BHA Supporting Legislation Outlawing the Sale of Information on Big Game Locations

[Okhotnik]

It's good bill that reinforces the tenets of fair chase. Considering that part of our mission statement is to promote and protect fair chase hunting it makes total sense to support a state bill to that end.
Kudos to the Montana lawmakers that are being proactive on this issue..

It has support from Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks, the Montana Wildlife Federation, Back Country Hunters and Anglers and the Montana Bowhunters Association.

BHA appears to be an elitist organization in back pockets of high end guiding services. Disingenuous to say the least.

 

[5MilesBack]

Yes because only a liberal would think it's a terrible idea to sell the location and description of an animal on public land. When that person thinks that legislating against the "sale" of information is a good idea, when giving the info away is an action they can't control.........then yes, I believe only a liberal can come up with that kind of logic. Nothing like distilling everything down to political ideology rather then the Nuances of the issue at hand.

So you ignored everything in my post about the illogical "nuances" of the issue at hand, only to identify where the root of this issue actually lies. Thanks for helping with my point.

 

[Okhotnik]

Outfitting is an industry that has been around 100+ years, selling your gps waypoints is a new fad that has popped up. Selling information on animal locations is clearly a technological advancement that is negative towards hunting.

I might have to join BHA. How much intrusion do you want on hunting? That new Hunt service that lets you access trail cams pics for a service fee is really heading down the wrong path. Glad to see BHA taking a stand.

But pay a guide service 12000 to do the same service for you is ethical according to BHA.

 

[DenverCountryBoy]

... . Frankly I think all non-profits should be taxed as normal. They are too often shelters for shuffling money. Just my .02c.

*cough* Clinton foundation *cough*

 

[chasewild]

BHA is the Sierra Club in drag. Every BHA member is just a useful idiot. They (anti hunting greenies) use the BHA to amplify their voice while turning the hunting community on itself. They’ll use their public land access theme as a cover but their real objective is the opposite of access. They want the land public but access for hunting is to be eliminated. It starts with this type of regulation and before you know it the regulation handbook will have 3000 pages and hunting will go away. Purity of fair chase is the first thing they have their useful BHA idiots turning on fellow hunters with. Next will be regulation on how far you may shoot , then ban rangefinders so you can’t be sure of how far you’re shooting. Then turn wheel bow hunters against traditional bow hunting. So on and so on. They already want to close just about every road on public land. That sounds great to all the young and healthy BHA hunters so heck yeah ! Wait until you are 50 and your knees are shot and a mile is like ten when you were 20. At 50 you’re chit out of luck accessing public land even if you could figure out what you can and can’t hunt and how in the 3000 page regulation guidebook. If you’re a BHA member you are a useful idiot supporting the end of hunting and access to public land to hunt on.

I'm a big fan of the "ignore" button for ignorant folks.

Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk

Holy cow. I had no idea this feature existed. Thanks Lak.

 

[Okhotnik]

I picture guys flying drones all over, logging GPS coordinates on good bucks and bulls and quickly offering the coordinates on Craigslist, is this where hunting is going? Is this inevitable? God help us.

FYI. Guide services already do this but they donate big bucks to BHA so it’s all good

 

[5MilesBack]

People need a "button" in order to ignore something or someone they don't agree with?????

 

[Crippledsledge64]

I’m surprised that people on here aren’t more against selling waypoints seeing how angry people get seeingpost with their “spots” in them. Now imagine if that info was for sale?
At least guides you have to pay a decent amount of money for and it’s also about a experience. Also the number of trail cameras that would be put up would sky rocket due to people trying to make a cash grab. Might be nice to not have those on every tree.

 

[Okhotnik]

I feel like I'm talking to a wall.

The outfitter trained the dogs, trained himself, invests in the hunt and, therefore, is able to provide a service. You didn't train the dogs, or train the houndsmen so you need his service.

The guide service is making big bucks on public land ( which we all pay for) and animals that are on public domain

 

[MuleyFever]

No they want it to ignore the blowhards that have to throw politics into every post. Obviously I haven’t used it yet.

 

[chasewild]

I find it ironic that it's OK to give those waypoints away, just that you can't sell them. So getting the information into someone else's hand, and/or fair chase, and/or the animals isn't the issue at all here, just the "selling" or making money part is what's somehow wrong. So giving my used gear away is AOK, but selling it is BAD. This goes along with many of the other idiotic ideas that people have for trying to control the people and what they can and can't do.......and it always wreaks of liberalism.

I guess all those scenic byway and special interest maps that are sold would now be banned as well. So long to the "maps of the Hollywood stars".

It's like you've ignored all of the salient points posted in this thread and keep coming back to the "I can't understand because I don't understand." Regardless of WHY BHA has taken this position, there are fundamental legal realities that don't change:

1. Commodity vs. service;
2. Public trust doctrine;
3. Stare decisis.

 

[backcountry_hunter]

how about firewood? Because everyone that gets a fuelwood permit on NF lands is only burning it for personal use. Nobody is selling it cash and not claiming it on taxes right.....

Do the ethics police cry about their waitress not claiming tips as hard as we are about the philosophical scouter selling waypoints?

 

[CrzyTrekker]

I just don't understand buying coordinates. Take a weekend and walk around. For that matter I don't understand hiring a guide. I'm with the BHA on this, although I'd be in favor of restrictions on guide services too. How many of us have met "that" guide who fabricates ridiculous stories (e.g. "you can't fly fish here, these are the exclusive waters of XYZ guide service." Me: "Wanna bet? Let's call the Forest Service Regional Manager on my sat phone").

