Sources & method
Where the numbers come from
Montana Hunting Report reads public data from the agencies that publish it, computes a small number of facts from it, and labels every value as measured, calculated, estimated, forecast or unavailable. When a source fails, the atlas says so instead of filling the gap.
Live sources
| Source | Publisher | Status | Last successful check | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| FWP news releases | Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks | ok | 2026-10-30 21:56:55 UTC | |
| NWS active alerts | National Weather Service | ok | 2026-10-30 23:26:53 UTC | |
| NWS 7-day forecasts | National Weather Service | ok | 2026-10-30 23:03:01 UTC | |
| SNOTEL snow depth & water | USDA NRCS | ok | 2026-10-30 22:57:10 UTC | |
| Wildfire & prescribed fire incidents | NIFC WFIGS (interagency) | ok | 2026-10-30 23:23:46 UTC | |
| Block Management Areas | Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks | ok | 2026-10-30 19:56:52 UTC | |
| Hunting district boundaries | Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks | ok | 2026-10-30 19:56:49 UTC | |
| Harvest estimates (new license year check) | Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks | ok | 2026-10-30 19:56:54 UTC | |
| Road conditions & mountain passes | unavailable | Montana Department of Transportation road data needs an API key that has not been issued to this site yet. | ||
| Road & pass webcams | unavailable | MDT camera imagery is covered by the same pending API key. | ||
| Wildlife population estimates | unavailable | FWP publishes population counts and objectives in PDF management plans and survey reports, not as data. Not yet integrated. | ||
| Fire restrictions by county | unavailable | Not yet integrated. |
Reference datasets
| Dataset | Publisher | Features | Retrieved |
|---|---|---|---|
| counties | Montana State Library | 56 | 2026-10-30 |
| reservations | Montana State Library | 7 | 2026-10-30 |
| national_forests | USDA Forest Service | 18 | 2026-10-30 |
| wilderness | USDA Forest Service (National Wilderness Preservation System) | 17 | 2026-10-30 |
| wma | Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks | 70 | 2026-10-30 |
| gnis | U.S. Geological Survey, Geographic Names Information System | 12887 | 2026-10-30 |
| snotel_stations | USDA NRCS National Water and Climate Center | 96 | 2026-10-30 |
| districts_deer-elk | Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks | 139 | 2026-10-30 |
| districts_antelope | Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks | 61 | 2026-10-30 |
| districts_moose | Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks | 74 | 2026-10-30 |
| districts_sheep | Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks | 36 | 2026-10-30 |
| districts_goat | Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks | 37 | 2026-10-30 |
| districts_black-bear | Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks | 35 | 2026-10-30 |
| public_lands | Montana State Library | 31015 | 2026-10-30 |
| Harvest estimates | Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks | elk 2004–2025, deer 2004–2025, mule-deer 2004–2025, whitetail 2004–2025, antelope 2004–2025, moose 2005–2025, sheep 2005–2025, goat 2005–2025 | 2026-10-30 |
| Season dates | Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks | FWP 2026 Hunting Seasons date card | 2026 |
How facts are calculated
- Public Land
- Area of Montana State Library 'Montana Public Lands' polygons (derived from the Montana Cadastral Framework, Department of Revenue ownership records) intersected with the FWP district boundary, measured in NAD83(2011) Montana State Plane (EPSG:6514). Ownership is not access: some public land is closed to hunting or has no legal access.
- Terrain
- Elevations sampled on a regular grid inside the district from AWS Terrain Tiles (Terrarium, zoom 10, ~105 m pixels; compiled from USGS 3DEP and SRTM). Approximate: summits read lower than their surveyed height.
- Neighbors
- Districts of the same species system sharing at least 500 m of boundary.
- Places
- USGS GNIS named features whose official point falls inside the district.
- Harvest trend
- Average FWP estimated harvest over the latest three license years compared with the three years a decade earlier. Shown only when the older average is at least 20 animals.
- Hunter-days per square mile
- FWP's estimated hunter-days for the district divided by the district's area, for the latest year FWP estimated hunter numbers at the district level (FWP alternates those estimates by species and year).
- New snow
- A SNOTEL station reports new snow only when its depth sensor rose at least 4 inches and its snow pillow rose at least 0.3 inches of water in the same 24 hours.
What this site is not
- Not a navigation or GPS app, and not a property-boundary or access tool. A mapped boundary never grants permission to enter land.
- Not a source of regulations. Seasons, quotas, closures and licensing come from FWP; every district card links to FWP's own pages.
- Not a wildlife location service. Nothing here shows where animals are; harvest numbers describe past seasons.
- Not a safety authority. Weather, fire and road information link to the National Weather Service, InciWeb and Montana 511.
Change feed
The Situation Room's "What changed?" feed only labels something new when a later check differs from an earlier one. Items that already existed the first time a source was checked are labeled before monitoring.
Attribution
Basemap © OpenStreetMap contributors, served by OpenFreeMap. Terrain: AWS Terrain Tiles (Mapzen; USGS 3DEP, SRTM). Data: Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks; Montana State Library; USDA Forest Service; USGS; USDA NRCS; National Weather Service; National Interagency Fire Center. No agency logos are used and no endorsement is implied.