BHA threatens Forest Service with lawsuit over public access

[idaho guy]

It very well may be that the battle ends up loosing some ground, but the big picture is that if something doesn't happen, huge portions or entire mountain ranges could get locked out.  If you haven't been to Montana, imagine someone buying all the land around Rainier or Baker and then shutting access.  This is exactly what is happening out there.

Another tactic is for timber companies to sell small parcels for huge money.  Think of 1 acre going for $1.5M, but that 1 acre happens to circle the gate that accesses 200k acres of timber and NF.  They sell it off with a timber easement and the new owner slaps a lock and leases it out to outfitters.  Guys around here are rightly going crazy about having to pay for timber access, imagine if that just went completely away overnight with no warning.  I hunted a place last year where 6/8 gates became private in the year since the last hunting season.  Probably 100k acres or more are now off limits in one unit alone.

I don't think that would be much of a concern here in Washington with everything blocked up so well. There are certainly places around foreign ownerships that private industry a lot of times has to build a long road up and around to get access to, but it can be done.  Of course not as easy as just buying access through a neighbor with the road in the bottom, but it's an option most of the time.  If the USFS would sell even 1% of their timber they'd have top of the line road systems and could tie road systems together to get around any previous access points that didn't allow the public through.   The problem is the USFS is beholden to all of the environmentalist groups who sue them into oblivion if they try and do anything.  They literally have to go through years of analysis to build a permanent spur road.  The USFS is so far from competent anymore that I don't know if there is any getting back to being a working forest.  Most of the actual foresters at the USFS (pre-spotted owl foresters) have moved on or retired, and we're left with a bunch of folks who think a logging shovel is literally a hand shovel used for logging somehow. . . It's soooooo frustrating that all of these problems can be solved with money, and the USFS is sitting on billions and billions of dollars they won't tap into.  Never mind the jobs and dollars it would bring to rural communities. 

I could be wrong, but I don't think there is any land trading going on between private and USFS, or for that matter the DNR and private.  I know the DNR buys occasionally, but I don't know about trading.  Anyways, swaps to block up ownerships better happens all the time with private industry, there is no reason it shouldn't be able to happen elsewhere too.  Both parties are better off.  I would bet that land trades could alleviate a lot of this tension, particularly if the USFS was proactive about it rather than waiting until the pot boils over between the public and landowners who dig in their heels.

Private property rights are private property rights.  We have to figure out ways to get around those blocking access, and generally speaking it's not that hard, just takes the dollars to build a new road.  And unfortunately private lands are being closed to the public (free of charge anyway) more and more, and that trend isn't going to slow down any time soon.  That's what makes fighting for our public lands to be managed in a way that maintains or EXPANDS access so important.  Active management will generate habitat to support the animals we pursue as well.  Private timberlands may as well be written off for access free of charge in the next 5-10 years, so the masses will need somewhere to go.  That's also what makes wilderness expansion so frustrating.  Close millions of acres so that less than 1% of the public heck less than 1% of hunters, nevermind the general public will enjoy.  We should be pushing the USFS to sell some timber so they can afford to maintain and build road into these areas so that the public can enjoy them.  On the one side we're losing access to hundreds of thousands of acres of private timberlands, and on the other we're losing hundreds of thousands of acres of public lands (millions in some cases, mentioned in another thread) to road less areas and wilderness.

  nailed it . That is a lawsuit I am 100 percent behind. Force the forest service to manage the forest and raise millions with timber sales! I will join and donate money to bha if they sue for management of timber. They seem to do the opposite though

[Alan K]

I guess I should have qualified my post in that it's Washington I was talking about since you mentioned Rainier/Baker! 

There in Montana though, that is the sort of situation a land swap could work in!  Trade this landowner the land for some of his fringe property with county road frontage?  Sure it's not those exact acres that are currently public, but trading land locked land for some that isn't shouldn't be out of the question.  If this guy in particular told them to pound sand, they could swap with a different private landowner, and the new owner could sell hunting etc. on what this jerk believed was his extension to his private lands. All the sudden the inholding is an annoyance to him and he no longer has access to any of it.  That's an idea to keep the pie of public land acres the same size, even if those acres aren't the same ones that they are today.   

[Stein]

I guess I should have qualified my post in that it's Washington I was talking about since you mentioned Rainier/Baker! 

There in Montana though, that is the sort of situation a land swap could work in!  Trade this landowner the land for some of his fringe property with county road frontage?  Sure it's not those exact acres that are currently public, but trading land locked land for some that isn't shouldn't be out of the question.  If this guy in particular told them to pound sand, they could swap with a different private landowner, and the new owner could sell hunting etc. on what this jerk believed was his extension to his private lands. All the sudden the inholding is an annoyance to him and he no longer has access to any of it.  That's an idea to keep the pie of public land acres the same size, even if those acres aren't the same ones that they are today.   

He bought the land to lock up hunting on BLM property, why would he swap?  Look at the picture again, he owns 100% of the land surrounding the 2,745 acres of BLM.  The whole area!  Just that private holding of theirs is 78,350 acres!   They own many more holdings in MT, hundreds of thousands of acres and growing as well as land in ID that they used to cut off access, they own something around 700,000 acres.  They sold their company for $3.5 billion, so the pockets are deep.  They cut a check for $15M to Cruz in the last presidential election.