 

[TheCougar]

I don’t like it, and would never use a service like that myself, but I can’t abide by regulating personal preferences. The hunting community should police itself through lack of support for companies or organizations that deviate from the accepted norm. Take your support and money elsewhere, whether we are talking about animal coordinates, guides, hunting certain states, BHA, or Mountain Pursuits. I do agree that services like this should require some kind of license, for no other reason than to make them contribute back to the land and animals they profit from and to provide legal recourse for bad services. Also, I’m a HUGE SUPERFAN of all the “if you’re not 100% for us, then you’re 100% against us” mentalities out there. Usually those folks making that argument do so under the assumption that not being in 100% lock step will fragment and destroy our hunting/gun rights. The logic being, we all need to have 100% solidarity behind the same beliefs (conveniently their beliefs) and if you deviate from their beliefs at all, you are a traitor, or a fool, or a liberal. Nothing like generating “unity” by focusing on the differences rather than the commonalities.

 

[SDC]

Seems like a big waste of time and money to me. I still don’t trust the head sheds at BHA. I think some of the state chapters do great work. They would do better with new leadership. I’m always one foot in and one foot out with them.


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I had the opportunity and honor of discussing this with a good friend yesterday evening. He took the "ban it" side to begin with and he and I beat this thing every which way we could. In the end, here's what we came to and both agree on. This bill is worse than nothing. Leave aside all the hyperbolic statements and straw men meant only to demonize others for the sake of self-aggrandizement; the bill does nothing.

Allow me to elaborate. The bill would ban the sale of coordinates for hunting; fine, change the purpose of the app to wildlife viewing and put in a proviso that said the use for hunting violates the purposes of the app. Law defeated. The bill exempts out guides and outfitters; they can use it for whatever purpose they want, and you cannot ban the use of GPS coordinate data to guides and outfitters or to be used by their business because you then prohibit them from using a GPS at all (which would be stupid). Further, all the app company would have to do would be to obtain a guide/outfitter license, or work through a guide/outfitter, and they continue on their business as if the law never existed.

The bill, at best, is poorly crafted and poorly worded. At worst, it's a knee-jerk reaction based upon emotionalism without considering consequences or alternatives. We didn't even get into the landowner exemptions or lessees, but that just adds yet another end-around. At this point, I cannot see any actual benefit from this bill or from supporting the bill other than a self-aggrandizement "look-good/feel-good" angle, or as a means of protectionism for guides/outfitters. There can be a lot of language thrown around about trying to prevent the boogeyman from eroding this, that, or the other; but where reality sets in, the bill does nothing beneficial.

And, yes, I used to be supportive of and involved with BHA. No longer. I agree with Ryan Avery's take: some of the state chapters do great work, but that's as far as it goes.

 

[5MilesBack]

I’m surprised that people on here aren’t more against selling waypoints seeing how angry people get seeingpost with their “spots” in them. Now imagine if that info was for sale?

It's not that people aren't against the selling of waypoints, it's that people are against the "legislation" banning the selling of waypoints. It's that people are against illogical rationale. It's that some people can see through the maskings and slight of hands at work. That's all.

 

[5MilesBack]

It's like you've ignored all of the salient points posted in this thread and keep coming back to the "I can't understand because I don't understand."

Actually, it's easy to understand. It's the between the lines and logic that most people can't figure out. And all that has been posted as well in the thread, which makes it easy to see the fallacies in the arguments for this legislation.

 

[Casual Poacher]

If I'm paying $100k for an animal I damn well expect 17 sets of eyes out there Mossback! If we can't fit everyone in the grip n grin picture then too bad.

Good luck legislating and policing this one.

 

[ODB]

I had the opportunity and honor of discussing this with a good friend yesterday evening. He took the "ban it" side to begin with and he and I beat this thing every which way we could. In the end, here's what we came to and both agree on. This bill is worse than nothing. Leave aside all the hyperbolic statements and straw men meant only to demonize others for the sake of self-aggrandizement; the bill does nothing.

Allow me to elaborate. The bill would ban the sale of coordinates for hunting; fine, change the purpose of the app to wildlife viewing and put in a proviso that said the use for hunting violates the purposes of the app. Law defeated. The bill exempts out guides and outfitters; they can use it for whatever purpose they want, and you cannot ban the use of GPS coordinate data to guides and outfitters or to be used by their business because you then prohibit them from using a GPS at all (which would be stupid). Further, all the app company would have to do would be to obtain a guide/outfitter license, or work through a guide/outfitter, and they continue on their business as if the law never existed.

The bill, at best, is poorly crafted and poorly worded. At worst, it's a knee-jerk reaction based upon emotionalism without considering consequences or alternatives. We didn't even get into the landowner exemptions or lessees, but that just adds yet another end-around. At this point, I cannot see any actual benefit from this bill or from supporting the bill other than a self-aggrandizement "look-good/feel-good" angle, or as a means of protectionism for guides/outfitters. There can be a lot of language thrown around about trying to prevent the boogeyman from eroding this, that, or the other; but where reality sets in, the bill does nothing beneficial.

And, yes, I used to be supportive of and involved with BHA. No longer. I agree with Ryan Avery's take: some of the state chapters do great work, but that's as far as it goes.

Thanks for that. You and your friend’s conclusion that it’s not a good bill leads one to question the intentions of BHA to support a bad bill. Granted, they may think it’s a good bill, but don’t they also sit around with a group of people with diverse positions and really hammer out whether they should take a stand on the bill? It seems not.

 

[TheCougar]

If BHA wants to push a “public land fight” maybe it should be opening up Wyoming wilderness areas to out of state hunters..

If BHA took this up, and I mean seriously took it up with the intent to see it through to the finish, I would throw earmarked money at them for that legal battle, no doubt. The corner hopping and WY wilderness laws are egregious violations of public access on publicly held lands.