BIG SKY — Montana's wildlife management areas are important area set aside for wildlife only during winter and early spring.
We headed to the Gallatin WMA near Big Sky where the area's recreational popularity has Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks (FWP) looking to keep it closed to the public for an extra month.
The Porcupine Unit of the Gallatin Wildlife Management Area is closed to the public in December and stays closed until May 15— but that may soon change.
Ready the full story:
"The primary purpose of this area is to provide critical habitat for wildlife in particular this wildlife management area provides critical habitat during the winter and during the calving season for elk,” explained FWP spokesman Morgan Jacobsen.
Lots of people in the Big Sky area use the area because it’s close.
“This Wildlife Management Area because of where it's located sees a lot of recreational traffic so hiking, dog walking, horseback riding and a number of other recreational activities,” Jacobsen explained. “And a lot of that recreation happens in proximity to the calving season. And so, in an effort to protect and provide that habitat and to minimize the recreational impacts, there's a proposal that is currently out for public comment to extend that closure to June 15th.”
The impact not only affects the elk during calving season, but thanks to its popularity, the habitat itself is almost literally being loved to death.
“Some of the impacts that we've seen from recreation in this wildlife management area in particular includes a network of user-created social trails that really go all over the wildlife management area and that leads to diminished habitat which really goes against the primary purpose of this parcel which is again to provide habitat for wildlife,” Jacobsen said.
FWP is taking public comment on the closure extension until March 25 and the Fish and Wildlife Commission will take up the proposal during its April meeting. A decision will go into effect this year.