That's the point I'm trying to convey, this is a serious thing when people can buy up 78k acres and shut down all access and do it again and again.  I didn't show the other pictures, there is another 1,081 of BLM he locked up with the same holdings along with three sections of state land and a fewer smaller pieces of BLM.  Just in that one holding, they have locked almost 4,000 acres of prime hunting habitat.

[KFhunter]

The other thing to consider is magnitude.  There are places that allow a few people access to relatively modest access, friends, neighbors, people with MT plates.  There are other places that are gating access that block thousands of acres.  What I'm saying is there are hills we should be prepared to die on and some that don't really matter.

Montana hunting is big business.  If you have exclusive land with bulls on it you can get $7,500 a week.  A guide can run two guys a week and the season is 11 weeks long.  That is the potential of $100-150k a year if you are running the business well with only two hunters.  I have a college buddy who ranches on family land.  They book 15 people a week at $5k and probably have 85% occupancy and no problems filling tags because they own the winter grounds for a huge herd.

It very well may be that the battle ends up loosing some ground, but the big picture is that if something doesn't happen, huge portions or entire mountain ranges could get locked out.  If you haven't been to Montana, imagine someone buying all the land around Rainier or Baker and then shutting access.  This is exactly what is happening out there.

Another tactic is for timber companies to sell small parcels for huge money.  Think of 1 acre going for $1.5M, but that 1 acre happens to circle the gate that accesses 200k acres of timber and NF.  They sell it off with a timber easement and the new owner slaps a lock and leases it out to outfitters.  Guys around here are rightly going crazy about having to pay for timber access, imagine if that just went completely away overnight with no warning.  I hunted a place last year where 6/8 gates became private in the year since the last hunting season.  Probably 100k acres or more are now off limits in one unit alone.

We're not talking about mom and pop ranches here, we're talking about losing amazing amounts of public land access to the highest bidder.  If you think a guy from Texas rolling in with a billion bucks to spend is going to answer the door when you come knocking for access, we have good examples over the last decade that tell the story.

I wish it were different, but I truly fear the day where I look back and wish we were more aggressive and did more to protect what we have.

Thanks for taking the time to write that in the manner you did, and I totally 100% agree! 

It is a big problem and quite frankly I don't know how to separate out the profiteering landowner you're describing,  from the old family farm type properties I want to protect so much.   

In the end perhaps we hunters can only blame ourselves for being so willing to pay these huge trespassing fees, we've shot ourselves in the foot  (not me personally I refuse to pay trespassing fees) 

I'll pay for a guide though, and that helps add to the problem as they secure private lands and often times block access to public lands beyond.
I can choose my guides though and only hunt private property or hunt wilderness or other public lands that isn't blocked by private with exclusive access. 

but the next guy wouldn't be so scrupulous 

[Stein]

To add one more twist, they buy huge chunks, lock up public and then parcel it out as private hunting ranches for huge profit, kind of hunting private land developers.  Here is an add for a recent small ranch they put on the market:

“With no public access and the lack of hunting in recent years, Bull Mountain Ranch is easily one of the better elk hunting ranches on the market in Montana.  In the past, there have been many trophy quality elk harvested including one year there were three bulls with approximate scores of 350, 364, and 375. Additionally, the ranch boasts other wildlife including mule deer, whitetail deer, turkey, antelope and much more. The largest mule deer taken scored 194 while taking a few 180 class mule deer and a 152 whitetail.”

[Stein]

KF, I do think the Block Management program is one solution, they allow landowners to provide access for a modest fee (paid for by the state from license sales) and the state runs the program and provides insurance against the pitfalls of today's society.  There is some pretty good ground under that program and people tend to behave pretty well as Wardens tend to keep a close eye on it.

[Alan K]

I guess I should have qualified my post in that it's Washington I was talking about since you mentioned Rainier/Baker! 

There in Montana though, that is the sort of situation a land swap could work in!  Trade this landowner the land for some of his fringe property with county road frontage?  Sure it's not those exact acres that are currently public, but trading land locked land for some that isn't shouldn't be out of the question.  If this guy in particular told them to pound sand, they could swap with a different private landowner, and the new owner could sell hunting etc. on what this jerk believed was his extension to his private lands. All the sudden the inholding is an annoyance to him and he no longer has access to any of it. That's an idea to keep the pie of public land acres the same size, even if those acres aren't the same ones that they are today.   

I mentioned what could be done if he didn't want to swap.  What is essentially free land for him currently wouldn't be any longer. Thats the only leverage that I can see.

These public agencies need to take a hard look at getting out of their landlocked lands that don't do the public any good. 

I can also see some benefit for them to trade if the parcels have something of value such as oil or minerals that the agencies themselves will never benefit from. They could trade those acres for more acres of land which have no such added values.  The government agencies don't really lose anything because they weren't going to utilize that value anyway, and we could gain more acreage - with access.

