Outfitters: I-161, predators take toll on business

In 1998, Scott Boulanger was living the dream.

He had purchased an outfitting business that put him in the middle of the scenic backcountry of the West Fork of the Bitterroot during hunting season.

The 50 clients he and his guides served at five camps spread out over a 40-mile area provided enough income for Boulanger to make a living doing something he loved.

For the first few years, the elk herd was growing and business was good.

"It just kept getting better and better," Boulanger said. "I was able to advertise that the hunting was improving with every year."

Elk numbers peaked in 2005, then began to fall in dramatic fashion.

Over the last five years, the herd has declined by 70 percent. And for the first time ever, bull elk hunting in the West Fork was placed on a limited permit system this season.

Only 25 permits were available during the annual drawing. No more than 10 percent of those permits could go to nonresidents.

This year, Boulanger won't have a single camp in the West Fork.

"I have seven people working for me today," Boulanger said last week. "None of them are in the West Fork. I'm trying to find other income streams to survive."

Boulanger isn't shy when it comes time to point the finger of blame.

"Predators, predators, predators," he said.

***

A slow economy, coupled with Montana's growing reputation in outdoor circles as both being overrun with wolves and unfriendly toward nonresident hunters, is creating new challenges for some outfitters.

Last November, voters passed Initiative 161 by 54 percent.

The initiative took the 5,500 nonresident tags set aside for outfitters and converted them into general nonresident big-game licenses.

It also increased the fees for the nonresident big-game combination license from $628 to $897. Other nonresident license prices were bumped up too.

Supporters of the initiative said the issue was one of fairness, but outfitters say its passage has left a bad taste in many of their clients' mouths.

The price for tags once set aside for clients of outfitters was set annually according to the marketplace. The idea was to keep prices high enough that the state would average 5,500 licenses over a five-year period.

At its height, the tag cost nonresidents $1,500.

In exchange for paying the higher fee, nonresidents were almost guaranteed a chance to hunt in Montana, while others who paid less for a general nonresident license had to take their chances in a drawing.

I-161 proponent Chris Marchion of Anaconda said the measure passed because the public wanted to ensure everyone - no matter how deep their pocketbook - would have a fair opportunity to obtain a hunting license.

The issue may have started with sportsmen's concern over the commercialization of public wildlife, but Marchion said signature gatherers found the general public was focused on the need to allocate licenses fairly.

"The lesson learned was whatever we do in the future, it has to be fair," Marchion said. "The way it was set up, if you had the money, you didn't even have to stand in line. The public agreed that wasn't right."

Brett Todd, president-elect of the Montana Outfitter and Guide Association's executive board, said some of his nonresident clients didn't appreciate the change in the law.

Some say they'll never come back to hunt in Montana.

"The folks that I've talked to are tired of getting kicked in the face," said Todd. "They are looking around to other states that are more accommodating to licensing, even if they are satisfied with their outfitters."

A 2007 University of Montana study showed that guided recreation was worth $167 million to the state's economy.

"You take a lot of these little communities around the state, they depend on the nonresident dollar," Todd said. "Those communities are going to feel the crunch."

Marchion said outfitters locking up private lands by leasing hunting rights is what's really hurting the economy in many communities.

Longtime Montana sportsmen remember the heavy traffic on the opening day of pheasant hunting season to places like the Mission Valley or Lewistown a couple decades ago.

"Now you can go to Lewistown and see only a few pickups with hunting dogs in the back," he said. "What's the difference between then and now? The average guy can't go over there and get on the land. That's having an impact on local communities."

***

No one is exactly sure how the new licensing structure will play out in Montana.

"Licensing in Montana is a really, really complex matter," said FWP license chief Hank Worsech.

This first year, nonresident applications were down for the initial drawing of 17,000 big-game nonresident combination licenses.

The 1,059 left over from the drawing sold out in three days.

Worsech said there were probably a couple of different reasons why that happened.

The price increase was probably one.

"That probably squeezed the pool a bit," he said. "I'm sure some people had sticker shock."

Some nonresidents may have chosen not to apply because of the uncertainty. Under the old system, nonresident hunters who planned to employ an outfitter knew they could make plans for their trip earlier in the year.

Under the new system, all nonresidents have to first obtain their license in April through the annual drawing. For some, that late date made it difficult to plan their vacation schedules.

If they want to hunt elk in a district that requires a permit, nonresidents and residents both have to wait until July to see if they were successful in the drawing.

Under a new law, nonresidents who purchased a combination license, but didn't draw an elk permit, can now return that permit to the state.

As of last week, Worsech said nonresident hunters have returned 736 elk licenses, which are now being offered for sale.

"We have been selling some, but only time will tell if they will all sell," he said.

The state is considering a proposal that would alleviate at least part of nonresidents' concerns about licensing in Montana.

The FWP commission is asking for public comment on a proposal that would move the drawing for some elk and deer permits from June up to April, Worsech said.

If that happens, both residents and nonresidents will get their special permits earlier in the year, which would give them additional time to plan their hunt in the fall.

"We think that would be good customer service for both resident and nonresident hunters," he said.

***

Dave Risley, FWP fish and wildlife administrator, said the department heard from nonresident hunters after I-161 went into effect.

"We received quite a number of little obscene notes saying they would never come to Montana again," Risley said. "Some didn't really understand that this was a ballot initiative, rather than a department directive."

