Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks has been directed to review its land acquisitions and land management responsibilities, its financial stability, and its relations with private landowners, among other priorities, according to agency Director Jeff Hagener.

And the agency will continue to work with ever-present controversial matters such as wolf and grizzly bear management, Hagener said during a Tuesday visit with local media prior to a regional staff meeting in Kalispell.

Hagener served as the agency’s director from 2001 to 2008 and was reappointed to the position by Gov. Steve Bullock earlier this year.

Besides having a new governor and a new director at the helm, the agency will be under the direction of the five-member Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks Commission that has four new members. The position held by Bob Ream, representing Northwest Montana, should be filled in the next couple weeks, Hagener said.

“Effectively, I have six bosses, one who hired me and the five on the commission,” he said.

So far, Hagener said he has been asked to look into land acquisitions  — about 80,000 acres over the last few years — along with the management of 400,000 acres managed by the agency and an additional 400,000 acres managed through conservation easements.

Hagener said acquisitions can be controversial, and he has been asked to “look at the holdings we have to make sure we are being good neighbors.”

The agency still has challenges in managing wildlife that can impact agricultural lands, but one of the main management tools is hunting, and that depends on access for hunters.

That ongoing conflict is what gave birth to the Block Management program — compensating landowners and providing them with enforcement and hunter management. Block Management has been a success, but Hagener said the agency is now looking for new incentives for landowners to provide access.

Hagener said there will also be a renewed emphasis on prioritizing projects for an agency with limited financial resources.

“We need to look at our financial stability in the organization,” he said, noting that the licensing program needs to be reviewed.

There are 100 different types of licenses, with money going to 60 different earmarked accounts.

“Do we need that many licenses?” Hagener asked. “Are the fees appropriate?”

Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks has been on a loose cycle of raising license fees about every 10 years, and that time has come around again, he said, hinting that the next Legislature may be presented with fee increase proposals.

The agency has seen a decline in out-of-state license sale revenue over the last few years, and there have been other challenges related to revenue stability.

“We’re also looking at an aging hunter community,” with more and more hunters qualifying for license discounts at age 62, he said.

Revenue from some licenses, such as late-season elk permits north of Yellowstone National Park, have evaporated.

Back around 2000, he said, there were 3,000 late season permits to help manage a herd that was estimated to number around 20,000.

Now the herd is estimated to have fewer than 10,000 head — a decline widely blamed on the expanding presence of wolves in and around the park.

Hagener said wolves have definitely had an impact, but the situation also involves other predators, less suitable forage because of encroaching lodgepole stands, and drought.

“When you add all those things together, the [elk] numbers have gone down dramatically,” he said.

The state has made wolf hunting and trapping increasingly liberal, and Hagener said that trend could continue when new regulations are set by the commission in July.

“We’re looking to reduce wolf numbers from where they are now,” he said.

Hagener said there is optimism that grizzly bears in the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem are on track to a delisting proposal as soon as two years now that the federal government has released a draft conservation strategy that guides grizzly bear management after delisting.

Delisting, he said, would probably prompt Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks to pursue a limited, quota-driven grizzly bear hunt.

Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks also is sounding off in opposition to a proposed federal listing of the North American wolverine as a a threatened species.

Hagener said the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is proposing the listing primarily because of projections that high-elevation snowpack favored by wolverines will diminish within 30 years due to climate change.

“Well, is that accurate?” Hagener asked.

The state’s official comments on the delisting proposal raise the same concern: “The science cited by the USFWS as the best available science is a hypothesis rather than a true representation of the best available science as required by the ESA.”

Reporter Jim Mann may be reached at 758-4407 or by email at jmann@dailyinterlake.com.