Distinctly Montana Magazine

w w w . d i s t i n c t l y m o n t a n a . c o m 19 Jim Posewitz talks about conserving the outdoors www.distinctlymontana.com/conservation193 DISTINCTLY MONTANA | DIGITAL INSPIRING A LEADER In 1883, a 24-year old New Yorker, with a passion to hunt, searched the Little Missouri drainage to find and kill a buffalo. After nine days he found and killed a lone wandering bull on Little Cannonball Creek, Montana Territory. His excitement was unrestrained and he did a 'dance' around the fallen buffalo. e hunter was eodore Roosevelt (TR) who returned to ranch in North Dakota and hunt throughout the West. His Montana adventures took him from Little Cannonball Creek in the southeast to the Cabinet Mountains in the northwest. In the process he hunted through the rotting carcasses and bones of the wildlife slaughter that had just preceded his presence. It all hammered home the need for conservation action. CREATION OF CONSERVATION ADVOCACY In 1887, TR returned to the east and helped form a citizen activist organization to promote the "sporting code" and begin the "restoration" of a new wild abun- dance. It would profoundly affect Montana. In 1891, the organization persuaded Congress to give presidents authority to set aside unclaimed federal land for forest and wildlife conservation. ey called it "e Creative Act." It soon would endow Montana. A NEW MONTANA e first decade of the 20th century saw a significant focus on finding and implementing a Conservation Ethic. Montana Governor Rickards appointed W. F. Scott the first State Game Warden in 1901. He hired eight game wardens, each required to patrol 18,000 square miles. A year later, Scott became the first president of the Inter- national Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies—Montana was willing to lead. By mid-decade, resident hunting and fishing licenses were required and 30,000 were sold. In 1908, the state's first fish hatchery was built and two years later the state began relocating elk from Yellowstone to places where they had been depleted. TWO SHOTS IN BUFFALO (SEPTEMBER 6, 1901) Buffalo was a city in New York State. e shooter was Leon Czolgosz, and the victim was President McKinley. What that meant for Montana and conservation was eodore Roosevelt became president. Political manipu- lators had maneuvered TR into the vice presidency to isolate him and his penchant for reform. TR called it "…. the road to nowhere but oblivion." What Czolgosz did was put a committed conservationist at the head of our nation. e "Creative Act," lobbied through Congress a decade earlier, was now in the hands of its creator. He used it to set aside 230 million acres for preservation and conservation and Montana national forests were a big part of it. When TR left office, there were an estimated 5,000 elk in Montana. GLACIER NATIONAL PARK (1910) With Yellowstone Park on Montana's southern border, and a fledgling National Forest system blanket- ing the Rockies, a wild sanctuary in northern Montana was due. As the first decade of the 20th century closed, Glacier National Park was established in northern Mon- tana. e Park covers over a million acres and ecosystems pro- tected vary from prairie to tundra. ey support an exceptional array of relatively rare wild mammals including grizzly bear, wolves, wolverine, and Canadian lynx. e Park's watersheds provide habitat for a variety of native fish, and send their hydrologic production to three oceans. DEPRESSION, DUST, AND A GOLDEN TOUCH As the American conservation ethic strengthened, our economic system collapsed into the Great Depres- sion. As drought and dust swept our physical land- scape, our president was Franklin D. Roosevelt. His soil conservationist observed: "Of all the countries in the world, we Americans have been the greatest destroyers of land of any race of people barbaric or civilized." In the middle of those tough times, FDR called the first North American Wildlife Conference to invigorate wildlife restoration. Seven Montana sportsmen attended, helped form the National Wild- life Federation, and brought the idea home. May 15, 1936, Montana Governor Elmer Holt welcomed 50-some hunters and anglers to Helena's Placer Hotel and the organizational meeting of the Montana Wildlife Federation. With sportsmen organized, an excise tax on firearms and ammuni- tion for wildlife restoration, went from introduction to the president's signature in 90 days! e conservation aspiration of sportsmen was now focused and funded. When Franklin Roosevelt left office there were an estimated 15,000 elk in Montana. 3 4 5 6 7 8 ACHIEVEMENT ACHIEVEMENT ACHIEVEMENT ACHIEVEMENT ACHIEVEMENT ACHIEVEMENT CAROL POLICH Bison in Hayden Valley YELLOWSTONE CONTINUES TO AFFECT, CONTRIBUTE TO, AND CHALLENGE THE EVOLUTION OF MONTANA'S CONSERVATION ETHIC. CONTINUED

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