Fat-Assed ATV Riders to be Banned in Nevada by Federal Land Managers

JoseCuervo

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Always funny to read the comments by the Blue Ribber employees as they lose yet another huge chunk of land for the constituents.... :D
RENO, Nev. - For decades, off-road vehicle enthusiasts have been mostly free to roam federal forests and rangelands at will. But their freewheeling days could be numbered.

In a move expected to generate controversy, the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management are developing plans to restrict the vehicles to designated routes and areas.

Federal officials say the proposal is essential to curb environmental damage and ease conflict among users of public lands. Nationally, they cite a sevenfold increase from 1972 to 2000 in the number of off-roaders to 36 million.

"The days of blazing new trails are coming to an end," said Leo Drumm, off-highway vehicle coordinator for the Nevada BLM. "Off-highway vehicles are a legitimate use of public land, but there has to be some controls."

Nowhere would the proposed changes have a bigger effect than Nevada and its wide-open spaces.

The federal government controls 87 percent of the state, and Nevada is home to the largest national forest outside Alaska: the 6.3-million-acre Humboldt-Toiyabe.

While the vast majority of Nevada's backcountry is currently unrestricted to off-roaders, federal land managers have begun the process to ban travel off designated routes and areas.

And while the changes might be most dramatic in Nevada, similar efforts to address off-road travel are under way across the West.

"We're all recognizing at the same time the need to work on this issue," said Bob Vaught, supervisor of the Humboldt-Toiyabe. "There's widespread agreement that we need to do a better job of managing off-highway vehicle use."

Even though a Forest Service national off-road policy awaits final action nearly a year after it was unveiled, individual national forests are being encouraged to address the issue because of soaring off-road use.

Federal land managers are taking a cue from Forest Service chief Dale Bosworth, who identified unmanaged recreation as one of the four biggest threats to national forests.

BLM Director Kathleen Clarke shares Bosworth's concerns.

Environmental and motorized recreation groups praise federal officials for confronting the issue, but they say a battle looms over which roads and trails to close and keep open.

Conservationists said they're concerned not enough roads will be closed to protect wildlife and habitat.

"We need to encourage them to act in a way that will result in real on-the-ground protection," said Jeremy Garncarz of the Wilderness Society's Denver office. "We're losing wildlife habitat on a daily basis because of these problems."

Most hunters welcome the push to keep off-road vehicles to designated routes and areas, said Stan Rauch, hunter outreach coordinator of the Washington, D.C.-based National Trails and Waters Coalition, which seeks better management of the vehicles on public land.

Traditional sportsmen have accused those who go off road to hunt using all-terrain vehicles of disturbing their hunts and punching out more new roads in remote regions across the West.

"It's a good positive development for the land and users looking for a quality experience on public land," said Rauch, a big-game hunter from Victor, Mont., and member of the National Rifle Association.

Vehicle enthusiasts will try to keep as many roads and trails open as possible, said Brian Hawthorne, public lands director of the BlueRibbon Coalition, a motorized recreation advocacy group based in Pocatello, Idaho.

"(Environmentalists) are spending millions of dollars to close public land to public uses," Hawthorne said. "That's where the controversy is generated. What we want are managed off-highway trail systems and areas that are sustainable and that we can enjoy for generations to come."

Gerald Lent of the Nevada Hunters Association said most off-roaders are responsible and are being unfairly singled out. He questions the need for restrictions.

"Out in the middle of the desert, what damage are you doing with an ATV?" Lent asked. "It doesn't hurt anything. There's so much land out there I don't know how they would harm it."

Last year, Nevada Wildlife Commission Chairman Tommy Ford got a taste of the intense feelings surrounding the issue when he recommended a plan to prohibit hunters from driving ATVs more than 25 yards off established roads on public land.

Ford, who said the proposal was necessary to protect wildlife and habitat, shelved it after Lent and other hunters circulated petitions calling for his removal and printed bumper stickers that read: "Ban Tommy Ford, Not ATVs."

"They mislead the public on everything. They made it a personal issue," Ford said. "But it (off-road restrictions) is going to happen. It's happening as we stand here."

Federal land managers said they will work with various groups to identify roads and trails suitable for vehicles.

Each BLM district will update its resource management plan, and each forest district will work under centralized oversight to develop a system of designated routes and areas.

Every national forest is different and has to evaluate its own needs and abilities to provide for motorized use and recreational use at the local level," said Jerry Ingersoll, the Forest Service's Off-Highway Vehicle Program manager in Washington D.C.

"Many national forests are and will be evaluating those needs over the next few years," he said.

