RMEF’s Stance on Amenity Ranches

           I have laid sleeplessly the last few nights as I have read and reread the September/October article “Amenity Ranches and the Future of Hunting”.  I don’t know what side of the fence I fall on, but this issue concerns me greatly, and your contribution to this issue is what concerns me the most.

            First of all, the article reports that the Flying D and Sun Ranch sells trophy hunts as a way to offset costs of lost feed for livestock.  I am insulted by this. Both of these ranches are very large scale Gentlemen’s Ranches.  Weather they make a penny or not is of little consequence to their owner, it’s an Amenity Ranch!  I have personally hunted public land adjacent to the Sun Ranch.  Every time I have done so, hundreds of elk can be seen from the highway!  If grass was an issue, the Sun Ranch would allow hunters to harvest cows.  Montana has liberal hunting regulations in this area, any general elk tag carrier is allowed to harvest a cow, so finding hunters to do so would be easy.

            Second of all, I am offended that Bugle Magazine breaks the criteria for Real Estate Marketing in the same issue President M. David Allen speaks of in his President’s Message.  On page 98, Fay Ranches is advertising land for sale entitled Sun Ranch Settlement on the Madison.  This is land for sale on the Sun Ranch!  The same ranch cited in the Amenity Ranch article.  If you go to the Fay Ranches web site, these are home sites listed as 20 to 160 acres, far less than the 640 acre minimum mentioned in the Presidents Message.  Is this a conscious error on your part?

            The Amenity Ranch article opens with thoughts of a mythical ranch of many years ago where hunters were allowed permission to hunt.  At 31, and having hunted in Montana for nearly twenty years, I have personally experienced the squeezing out of the simple sportsman a number of times as land is exchanged from a working ranch to an Amenity Ranch.  Those places aren’t so mythical, and they still exist, yet a new marketing policy by the RMEF seems to be encouraging the perpetuation of this mythical place.  I can only imagine the thoughts of many elk loving ranchers as they read this article, portrayed as careless land stewards, only to have their land “saved” by wealthy amenity ranchers.  Has anybody ever heard the phrase ‘ranchers are the original environmentalists’?  I believe this wholeheartedly.

            In a different vein, Montana has laws in place protecting streams from being privatized.  In Montana any angler can fish from the bank as long as they are below the high water line.  The adjacent landowner cannot run the fisherman off the ground, they do not own it.  As a sportsman, it is too bad that when streamside laws were made, similar laws defining big game as a public resource weren’t also defined.

            I still don’t know weather I agree with the RMEF stance on marketing private land.  This appears to be a business revenue decision, yet the importance of maintaining elk habitat is necessary.  No question that some lands would be lost to development if it weren’t for the RMEF, i.e. the Maclay Ranch south of Missoula.  But whatever happened to the RMEF being in the land acquisition business.  I realized you cannot buy every piece of private habitat, but I remember a time when that was an aggressive activity.

            The bottom line is the RMEF doesn’t seem to carry the same ideals that it used to, and for that reason, you are in jeopardy of losing this member.  I would be very interested to hear what Charlie Decker and Bob Munson, founders of the RMEF, have to say about the current direction the RMEF, and if it is in line with their vision.  Interestingly, there are two other founders, Bill Munson, and Dan Bull.  Why are they not mentioned as founders and lifetime Honorary Members? As the founders, I find it ironic that we never hear from them, is it because they no longer support all the current ideals of the RMEF?

David Tingley

Plains, Montana

PS.  This is not the only issue I have problems with.  You recently defended your decision to allow marketing of ATV’s in your magazine.  Like many elk hunters, I despise ATV users.  I find they break the rules far too frequently to be considered sportsman, yet you put that responsibility on the ATV Company.  Why don’t you take an aggressive stance on this?  Is it because you want the marketing dollars?  For a non-profit organization, you are proving to me that your integrity has a price tag, and ATV and Real Estate companies seem to know that value.