Thanks and no thanks to J.R. Absher, the Newshound from Outdoor Life, I worked up another ulcer after he wrote an article on his blog about the antics of the Montana Wildlife Federation. Somehow J.R. I think you knew this story would ruffle my feathers.

This is one more reason I think that the biggest threat to outdoor sportsmen today are outdoor sportsmen today. When groups like the MWF become a dictatorship seeking whom they may devour, it drives me to ask the question, just who in the heck to they think they are?

J.R. Absher raises an eyebrow or two and asks some questions as well.

Here’s the deal. The Montana Wildlife Federation has written a letter to Cabala’s in opposition to Cabela’s Trophy Properties listing lands for sale that are good hunting and fishing habitat. According to an article in the Billings Gazette by Mark Henckel, Cabela’s Trophy Properties is like a multiple listing service. Their function is to only list properties for sale. They make no determination as to what anyone can and cannot do with the lands they list and sell.

Montana Wildlife Federation takes issue with this.

“The MWF Executive Board finds that Cabela’s is trading on its trusted reputation as a merchant of sporting goods to engage in a real estate marketing activity that is calculated to subvert and destroy the very system of North American wildlife conservation that has provided Cabela’s with the hunter-and-angler markets that gave your company life in the first place.”

I suppose that the MWF would also take issue with one of our websites, U.S. Hunting Today, because we provide a link to the listing of properties specifically for hunting. We have no control over who buys this land or any other land. Who does? I guess MWF believes they should have a say in who buys land and what they can do with it.

MWF chastises Cabela’s for participating in an activity that might take land away from hunters and fishermen. As an advocate for hunting and fishing heritage, I don’t like to see valuable hunting lands and fishing access lost through the sale of lands to people or entities wishing to shut it down. As much as I don’t like to see that, it is far beyond me to think that I have the right to tell the buyer of such land that they can’t do that, say nothing about attempting to dictate to the seller or in this case, the listing service (Cabela’s) of the land.

It appears to me that the Montana Wildlife Federation has gotten just a bit too big for its britches. Here is an organization that boasts to be “an organization of conservation minded people who share a mission to protect and enhance Montana’s public wildlife, lands, waters, and fair chase hunting and fishing heritage”. On the one hand, I admire and support efforts by anyone to find ways to keep lands open for hunting and fishing but stepping beyond the bounds of property rights and individual rights to prohibit those who wish to practice capitalism, is going too far.

I also find them to be a bit hypocritical as well. A page on their website lists quotes from varied people like Aldo Leopold, Erik Fritzell, Jim Posewitz and others sharing their views and perspective of hunting, fishing and the ethics of such. Here’s an example of some of the quotes that they must deem a valuable part of their mission.

“…When I hunt I am immersed mentally, physically and even spiritually in an age-old predatory relationship among animals. I am participating in a common ecological process -just as a fox seeks her prey.”

“To me, hunting is a very intense personal relationship between myself, the prey, and the environment in which the chase occurs.”

“This participation, to me, is a form of ecological worship.” – Eric K. Fritzell, Hunting as Religion, Wildlife Forever Symposium.

“A peculiar virtue in wildlife ethics is that the hunter obviously has no gallery to applaud or disapprove of this conduct. Whatever his acts, they are dictated by his own conscious, rather than a mob of onlookers. It is difficult to exaggerate the importance of this fact.” -Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac, 1949

“There are some activities that are clearly unfair as well as unethical. At the top of the list is shooting captive or domesticated big game animals in commercial killing areas (game farms) where a person with a gun is guaranteed an animal to shoot. These shooting grounds are alien to any consideration of ‘ethical hunting’.” Jim Posewitz, Helena, Montana, Beyond Fair Chase: The Ethic and Tradition of Hunting, 1994.

The Montana Wildlife Federation wants us to believe that their aim is to protect hunting and fishing heritage. What they don’t tell us is that this heritage must fall in line with their own beliefs and ethics and anyone not kowtowing to their philosophies is wrong and deserve to have their rights taken from them.

Any individual has every right in the world to believe that hunting within an enclosure is not what they prefer to call “hunting”. They do not have a right to strip others of that right nor do they have a right to dictate to a landowner how he can use his land.

Montana in recent years passed a bill that prohibits shooting any animals within enclosures.

Montana Code Annotated §87-4-414. (2) The licensee may acquire, breed, grow, keep, pursue, handle, harvest, use, sell, or dispose of the alternative livestock and their progeny in any quantity and at any time of year as long as the licensee complies with the requirements of this part, except that the licensee may not allow the shooting of game animals or alternative livestock, as defined in 87-2-101 or 87-4-406, or of any exotic big game species for a fee or other remuneration on an alternative livestock facility.

MWF participated in shutting down viable businesses in their effort because they seem to believe they are bigger than God. They feel the right to attempt to dictate to Cabela’s how they can run their business in much the same way as they did with Montana ranchers trying to make a living by offering hunts or harvesting opportunities.

MWF wants Cabela’s to stop listing land that might be sold to individuals or corporations that will not leave the land open to outdoor pursuits. There belief is that Cabela’s makes a living selling merchandise to people who need that land to use the equipment they buy and buy participating in selling it, is wrong.

If this is really how they think, then they should stop taking away hunting opportunities from those who would willingly choose to hunt on a game ranch. Ranch hunting has been around for a long time and is part of our hunting heritage whether they like it or not. As they quote Aldo Leopold, “Whatever his acts, they are dictated by his own conscious, rather than a mob of onlookers,” they too should practice what they preach. Aren’t they being a mob of onlookers trying to “dictate” someone’s conscious?

The Montana Wildlife Federation should climb down off its high horse and get back to doing what it says its goals are in preserving hunting and fishing heritage. It is quite un-American and a bigger blemish to hunters and fishermen to practice the dictatorship of private enterprise and personal rights, while hiding behind the guise of a hunting conservation group, than it is for a small percentage of those who choose to hunt game ranches.

Yes, the biggest threat to hunting and fishing heritage comes from within the hunting and fishing community from individuals and organizations such as the Montana Wildlife Federation running a Marxist regime, dictating who can buy and sell land, how they can do that and where.

This is wrong and it divides the hunting community. It will ultimately destroy what they deem worth saving.

Tom Remington

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