Private Timberlands Charging for Access. What's next? What can we do?

[ELKBURGER]

I'm going to bed................

[jackmaster]

this wont make me a very popular guy but oh well, if i owned a big timber compant and tons of land, i would be shutting it down 100% i would give access permits and they would cost accordingly, and if you wanted to get a permit, you would have to go through a class on how to keep your hands off of stuff that doesnt belong to you, you would have to learn to clean up after yourself, you would learn that if a road is closed that it doesnt give you the right to make your own road around the closed gate to the closed road.... all spur rds would be walk in only, there would be a one main access point with a full time around the clock guard and a couple of roving tackleberrys for those that want t do illegal crap..... i know it sucks, but a few bad apples are messing it up for eveyone, if you dont beleive me drive up the state land that takes in the elbe orv jeep trail system i would shut the state land down to and make it all walk in only unless you are disabled, then you would have to have a permit

[CAMPMEAT]

The old Champion International near Kapowsin, had always been a pay an access timber company as far as I know. I used to buy the permit and never bitched, The guard always knew who was in there and they could find the jackwagons that DID screw up. They knew exactly who was in there. I hauled rock in for road building and I never saw anything out of place. They had designated camping areas and had an employee patrol and if you did something wrong, you told to get out, NOW. I don't have a problem with companies charging a fee, it is, THEIR land.

[snowpack]

this wont make me a very popular guy but oh well, if i owned a big timber compant and tons of land, i would be shutting it down 100% i would give access permits and they would cost accordingly, and if you wanted to get a permit, you would have to go through a class on how to keep your hands off of stuff that doesnt belong to you, you would have to learn to clean up after yourself, you would learn that if a road is closed that it doesnt give you the right to make your own road around the closed gate to the closed road.... all spur rds would be walk in only, there would be a one main access point with a full time around the clock guard and a couple of roving tackleberrys for those that want t do illegal crap..... i know it sucks, but a few bad apples are messing it up for eveyone, if you dont beleive me drive up the state land that takes in the elbe orv jeep trail system i would shut the state land down to and make it all walk in only unless you are disabled, then you would have to have a permit

I probably would too.  But would you let people in for a significant tax break?  Or shut them out and risk losing an existing tax break? 

[baldopepper]

I think it's a good thing they are still allowing any public access at all.  If you think being charged an access fee is bad, check out Utah's CWMU (Cooperative Wildlife Management Unit).   system.  I think it's just a matter of time until they go to that system here for the private landowners and you'll see thousands of acres of previously accessible properties become one or two public permit areas with the landowner allowed to issue more on a major pay to play deal.  Check out how it works there and then thank them for only charging an access fee.

[Bookworm007]

I probably would too.  But would you let people in for a significant tax break?  Or shut them out and risk losing an existing tax break?

There tax break is not directly related to letting the public in for free, its the use of the property as timber.

But this problem is actually the state and national forest's fault. I have old maps of St. Helens and other popular hunting areas that show past ownership and the map more or less looked like a checkerboard with squares of private and public land. This helped because no timber company could cut off access to public property and you didn't end up with large tracks of land which no one could access because there was a gate in the way. Also you could actually camp where you wanted to hunt........ But over the years companies like Weyco have traded/bought land from public entities creating these great reserves of private land. Once you mix that with some bad apples making bad examples of hunters this is what you get............

[Pacific]

I have mixed views on this....I can understand the timber companies wanting to restrict access because of all the dumping, vandalism, etc. On the other hand I would like to have access.....Some of the places I would like to go are too far in to walk or bike to......so what do we do as sportsmen and what do the timber companies do....Well, what the timber companies do is try to limit access....we sportsman complain, so the timber companies charge for access....and here we are at the present.....

Ultimately for the timber companies it is about money....and they make their money on timber! All the rest of this is just a distraction to them....well, maybe a little more than just a distraction, but in the overall scheme of things they just want to keep their stock price up and investors happy....and they do that with trees......

Now, wildlife can impact that....by damaging those trees and sportsman help the timber companies keep the wildlife population in check....the timber companies would just as soon wipe out the wildlife completely and then this whole problem would go away for them......

So, what do we as sportsman to counter this.....I don't have the answer to that.....maybe if more logging was done on our national forests, creating more areas with more and better feed...would cause higher densities of game animals in these national forests.....and more people would forgo paying for the access permits....

Or we boycott buying the permits....I can't afford them anyway.....and the game population goes up on timber company land causing more damage to their young trees....they won't want more access by sportsmen but they will want something done....the big question is then what will our state do...let them slaughter all of the game? or demand that they let sportsmen help "thin the herd".....It used to be I would have said WDFW would have had our backs.....I'm not too sure anymore 

[Pacific]

Just to clarify a little.....It would definitely be best if all parties could work together.....I believe that as in everything else, a small minority ruin things for the majority.....ultimately private property is PRIVATE property....

