nonresidents, outfitters or large landowners.
“I don’t think we are favoring non-residents, in fact, we supported SJ17 and HB 568 (last week) in committee, which are both resident hunter specific bills that are designed to elevate the resident hunter over the non-resident,” Lamb said in an email.
Contact reporter Laura Lundquist at lundquist@missoulacurrent.com