In western Washington every acre with 50 mbf of timber on it could be swapped for 10 acres of young reprod. Expanding public acres for hunting and other recreating, while not truely giving anything up since they won't havest the timber anyways.

Just more thoughts...

[KFhunter]

KF, I do think the Block Management program is one solution, they allow landowners to provide access for a modest fee (paid for by the state from license sales) and the state runs the program and provides insurance against the pitfalls of today's society.  There is some pretty good ground under that program and people tend to behave pretty well as Wardens tend to keep a close eye on it.

BMA's are awesome, I have no problem with the state setting aside some license sales for landowners for "free" access for hunters. 

[bearpaw]

The map shown regarding the Wlkes is probably by the Snow Mountains, they have bought up a lot of ground in that area and shut it off to public hunting. But the map shown is not a good example of landlocked public land, there is still access through the state land to the BLM and there appears to be no roads into the BLM that were blocked. I know that access has gotten much tougher with the Wilkes buying up land. However, if the lawsuit is about people coming in and buying up land I think it's wrong to take action against other ranchers in general. BHA is pitting hunters against ranchers!

[Stein]

The map shown regarding the Wlkes is probably by the Snow Mountains, they have bought up a lot of ground in that area and shut it off to public hunting. But the map shown is not a good example of landlocked public land, there is still access through the state land to the BLM and there appears to be no roads into the BLM that were blocked. I know that access has gotten much tougher with the Wilkes buying up land. However, if the lawsuit is about people coming in and buying up land I think it's wrong to take action against other ranchers in general. BHA is pitting hunters against ranchers!

There is zero access to the state or BLM land, they surrounded the entire thing.  You can fly a helicopter in there and land, but you cannot get in there on foot, atv, truck or horse.

I agree there has to be a case by case basis on decisions of what to pursue, but the morale of the story is that once it is gone it is gone forever.

[idahohuntr]

The map shown regarding the Wlkes is probably by the Snow Mountains, they have bought up a lot of ground in that area and shut it off to public hunting. But the map shown is not a good example of landlocked public land, there is still access through the state land to the BLM and there appears to be no roads into the BLM that were blocked. I know that access has gotten much tougher with the Wilkes buying up land. However, if the lawsuit is about people coming in and buying up land I think it's wrong to take action against other ranchers in general. BHA is pitting hunters against ranchers!

This POTENTIAL lawsuit has NOTHING to do with the Wilks Bros or any other land sales/purchases - it is a potential lawsuit against the Forest Service if they do things to give away or erode EXISTING PUBLIC ACCESS on 5 trails that access the Crazy Mtns.  Frankly, if a landowner (whether they ranch or not) wants to stop allowing hunter access because a group is asking a federal agency not to give up existing public access...that is their prerogative.  If more hunters shared your line of thought..."don't do anything that might upset a landowner - give up existing public access if you have to in order to keep them happy"...well, the future would not look to bright for public land hunters.

I would ask any landowner, if they were on the other side, would they just give up legal access to their property?  I wouldn't.  Why should we expect the public to get screwed and just walk away from their legal access then?   

[headshot5]

Again with this public easement thing   


There's a lot of different kinds of easements,  the one's we're talking about here are prospective easements

For those that actually have familiarity with easements, we are discussing prescriptive easements, not 'prospective' easements...whatever those are supposed to be.

If you look up prescriptive easements this definition comes up...


A prescriptive easement is an easement upon another's real property acquired by continued use without permission of the owner for a legally defined period. State law, which varies by state, defines the time period required to acquire a prescriptive easement.


It kind of reminds me of squatter's rights on properties.

[buckfvr]

If the public cant use the land, then it should be off limits to those that have caused it.

[fireweed]

Th old timers that started these access routes would never have considered that they were trespassing.  Think back to the old days before many roads.  There were TRAILS first.  Miner trails. Native  Trails.  Game trails.
 Wagon trails. 
That was how the land was settled.  Do you think they worried about an official Right-of-way or easement for every necessary route?  If crossing another's property was such a crime, why on earth was land given out in a checkerboard fashion?  It's almost as if it was set up this way to force citizens to build roads and trails.  Nobody cared because those trails were needed for fire fighting, mining, grazing, accessing homesteads, hunting, etc.  It was not a case of trespassing, but the necessary way to settle the USA.  These trails that have been used forever are more akin to navigable rivers and streams that pass through private land.  The problem is the new owners closing off historic routes that have un-recorded prescriptive easements.  The issue is muddled enough that it needs to be settled by the courts, one way or the other.

[NumaJohn]

Hello, all.

This is not intended to be a threadjack, as I see lots of comments here about federal public land and access. It is not unwarranted to fear the transfer of lands that belong to ALL Americans to private interests: http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2019/feb/18/big-alaskan-land-giveaway-tucked-into-a-sweeping-c/

BHA opposes such transfers, and BHA opposes private interests that try to restrict Americans from accessing their own land. You can quibble about BHA's approaches if you like, but I will continue to support this organization (and RMEF) because I believe access is the number one issue facing hunters and anglers as the greedy continue to angle for taking control of what belongs to you and me.

John