BOZEMAN — Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks is tasked with managing the state's wildlife, and one of its main management tools is hunting. With almost 63 percent of Montana's land being privately owned, FWP utilizes access programs like Block Management to open some of those lands to hunting.
FWP Region 3 Access Manager Cheyanne Parker highlighted the scale of the program: "In 2025, we had 6.2 million acres of private land enrolled in this program. That's a lot of acres across the state that, without it, would be detrimental to hunting access in the state."
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To put that into context, if those 6.2 million acres were a state, it would be the 45th largest, ahead of Hawaii, New Jersey, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Vermont.
"All Block Management land is private land that is worked in agreement and cooperation with the state. We work with landowners; they enroll their private land in the program, they create all the rules, we just enforce them," Parker said.
The program is not one-size-fits-all and is custom fit to each landowner, who sets up how their land will be used.
"We sit down with our landowners, and we work with them. They can agree to put in certain parts of their land; they don't have to enroll everything. We can create safety zones, no trespassing zones, we can make weapons restricted areas, we can make youth only areas, disabled hunting areas. We can really customize this program. It's extremely flexible to whatever the landowners want," Parker said.
Block Management is just one access program available through FWP. Information about all available programs can be found on the FWP website or by contacting any region headquarters.
For landowners interested in Block Management, the deadline for enrolling is June 1.
This article has been lightly edited with the assistance of AI for clarity, syntax, and grammar.
