BOZEMAN – The Gallatin Chapter of the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation will celebrate 22 years of member supported conservation efforts at its annual banquet on June 2, at the Gallatin County Fairgrounds. The banquet will raise funds for wildlife land conservation and elk habitat.
Statewide, last year’s chapter banquets provided more than $1.1 million in funding for projects in 11 Montana counties. RMEF volunteers and staff select these projects with help from partnering federal agencies. RMEF was founded by four hunters from Troy, Mont. in 1984. Today, the group has more than 185,000 members.
The Gallatin Chapter has conserved more than 71,500 acres for elk and other wildlife in Gallatin, Madison, Broadwater and Park Counties. The group also works to improve habitat and gain access to land for public hunting. It’s currently focused on decreasing the wolf population in the region through hunting.
Starting at 4 p.m., this year’s “Elk Country Social” will feature a BBQ, games, auction and raffle prizes, and free seminars. Seminars include Kayla Doble and Stacie Nichols speaking on Women and the Outdoors, and Grant Soukup speaking on Hunting Public Lands.
Big Sky resident Pete Delzer is the Chair of the Yellowstone-Taylor Fork Chapter of RMEF. He and fellow volunteers and committee members Kelli Delzer, John Flach, and Angela Search runs the RMEF Big Game Banquet in West Yellowstone every June.
Near Big Sky, in the mid-90s RMEF was part of a larger land exchange project in which they coordinated with the Forest Service and FWP to protect land that might otherwise have been developed. Notably, RMEF acquired 640 acres in the Taylor Fork drainage, and 6182 acres in the Porcupine Drainage.
Ticket information for the banquet is available by calling (406) 285-3819.
