Should the Missouri Breaks Monument
be a private preserve for outfitting?

SENTRY ALERT!!! - February 23, 2004

Dear Email Sentry and all sportsmen:

QUESTION: Should the Missouri Breaks Monument be a private preserve for outfitting?

ANSWER: NO WAY, Public Land should be for the Public!!! The BLM's Monument Team is paving the way for Special Resource Permits (SRPs) to be issued to outfitters, almost without restriction regardless of public access making our public land their private hunting preserve!!!

Throughout the preparation period for the Resource Management Plan (RMP), MWF has expressed to the BLM the policy as reflected in the Public Access to Public Land and Public Wildlife campaign by insisting that "No Outfitter Permits be issued where the public doesn't have equivalent access to the monument." BLM's interagency Monument team is discussing 5 Alternatives for the RMP which includes varying perspectives on how to manage Hunting/Commercial Use. Although the Biologists on the team have more or less defended our position, the conclusion of the team was to not assign geographic limitations. BLM would continue to issue these permits regardless of public vehicle access. Some discussion even held that "If you don't give permits to places where the public has no access, the public area would get over used.." This is backwards to say that they will give permits for areas locked behind private gates? Certainly this will encourage commercial service providers and give them more incentive to purchase lease agreements on properties bordering the Monument as they do over much of the state already, to secure EXCLUSIVE use of OUR monument lands and OUR public wildlife for their private profit .

The BLM is abdicating their responsibility as public stewards when they choose to provide for private commercial use of a public wildlife paradise, over public use. Their logic is skewed in favor of those who exploit our public land for their own profit. As private lands are increasingly leased and shut down to the public, public lands become greater magnets for sportsmen's access to wildlife. These public lands should be the example of how to keep the PUBLIC in our public lands and wildlife, not the reverse, and should be protected from abuse.

If you want to leave a wildlife legacy on this Monument for your children and grandchildren, sportsmen must get involved with this RMP process. We must remind the BLM that the public lands and public wildlife belong to
the people of Montana and indeed to all Americans. The management plans should benefit the public as a whole; DO NOT give special privileges to those able to profit from the public wildlife resource especially on a PUBLIC wildlife paradise like the Upper Missouri River Breaks National Monument.

WE NEED hunters and anglers to express these views to the powers who can sustain the public's trust. BLM follows the lead of the Central Montana Resource Advisory Council(RAC) and it's recommendations. Share your
outrage with the RAC and Montana BLM Director, Marty Ott ASAP. Write to them and the BLM Monument Team to expose the folly of the path they are following in regards to outfitters. They feel that MWF's opinion is that of a singular group of people; let's prove them wrong! Tell them that Montana hunters and anglers ARE the public and they are bound to manage the public lands for the state's citizens who are the beneficiaries, not
for private, commercial interests.

Write ASAP to:

Central Montana Resource Advisory Council
C/O Kaylene Patten
BLM, Lewistown Field Office
Airport Way
Lewistown, MT 59457
email: MT_Lewistown_FO@blm.gov

BLM Monument Team
c/o Gary Slagel, Monument Manager
BLM, Lewistown Field Office
Airport Way
Lewistown, MT 59457
email: MT_Lewistown_FO@blm.gov

or:

Marty Ott, Montana State Director
Bureau of Land Management
5001 Southgate Drive
PO Box 36800
Billings, MT. 59107
email: marty_ott@blm.gov