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  • May 9, 2013

    In Current Rush to Buy Guns and Ammo, Pittman-Robertson Funds Break All Records

    By Hal Herring

    As we gnash our teeth and rail at the mismanagement of our world, we need to take a few long moments to unclench our jaws and celebrate our successes. One in particular, which is going unmentioned in the debates over new gun laws and especially in the national discussion of hunting, is the Pittman-Robertson Act and the cash that is flowing from it like a high tide of honey into our federal and state wildlife coffers.
     
    I am still shocked when I go into the Scheels in Great Falls and find the shelves empty of ammunition, and the gun cabinet with nothing in it but brackets, but it is a comfort to know that we have a booming economy in guns and ammo, and that, because of the Pittman-Robertson Act, we have a record-shattering amount of money available to support wildlife, habitat, and the shooting and archery sports. The rush on guns and ammo produced $522,552,011 in Pittman-Robertson money in fiscal year 2013 alone. At a time of record federal deficits, slashed budgets and ideologically inspired attacks on conservation, the Act has never seemed so important, or so visionary.

    Read Full Post | Comments (12)
  • February 28, 2012

    Herring: No Newt, You're Wrong. You CAN Put a Gun Rack in a Chevy Volt

    By Hal Herring

    Read Full Post | Comments (29)
  • February 15, 2012

    'If Climate Change Isn’t Real, I’ll Give You My Beretta'

    By Hal Herring

    The Conservation Hawks is a new group dedicated to harnessing the power of sportsmen to address climate change. Stop. Before you give in to anger, or to the “conservation fatigue” that can fall upon us like a giant wet carpet whenever climate change is mentioned, consider this: If you can convince Conservation Hawks chairman Todd Tanner that he’s wasting his time, that he does not have to worry about climate change, he will present to you his most prized possession: A Beretta Silver Pigeon 12 gauge over/under that was a gift from his wife, and has been a faithful companion on many a Montana bird hunt. I know the gun, and I’ve hunted and fished with Todd for years. He’s not kidding. You convince him, he’ll give you the gun. 

    Read Full Post | Comments (173)
  • November 16, 2011

    Hunting Amidst Grizzlies: Always Respect the Bruin, and Remember Your Bear Spray

    by Hal Herring

    Hunter shoots charging griz in Badger-Two Medicine area
    By Karl Puckett

    A Kalispell elk hunter shot and killed a charging grizzly bear in the Badger-Two Medicine Area of the Rocky Mountain Front on Wednesday. It was the third instance of hunters shooting grizzly bears in self defense on the Front — and at least the eighth in northwestern Montana — since big-game rifle hunting season began three weeks ago.

    In an interview, Ben Laster, 28, described the shooting of the female grizzly as "the worst thing I've had to do in my life."

    I was hunting just east of the Scapegoat Wilderness boundary, about a week ago. In the half-light before dawn, the tracks in the snow on the game trail looked like they might be human. As the light came up, though, it was clear that they were grizzly tracks, the improbably huge mitten-like print with the perfectly round toes, the frozen steep ground scored by the big diggers, like a badger print blown up, a badger from an old black and white Godzilla movie. Most of the tracks were blurred—there was more than one bear traveling here, and it looked like we were all going to the same place, a little pass about a mile and half off.

    Read Full Post | Comments (17)
  • September 24, 2010

    Herring: Ben Lamb's "Wolves"

    By Hal Herring

    The following short essay on wolves in Montana ran recently on Montana Public Radio, and was written and presented by Ben Lamb, of the Montana Wildlife Federation. Ben is a native Montanan and serious hunter and fishermen whom I've gotten to know through his tireless work on some of the biggest issues facing Montana sportsmen- energy development, wolves,etc. I'm proud to call Ben a friend, and I read his essay on wolves with admiration. It caused a stir in Montana, for those who heard it on the radio, because it is probably the first truly measured statement on the issue from a hunter and wildlife advocate. See what you think.

    Wolves by Ben Lamb

    It’s been over a month since Judge Molloy put wolves back on the Endangered Species List. This really didn’t surprise most folks. Sure, many were disappointed, but if you’d paid much attention to the issue, you knew it was coming.

    Read Full Post | Comments (15)
  • May 18, 2010

    Herring: Hunting and Fishing With 450 Million People

    By Hal Herring

    You could say that I’m reading it so you won’t have to. The book is The Next Hundred Million: America in 2050 by Joel Kotkin, a professor at Chapman University in California, and a scholar of economics, sociology, and the history of cities.  The Next Hundred Million celebrates what to some of us will be a disturbing fact: the US is one of the only industrialized "First World” countries that is experiencing rapid population growth. By 2050, the US will have a population of 400-450 million people.

    According to Joel Kotkin, we are moving into a new golden age, where our economy, based on the needs and the production of so many human beings, and based on the freedoms that our citizens enjoy, will make our country the most competitive and powerful nation on earth.

    There are a lot of questions raised with Kotkin’s  view - water supplies, the loss of agricultural lands, and how the new society- which he sees as living mostly in vast suburbs- will be supplied with energy for its homes and cars. Kotkin does note that greenways “could provide a break from the monotony……and ideal sites for the preservation of wildlife.”

    Nowhere in the book is hunting or fishing ever mentioned.  That is not Kotkin’s subject. His subject is a US thriving with 400 to 450 million people.

    Read Full Post | Comments (23)

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