Here's a link to a story in today's (1/21/10) Helena (MT's capital city) Independent Record newspaper:
http://www.helenair.com/news/article_e9fa7014-065a-11df-a28a-001cc4c002e0.html

And a quote by the head spokesman at MT fish & game from that story:
Quote:
The state of Texas has launched an investigation into the effects of lead shot on doves, a popular game species there where an estimated 40 million to 50 million doves live.

Montana’s proposed ban did not grow out of worries for doves, said Ron Aasheim, a spokesman for the department. While doves are hunted here, they are much fewer in number than the more popular species of pheasant, grouse and Hungarian partridge.

There’s nothing to suggest lead shot poses any risk to those or any other upland game bird species, Aasheim said. Montana’s tentative ban was proposed only to be “consistent” with the federal ban and other lead shot bans on certain tribal lands.

“We’ve got restrictions on using lead shot for waterfowl and do we take the next step on the wildlife management areas?” he said.

Aasheim also stressed that the ban was very tentative and proposed more like a “trial balloon” to see where Montanans stood on the issue. There are no “biological reasons” to ban lead shot on the areas, but people simply may not like it, Aasheim said and commissioners want to know about it.

So far, Aasheim said, most of the comments have been negative.


The comment period is still open until 5 PM Mountain time on Friday, 22 January 2010. Here's the link to the proposed changes to MT's UGB hunting regs:
http://fwp.mt.gov/hunting/opportunityForPublicComment/uplandGameBird.html

And here's the link to the web-based SurveyMonkey tool where you can leave comments (scroll down to comment box #15):
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/N2CCH9R

This story was run in most of the major MT daily newspapers, so IMO, it appears the comments are being heard.