Sportsmen To BLM: Conserve These Lands

Dear Editor:

The Hi-Line District of the BLM is, right now, developing a management plan that will determine what happens to some of the very best intact and undeveloped public lands for decades to come. This “Resource Management Plan” will include about 2.4 million acres of publicly accessible land from the Missouri Breaks north to the Canadian border.

This is a hunter’s dream country – from Ponderosa pine coulees to sagebrush plateaus. Good habitat for elk, mule deer and antelope and spectacular habitat for species in a thousand other places.

Sportsmen across Montana are asking the BLM to conserve these lands to maintain the unique hunting opportunities they provide. They’re requesting that BLM managers sustain existing public access, and focus efforts on conserving and improving the abundant wildlife habitat that exists here and protect these areas from development that would fragment these last intact back-country landscapes. Fragmentation would reduce the quality of the hunting and other outdoor opportunities.

The goals are simple: Maintain the traditional uses of these lands for hunting, grazing and recreation. Maintain the Montana way of life. Keep this place like it is.

Send in your comments to this link: [email protected].

Steve Schindler

Glasgow