If you know of a landowner that you believe would be eligible or a good candidate with appropriate lands, please contact them as a consideration of building good relationships.

Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks is offering a new upland game bird habitat incentive program in 14 counties to encourage farmers and ranchers to enroll or renew federal Conservation Reserve Program contracts.

CRP, a voluntary program for farmers and ranchers, provides payments to establish resource conserving vegetative cover, such as tame or native grasses, wildlife plantings, trees, filterstrips, or streamside buffers on eligible agricultural lands. Acreage enrolled in CRP contributes to increased wildlife populations. This is the first time since 2006 that landowners have an opportunity to enroll in CRP. Read more…

A new state habitat enhancement program is providing eastern Montana landowners incentives to extend their participation in the Conservation Reserve Program, a federal offering that in part improves wildlife habitat.

Through the Upland Game Bird Habitat Enhancement Program, Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks recently funded five new projects located in Carbon, Garfield, Hill, and McCone counties.   The new habitat program provided additional incentives to landowners to extend their CRP agreements, enhance enrolled acres in a manner more productive to pheasants and other game birds, and to open those lands to upland game bird hunting.

Nearly 2,000 CRP acres have been enrolled in 3- or 5-year contracts under the Upland Game Bird Habitat Enhancement Program. Two of the five projects are located on 2009 Block Management Areas, which offer public hunting access to private lands. Upland game bird hunters must abide by Block Management Area requirements. For specific information about these Block Management area use rules, refer to the Region 1-5 Hunting Access Guide, available from any FWP regional or Helena headquarters office or upon request at the FWP Web site (http://fwp.mt.gov/hunting/hunteraccess/blockman).

The remaining three projects offer an additional 1,000 acres of walk-in upland game bird hunting. Each project area is marked with special signs.

For details visit FWP’s Web site at fwp.mt.gov , Click “ New Opportunities for Upland Game Bird Hunters “.

For more information call Debbie Hohler at 406-444-5674, or E-mail to dhohler@mt.gov.