Now I'm not sure of all the legal mumbo jumbo with the timber companies and access...but I think that they pay taxes on their "timber land" just like say...my brother-in -law who owns 40 acres here and 20 there, etc....I would hate to see something happen that he either has to allow trespassing on to his land or pay higher taxes...

The argument that the timber companies charge for recreational access somehow changes the use and therefore the taxes, well if it comes to that, then they will just deny all access for recreation.....

Sadly, we can't have it both ways and like I said....a few bad apples have ruined the whole barrel for the rest of us.....

[ELKBURGER]

It seems that the big timber companies have already been thinning the herd with their herbacides that have been over dosed in many areas. They are seeing lower populations thanks to the lack of forage for the wildlife leading to malnutrition which leads to lower tolerance to disease, like hoof rot and hairloss syndrome.

[Pacific]

I would have to agree with that...somehow the scientists seem to want to point to floods and dairy farms rather than chemicals....

I also notice I don't see as many grouse as I used to.....started way back with the helicopter fertilization back in the late 70's and early 80's.....man that's a whole 'nuther discussion....sorry not trying to jack the thread....

[Rainstorm Hunter]

I have done a lot of thinking about this permit system since they started it last year. Like many others have said, it is private property, and I have no issue with them charging for access. The only gripe I have about their system is who is eligible under a permit, and the limit they put on how many permits will be issued. My hunting group consists of me, my brother, my father, and my grandfather. If we could buy a Weyerhaeuser permit like a discover pass, that is valid for the vehicle, we could put in the $200-$250 to go get one. The way they have it set up, it would cost us $1,000 just to go drive around on Weyerhaeuser land. To us it's just not worth that much, and chances are, all of us wouldn't be able to buy one immediately when they came out, so one or two of us would be screwed anyways. I have known this was coming, pretty soon hunting will be a rich mans sport.... Sorry for the rant, rambling over. Guess I will just be doing more salmon fishing this fall instead......

[motg9_6]

In most cases there is no requirement for Weyerhaeuser to leave gates open for the public to access state land. If they do that, it's entirely voluntary.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Why can't they do whatever they want with there own property. If you want access to something somebody else has, pay for it!!!
As for the cost pushing us out of hunting we better start with the state of which we have some say as opposed to private land owners  corporation or not.
I can tell you Hancock gets several calls a year from people chewing them out for not allowing access or keeping a gate closed etc. Every time one of these calls comes in they get closer to shutting it down entirely. 
Just my

[t6]

Then shut it down entirely.  Keep the tax break for having timberland. 

If they turn it into Recreational Property and charge fees, they should be taxed as such.  No one is saying they have to allow trespassers on their property.  We are just saying that it its being profited by use as Recreational Property, it should be taxed as such. 

We also need to look into the poisons they are distributing with complete disregard to the animals owned by the State and therefore the public. 

http://jongosch.com/growing-evidence-links-herbicides-to-elk-hoof-disease/

[bigtex]

I think it's a good thing they are still allowing any public access at all.  If you think being charged an access fee is bad, check out Utah's CWMU (Cooperative Wildlife Management Unit).   system.  I think it's just a matter of time until they go to that system here for the private landowners and you'll see thousands of acres of previously accessible properties become one or two public permit areas with the landowner allowed to issue more on a major pay to play deal.  Check out how it works there and then thank them for only charging an access fee.

I've been saying for a very long time that we are lucky the "system" we have here in WA. We are lucky we are in the west, which states are known as "federal public land states" aka there's a ton of federal land that is open to access and do what we want on. But to go even further, we are lucky to live in a state that has a ton of state land (DNR and WDFW) as well. Many of the western state's don't have the large blocked up state land areas such as the Naneum Ridge Forest, Capitol Forest, etc, they simply have a couple hundred acres here, a couple thousand there, etc.

And then to top it off we have huge amounts of timberland that for decades has been open to public access. Has access been restricted in the past 20 years or so? Yes, but the issues on those lands have increased in the past twenty years as well.

We could live in Texas where less than 2% of the state is federal land and a large chunk of that is a huge national park you can't hunt. In Texas, you better secure private land access or you probably won't be hunting. There is no BLM land east of Colorado, national forests are smaller and further apart as you get past Colorado.

People seem to link "public access" with "public land"/"publicly owned land."

[jay.sharkbait]

Can anyone point me to where it says that Weyco is issuing 15,000 permits?