Landowners protest bison plan by locking out hunters

When the big-game rifle season opens Saturday, hunters on some northern Montana lands may find themselves caught in a crossfire.

More than 70 landowners have published their names in ads in the Glasgow Courier and Malta's Phillips County News over the past few months announcing that their lands would be closed to hunters until the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks drops its plans for releasing bison onto public lands. One ad also cited fire danger as a reason for closing land to hunting.

Despite the protests, the program still has about 8 million private acres opened to hunters by 1,250 landowners. In conjunction with state and federal lands open to the public, Montana's roughly 147,000 deer hunters and 104,000 elk hunters still have a lot of options for where to go. But in the Hinsdale area at least, hunters may be turned back.