Montana, unlike some other Western states, has always limited hunting opportunities for nonresidents. Numbers of nonresident licenses are capped. Only 10 percent of special permits are available for nonresident hunters.

At the same time, FWP depends heavily on money generated by the sale of nonresident licenses and permits.

Nearly 70 percent of FWP's fish and game budget comes from dollars generated by nonresidents. About 95 percent of the revenue needed to keep block management operating is generated from nonresidents.

"As an administrator, we're kind of stuck in the middle," Risley said. "There is a lot of demand for restricting and controlling numbers of nonresidents, but on the other hand, that's the hand that is feeding us.

"If we shut the door to nonresidents, this would be a completely different agency," he said.

***

When the subject turns to predator management, Boulanger is all for a dramatic shift in agency focus.

After his West Fork business began to crash, the Darby area outfitter purchased permits in Idaho, where he discovered an entirely different approach to predator management.

"When it comes to predators, Idaho's licensing system is nonresident friendly," Boulanger said. "Montana's is nonresident unfriendly."

For instance, in the Bitterroot, all mountain lion hunting opportunities are on permit. Nonresidents are limited to 10 percent of those permits. In Idaho, hunters can buy a tag over the counter.

A Montana nonresident tag costs $350. In Idaho, the tag costs $31.75.

In Idaho, hunters can use their deer or elk tag on a cougar during the regular season. Each hunter can kill two lions every year, or three if they use their deer or elk tag.

In Montana, the limit is one and there is a $50 trophy fee for anyone who kills a cougar.

"We have an issue here with predators," Boulanger said. "National outdoor publications have called the West Fork a predator pit. Nonresident hunters don't always understand that some places in Montana are feeling the impacts of predators more than others, he said.

"To a person in Florida, they might not get that in the Missouri River Breaks, we're over our elk objective by 20 percent and that in the West Fork we're under it by 70 percent," Boulanger said. "To them, it's just Montana and Montana is full of wolves. They know that because they read it in National Geographic."

***

There are reasons why Idaho and Montana's approach to addressing predators is different, Risley said.

"Their system for predator management is a lot more liberal than what we have here," he said. "One of the things that Idaho has is a lot more public land and a lot of that has some really difficult access. In Idaho, access and terrain limit their harvest."

Access in Montana is easier. Licensing and permits are what regulate harvest here, he said.

"Our decisions often boil down to tradition and constituent demand," Risley said.

For instance, FWP uses both permits and quotas to control the number of mountain lions harvested each year.

Both have their own unique challenges.

The complaint under the quota system is that hunters will typically race out as soon as the season opens in a mad dash to harvest a lion before the quota is filled and the season closed.

"It's a ‘I want to get my lion before you get yours' kind of deal," Risley said.

That system favors nonresident hunters who hire outfitters, and hunters often complain about crowding.

The permit system is slower paced and favors resident hunters.

"From a management perspective, we can end up with the same kind of biological response," he said. "It comes down to us making a sociological decision. We do that all the time and then we get beat up in the Legislature for making sociological decisions."

***

Idaho Fish and Game biologist Craig White said the fact that Idaho is about 70 percent public land, with the largest wilderness in the lower 48 states, plays a huge role in wildlife management decision making, including predators.

Over the last 20 years, the Idaho Fish and Game department invested time and resources in studying the role cougars, bears and now wolves have on ungulate populations.

"That research and policy has helped guide our management," White said.

For instance, from 1997 to 2004 the state manipulated the black bear population in the Lolo, Lochsa and South Fork of the Clearwater to see what impact bears were having on elk calf survival.

After doubling the harvest on black bears, biologists found the cow/calf ratio nearly tripled by 2004 - from eight or nine calves per 100 cows to about 26 calves per 100 cows.

After 2004, wolves started having an impact on elk calves.

"We started seeing wolves take over in places where bears had been the problem," he said. "By then we were losing

70 percent of the six-month-old calves, largely due to wolves."

Idaho encouraged nonresident hunters to be part of its predator management program.

White traces that to tradition - to a time when World War II veterans came home and found peace in the woods of Idaho and Montana's backcountry.

"Some of the best-known elk herds were found there," he said. "We've always had a lot of nonresidents using the backcountry in Idaho."

Starting in the 1980s, the elk herds began to decline, in part due to habitat changes caused by forests growing over areas burned in 1910 and 1920.

"We determined early on that we needed to use the hunters who go there to help us manage predators," White said. "A lot of the hunters who go there are nonresidents."

Idaho encourages nonresidents with reduced license fees and liberal bag limits.

"One way to increase that was to make it affordable as we try to bring those numbers into a more realistic situation for what Idaho would like to do," White said.

***

In July, one of Boulanger's neighboring outfitters sold off his business at a large auction in Darby.

There were lots of people willing to bid on the livestock and equipment offered that day. When it came time to sell the outfitting business portion, the auctioneer couldn't even get an opening bid of $2,500.

Six years ago, the business sold for close to $100,000.

State wildlife biologists say they are seeing the same downward trend in elk numbers in the East Fork of the Bitterroot. There's been some talk that a more restrictive season may be on the way there too.

Each day, Boulanger drives past a now-shuttered lumber mill on the north end of Darby on his way home.

"I sometimes wonder if that's the way my business is headed too," he said.

Reporter Perry Backus can be reached at 363-3300, Ext. 30, or by e-mail at pbackus@ravallirepublic.com.