The Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks Commission will meet in Dillon on Thursday and Friday, May 1 and 2. On Thursday, May 1, Commissioners will hold a public open house beginning at 7 p.m. in the Lewis & Clark Room at Western Montana College of the University of Montana to meet one-on-one with residents of southwestern Montana and discuss issues or topics of personal interest to those in attendance. On Friday, Commissioners will reconvene at 8:30 a.m.
(Headlines - April 25, 1997)

A poster produced by Bryan Foley, a fifth-grade student at Lewis & Clark School in Missoula, has been selected as the winner of Montana's 1997 State Parks Poster Contest. Foley's entry, a colorful, watercolor depiction of a time gone by when bison roamed the plains and Indian tepees were the only human dwellings within sight of what is now Madison Buffalo Jump State Park near Three Forks, was selected by a panel of five judges April 11 in Helena.
(Headlines - April 25, 1997)

Fish, Wildlife & Parks officials will be considering some adjustments to permit numbers, harvest quotas and regulations for next fall's hunting seasons based on the record amounts of snowfall portions of Montana received over the winter, lingering cold and snow this spring, and reports of numbers of winterkilled game animals in certain parts of the state.
(Headlines - April 11, 1997)

At its meeting on April 4, the FWP Commission closed bighorn sheep Hunting District 302 (Hilgards), which lies just north of the Madison River in southwestern Montana, to all hunting of bighorn sheep in 1997. Glenn Erickson, management bureau chief for FWP's Wildlife Division in Helena, said commissioners closed sheep hunting in the district next fall because the population of bighorns there has declined significantly following a major outbreak of pneumonia earlier this winter.
(Headlines - April 11, 1997)

Hunters who hope to pursue mountain goats in Montana this coming fall should note a mistake in tentative mountain goat harvest quotas printed in Montana's 1997 Big Game Hunting Regulations. The regulations suggest that two either-sex mountain goat licenses will be available for use in mountain goat Hunting District 322 this coming fall. However, this is not the case; the district has been closed to all hunting in 1997.
(Headlines - April 11, 1997)

At its April 4 meeting in Helena, the Fish, Wildlife & Parks Commission adopted tentative quotas for moose, bighorn sheep, mountain goat and mountain lion for this coming fall's hunting seasons. In general, moose and mountain goat quotas will remain near 1996 levels across the state, while bighorn sheep quotas will drop slightly primarily because of a pneumonia outbreak in Hunting District 302, which will be closed to all sheep hunting in 1997.
(Headlines - April 11, 1997)

Hunters are reminded that the deadline for submitting applications to Fish, Wildlife & Parks' annual special license and permit drawings to obtain licenses to hunt moose, bighorn sheep and mountain goats this coming fall is May 1. The deadline for applying for antelope, special elk and deer B licenses and deer permits is June 2.
(Headlines - April 11, 1997)

Snowmobile trespass into the Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness has decreased dramatically this winter thanks, in large part, to the effects of an educational campaign conducted cooperatively by Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks, the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) and the community of Cooke City. The use of motorized recreational vehicles and equipment is illegal in wilderness areas.
(Headlines - April 11, 1997)

Fish, Wildlife & Parks officials will award $180,000 in federal funds to trails organizations and agencies this spring for the rehabilitation, maintenance and development of recreational trails in Montana. The National Recreational Trails Fund Act (NRTFA), a federal program administered by the Federal Highway Administration, provides the funds to states from a portion of the federal gas tax paid on the gas used by recreational vehicles used in off-road situations.
(Headlines - April 11, 1997)