Working to protect habitat and conserve wildlife.

The Gallatin Wildlife Association (GWA), formed in 1976, is a non-profit 501c(3) corporation. GWA, representing hunters, anglers and other conservationists, has established itself as a leader in wildlife habitat protection and conservation issues in southwest Montana and elsewhere. GWA’s membership works hard to protect habitat and conserve wildlife for future generations.

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Contact us

GWA meets monthly, September through May -- on the first Tuesday of each month at the Fish, Wildlife & Parks Building, 1400 South 19th Avenue, Bozeman, Montana (north entrance). Doors open at 6:30 PM, Program begins at 7:00 PM.

The general public is always welcome!

Upcoming Presentations

• Stay tuned...
  
  

The GWA Board meets every Wednesday morning, 8:00 at Wheat Montana on N. 19th in Bozeman. Feel free to join us, there's invariably much to discuss.

Buffalo Allies of Bozeman is a new and very vibrant grassroots organization working to stop the B.S. (bison slaughter, among other things).

Highlights

• GWA Comment on the Royal Teton Ranch grazing restriction and bison "access" agreement. GWA board member Jim Bailey provided this very succinct assessment of the myriad failings of the RTR deal. I have to quote from his last paragraph; "The Gallatin Wildlife Association believes that, from bluebirds to bison, we are all responsible for our part in conserving diverse wildlife communities for ourselves and future generations."
  
• Montana Wild Buffalo Recovery and Conservation Act of 2009. GWA is building broad-based support for a legislative solution to Montana's current bison management debacle. Rather than attempt to manage wildlife as livestock, our bill;
• Designates bison as “Valued, Native Wildlife in the State of Montana.”
• Designates Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks as the agency responsible for the management of wild bison including fair chase, public hunting.
• Continue to insure that private property rights and Montana’s valued livestock brucellosis free status are protected, by maintaining cooperation with the Department of Livestock via MCA 81-2-121.
• Brucellosis laws need updating The Bozeman Daily Chronicle carried GWA Board member Jim Wisman's following editorial. (Jimmy wrote this by hand, in one take! It sums the situation as well as I've seen).
  • I attended the July 21-22 Board of Livestock meetings. There was some good news. The Board and all public attendees, including Montana Stockgrowers Association and Montana Cattlemens Association, agreed to a split state or hot spot status and that outdated Federal Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service brucellosis rules need to change. This thinking and agreement is long overdue.
    Now the very bad news. Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks is planning to capture and test elk in District 314 of the Yellowstone Valley, near the brucella discovery, as soon as FWP finds a funding source.
    This is unacceptable.
    Allowing FWP or the Department of Livestock to capture and test elk will only balloon into a never-ending elk slaughtering money pit. Wyoming is currently capturing, testing, and slaughtering elk. Montana cannot take this road. All this is a waste of a valuable public wildlife resource and the money to fund it that would be better spent on wildife, elk or bison habitat just to satisfy outdated APHIS regulations on containing brucellosis and the blessing of other state vets.
    Current APHIS brucellosis regulations cause far more economic loss to Montana , Wyoming, and Idaho's livestock industry and our public wildife resource than the disease itself. We pasteurize cow's milk and the meat of brucella-infected beef, elk and bison is more than safe to eat. The risk to human health from brucella is not what it once was.
    Montana, WYoming,and Idaho must convince APHIS to update its regulation on brucellosis.
    Call Gov. Brian Scheitzer at (406)-444-3111, Montana FWP Pat FLowers at (406)-994-4042 and Sens. Baucus and Tester and Congressman Rehberg and ask for a change in APHIS regulations and to scrap this plan to capture and test our elk.
    
• Myths of Bison Management and Brucellosis in Montana An excellent summation by Jim Bailey, that requires a page of its own.
  
  
• Yellowstone Park violating their own policy GWA Board member and retired biologist Jim Bailey wrote the following editorial;
  
  • With all the furor over slaughter of 1600 bison from Yellowstone National Park, we are overlooking a serious issue. The Interagency Bison Management Plan and Yellowstone Superintendent Lewis are violating mandates and policies of the National Park Service.

    Congress mandates retaining Park resources “in their natural conditions” and leaving them “unimpaired for future generations.” Park Service policy is to “maintain processes of naturally evolving ecosystems” and to minimize “human interference with evolving genetic diversity.”

    It is likely that genetic diversity of the Park’s bison was lost to slaughtering in 2008. Moreover, natural selection has largely been replaced by human intervention. Coevolution of the Park’s animals, plants and microorganisms has been sidetracked, along with bison adaptation to their physical environment.

    Coevolution of bison and Brucella abortus has proceeded for about 100 years in Yellowstone. There is some evidence of resistance to brucellosis in bison already. With progress in genetic engineering, genes for resistance to brucellosis might one day be transferred to livestock; but only if we allow natural selection to proceed in the Park.

    The Interagency Bison Management Plan is a dangerous precedent, subverting the purposes established for natural areas within National Parks. We are converting bison to livestock, and making the Park more like just another theme park.

• CUT deal is expensive non-solution for bison The Billings Gazette ran the following editorial by GWA Board member Joe Gutkoski about the recent Church Universal and Triumphant grazing buyout;
  
  • Yellowstone National Park agreed on April 19 to a down payment of $1.8 million to the Church Universal and Triumphant plus additional payments of $76,500 a year for 20 years, totaling $3.3 million for a 30-year narrow bison corridor easement and the removal of CUT's small, recently acquired herd of cattle.

    This would allow 25 bison, tested and fitted with neck and vaginal electronic transmitters, to walk the easement and keep the bison from acting like wildlife. They must obey the impossible strictures of the Stockgrowers Written Interagency Bison Management Plan and to stay within its restrictive Zones 1, 2 and 3 boundaries.

    We are paying $3.3 million twice for a single easement along a Park County road that has a public right of way. Why do four nongovernment organizations and a seriously misled governor support this deal?

    It is to mask the fact that our governor has allowed the elimination of 1,600 bison in 2008 on his watch - more than at any time since the later 1800s.

    It perpetuates a falsehood that bison are being allowed to widely roam in Montana.

    It is a ruse to brag that adoptive management is practiced under the IBMP.

    It is a public relations stunt to divide and quiet the questioners.

    To hide the fact that the population is below 2,500 bison within YNP.

    The $3.3 million deal supports and reinforces the Stockgrowers IBMP.

    The deal will lead to bison slaughter in the future and does nothing for a solution.