February 18, 2013 E-Mail To MT Governor Steve Bullock

                                                                                                                     February 18, 2013

                                           
Dear Governor Bullock;

Many Montana sportsmen are now questioning your choice of Director for Fish, Wildlife and Parks. Is that the best you could come up with? Hagener's reputation is severely tarnished, directly connected with easily the darkest days of big game and other wildlife management in the State of Montana. More wildlife was lost under Governor Brian Schweitzer's watch, and under the "Direction" of FWP by Hagener and Maurier, than during the terms of any other Montana governor.

Is that what you plan to give us as well?

Thank you for signing HB 73 into law, wolf hunting regulations needed to be severely relaxed, but they still do not go far enough. Before wolves can be managed at an acceptable level, their numbers first have to be reduced to that level - and the harvest this season isn't even close.

Why is it FWP is so hell bent to try managing wolves as a big game animal, when around the world where wolves have been a problem forever it has been proven that sport hunting wolves does not, cannot adequately reduce population levels? Why is it our amateur FWP "wolf specialists" ignore what seasoned and professional wolf managers...wolf regulators...have learned in other regions of the world, namely the republics that once made up Russia, or even to our due north in Canada - and that is wolves must be stringently controlled through aggressive measures, and held at those levels? Anything less simply means the continued loss of big game, and escalated wolf depredation of livestock and pets.

Through the sportsman network in this state, I've learned that Dr. Robert Ream has been working to be reinstated to the FWP Commission. While he may make a good "other" book end to Jeff Hagener, he certainly has no business in any decisive or steering role in wildlife management in this state. Dr. Ream has already contributed way too much to the destruction of wildlife resources in Montana, and the Northern Rockies, and certainly does not represent the best interests of the sportsmen who financially support FWP. He should have never sat on the Commission, let alone serve as the Chairman of the FWP Commission.

With Hagener's appointment as Director of FWP, your term as Governor is already getting off to a very rocky start. Put Bob Ream back on the FWP Commission, and you will most certainly feel the wrath of Montana's outdoorsmen and women.

I know you are a very busy newly elected governor, but please take the time to read the article, titled Montana's Wildlife Resources""Too Many Predators, MT FWP And Radical Political-Environmental Agendas Destroy , at the following link.

http://mt-fwpwatch.blogspot.com/2013/02/too-many-predators-mt-fwp-radical.html

Please don't let this become the epitaph of the wildlife and the outdoors of this state.

Toby Bridges
LOBO WATCH
Missoula, MT 59801