FWP chief Hagener plans lots of listening

Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks Director Jeff Hagener is in his hometown of Havre this week, explaining his department’s stand on several key issues and, more important, listening to people’s thoughts.

He said its his policy to talk to people wherever he can.

“My staff goes crazy sometimes,” he said. “But I have an open door policy.”

He likes looking people in the eye and talking, and that’s one thing he’s doing during his Havre visit. He held an open forum to talk to folks Tuesday night and was at the FWP meeting this morning at Hensler Auditorium at Montana State University Northern.

He likes his staff to do the same thing.

FWP has more than 7,000 employees, and most are spread out in offices around the state, he said.

The staff is very busy, he said. But he advises employees to do a lot of listening.

“When you are driving down the road and see a farmer out fixing his fence or whatever, stop and talk to him,” he said.

That farmer is more likely to call FWP when a problem arises, be it a poacher on the property or a major disagreement with FWP policy, Hagener said.

Hagener expects to be getting a lot of input from people on controversial issues that have affected the Hi-Line, especially the state purchase of the Milk River Ranch in northern Hill County on the Canadian border.

The purchase, accomplished in the last days of the Gov. Brian Schweitzer administration, was lambasted by foes, who said the state paid too much for it and that it wasn’t necessary for the state to purchase more land it didn’t have the employees to care for.

Many farmers and ranchers closed their land to hunters to protest the purchase.

He said he wants to listen to people with ideas on what should be done with the ranch, but said he won‘t debate history.

“We own the land,” he said. “Now let’s look to the future.”

For instance, he said, the state may want to square off the property by swapping parcels with neighbors.

Earlier Republican administrations favored buying conservation rights on private land, he said, meaning landowners could stay on the land with state-set restrictions ensuring the right of hunters and fishermen or preserving habitat. Gov. Brian Schweitzer favored purchasing land outright to ensure that the state had the authority to control what happens on the land.

Gov. Steve Bullock favors a mix, he said, but he is willing to consider more conservation agreements, Hagener said.

Hagener said his agency will soon have to consider how it will pay for all the programs it runs.

Very little taxpayer money comes to FWP, he said. Programs are funded entirely from licenses and fees.

But more than half of the licenses in Montana are purchased with discounts, he said. The most frequently used discount is a senior discount, under which people 62 and older pay half price.

FWP will continue its efforts to attract more people to hunting, he said.

While the decline in the number of hunters has not been as marked as in other states, there has been a slippage, he said.

The state has been successful in getting young people interested in hunting, but when they get to age 15 or 16, they lose interest, he said, speculating that social media, sports and other activities lure teens away.

FWP is conducting a study to determine what can be done with bison transfers. He said officials are making progress as eliminating brucellosis, but the question of crops and property damage caused by stray buffalo remains a big problem.

Some bison were moved by FWP from the Yellowstone National Park area to Fort Peck. Some of those buffalo were to be moved to Fort Belknap, but a court halted that move.

Hagener questioned the wisdom of moving bison to Fort Belknap, since the reservation is not fenced in, and there already have been many problems with bison leaving the reservation for neighboring farmlands.

He said he understood that over the winter more than 100 bison which are already on Fort Belknap escaped.

Hagener said it is possible that some of the healthy bison being cared for by FWP will eventually be taken to Indian reservations in neighboring states.