Hunters all over the country are struggling with private land access. While the issue is challenging to measure on a national scale, Southwick Associates, a research firm that studies sporting data, found in a 2012 study that 23% of hunters had lost some private land access in a single year. Similar losses affected 20% of anglers.

Meater Eater, May 28, 2019, by Sarah Keller, 2018 MHAP Graduate.

One Montana: Montana Master Hunter Education Class celebrates Graduates.

By Jessianne Castle, Prairie Populist, July 2, 2019

Hunter access to wildlife has become a divisive issue between landowners and hunters. How to control big game populations while also keeping landowners from being overrun is a difficult balancing act.

After successfully graduating its first class of master hunters in Bozeman last year, the Montana Hunter Advancement Program will expand with classes in Billings and Missoula this year.

Even though she has 40-plus years of hunting experience, Billings resident Cheryl Davis took the course last year.

"I think we can always learn," she said. "And I was really interested in the partnership between the landowners and the hunters."

John D. Tayor of the Madisonian recently published the following article on the Montana Hunter Advancement Program and the 2018 50-hour Pilot Course.

Montanans value public land and private-property rights equally. Now more than ever, a schism
between the two has set us at odds. In attempt to mend that tear, Bozeman nonprofit One Montana
(http://onemontana.org/) created the Common Ground program in 2012. This year, Common Ground
made considerable strides for the hunting community, celebrating 25 graduates from their Master
Hunter program in its innagural session.