Photo information: (left to right) Kevin Perry – Congressional Sportsmen’s Foundation, Mike Williams – RMEF federal lobbyist, Blake Henning – RMEF chief conservation officer, Representative Jimmy Panetta (D-CA) and Ryan Bronson – RMEF director of government affairs
A Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation advocacy team set its sights on clay targets and important mission issues during a late April visit to Washington D.C. RMEF participated in the Congressional Sportsmen’s Foundation’s 27th annual Congressional Clays event on April 25. The gathering gave RMEF the opportunity to spend the day on the range with several members of Congress and fellow hunting, fishing and conservation organizations for a friendly trap, skeet and sporting clays competition.
RMEF leaders spent the following day on Capitol Hill meeting with congressional staffers on the Senate and House Natural Resources, Appropriations and Agriculture Committees. Removing barriers to active forest management, funding targeted elk habitat acquisitions such as RMEF’s Minam River acquisition project in Oregon updating the federal Farm Bill to benefit big-game migratory corridors were among the main agenda items. RMEF also met with U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Director Martha Williams and other Department of Interior officials to discuss wolf and grizzly bear delisting, inefficiencies in the federal appraisal system and declining habitat quality on federal lands.
(Photo credit: Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation)