Cabela's real estate arm betrays hunters?

Thanks to Tony Heckard at BHA for passing this on: According to a column in New West, Cabela's is getting itself in trouble in Montana for promoting the privatization of hunting land through its real estate marketing arm, Cabela's Trophy Properties LLC.

From the column: Cabela's doesn't actually buy and sell land. Instead, it licenses its brand to local real estate brokers and allows them to market prime hunting and fishing properties under the banner of Cabela's Trophy Properties. The brokers pay Cabela's for the license, probably with a license fee and a slice of the commission on property sales... Licensing your name to realtors who use it to market property definitely makes you part of the real estate biz--and not just any real estate biz, but the worst kind.

The article goes into depth explaining how Cabela's exacerbated the problem in Montana. But it's not just the Rocky Mountain states that need to worry about this public access issue. Cabela's is marketing prime wildlife habitat here in Oregon and it could drive the loss of public hunting access on private land in other states.

Here are a few of Oregon's properties listed under Cabela's Trophy Properties:

About 600 acres in the Ochoco Creek Valley southeast of Prineville, OR is going for $16.6 million.

Or you could pick up the Inshallah Ranch for $12 million. "Tremendous potential for an appreciation of value on this acquisition exists, as demand for quality big game hunting ranches continues to accelerate," the Cabela's site says.

Is it time to start sending back the catalogues?