"The answers they get from doing travel planning are likely to be just as different as the national forests are different from one another," he said.

Implementation will vary, but some districts are shooting for as early as 2007.

While federal land managers said it's premature to discuss road closures, they won't rule them out.

"We're growing up as a state and we can't handle the unrestricted cross-country travel like we did in the past," Drumm said. "Every time you go out you find more new trails. Unfortunately, we're going to have to rein them (vehicles) in."
 
Sounds good to me. I wasn't around then, but this rings pretty similar to the introduction of drawings for big game tags. Once the demand outstripps supply, it has to be regulated.
 
Here's a GREAT Article: :D :D

Two Visions of the Countryside Clash

Ohio dairy farmer Frank Sutliff was grinding cattle feed when he saw them again: all-terrain vehicles shredding his alfalfa fields.


When he shouted to the riders over the engine whine that they were trespassing, they smashed him over the head, he said.

"I went down, and they just started in on me … hit me, kicked me, broke my leg," said Sutliff, 46. "I crawled into the truck, drove back to the house and dialed 911."

One man paid a $100 trespassing fine. Another spent five days in jail. All denied wrongdoing.

Across rural America, angry skirmishes are increasingly common between property owners and off-roaders squaring off over dwindling open space.

Long accustomed to battling environmentalists for access to public lands, off-roaders now find themselves at odds with farmers, ranchers and a flood of new residents moving to the country for peace and quiet.

As Bob Buster, a county supervisor in Riverside, Calif., put it, "You have these two clashing visions of the countryside."

Nationally, millions of acres have been developed in recent decades. At the same time, use of off-highway vehicles — a catch-all term for four-wheelers, dirt bikes and dune buggies — has exploded, up 700% to 36 million users since 1976. Off-road motorized sports are now a $4.8-billion industry. According to buyer surveys by manufacturers, 68% of owners of all-terrain vehicles, or ATVs, ride on private land.

That infuriates landowners like Harlan Brown, who installed heat and motion sensitive cameras to catch off-road miscreants who created a muddy quagmire in his 100-acre Maine woods.

"Your land is not your land," said his wife, Judy. "You think it is, but it's not. It's terrible."

The clashes have made victims of riders as well as property owners.

In North Carolina three years ago, Joshua Woodruff, 22, died of internal injuries after he hit a steel cable while zooming down a private farm lane on his ATV. Farmer Ted Arnold said in an interview he had strung up the cable after making many complaints to police about trash, crop destruction and soil erosion from off-roaders. Arnold said he had liberally posted no-trespassing signs and warned off riders. No criminal charges were filed against him.

State and local officials in Maine, Vermont, Ohio, Minnesota, Wyoming and Michigan in recent years have enacted or are weighing measures to combat illegal off-roading. Homeowners say the laws do little to curb abuse, and off-roaders argue that some violate civil rights.

In California's booming Inland Empire, Riverside County supervisors are expected to vote this summer on what could be the nation's toughest law. The current draft would ban the activity on private property four days a week, even on the riders' property. Riding would be banned outright on private lots under 2 1/2 acres. Grading to create jumps, trails or tracks would require a costly permit and public hearings.

Off-roading "is increasingly dangerous, destructive and very difficult to control, except at huge public expense," said Buster, the Riverside supervisor. The county has long been a mecca for professional dirt bikers and weekend amateurs, and riders are outraged at the attempt to rein them in.

"That is total insanity," said Ed Waldheim, president of the California Off-Road Vehicle Assn. "Off-roading is the most incredible family sport there is, and to deny a kid riding on Sunday … that is repressive, totally crazy."

Clashes between riders and residents have been frequent in subdivisions that are being carved out of open space, on private property near national forests, and in rural areas — including northern New England and the California desert — where snowmobilers, school kids on dirt bikes and others were once free to barrel across unfenced, unposted land.

"Back in the '60s when I was growing up it was like the whole desert was wide open," said Brian Klock, spokesman for the California State Parks' off-highway vehicle program. "I literally would ride anywhere…. There were no signs, no maps, the only thing I knew was when you got near a residence sometimes the landowner didn't like it, and he would be out there with a shotgun."

Phoenix, suburban Atlanta, towns across Connecticut and the outskirts of Colorado cities all have seen urban sprawl bump up against popular cross-country routes, said Russ Ehnes, executive director of the National Off-Highway Vehicle Conservation Council in Sheboygan, Wis. "The problem is the town spreads out and the trail stays put," he said.

Inland California is a particular hotspot.

"My 23 acres near Twentynine Palms are being massacred by off road vehicles," M.J. "Mac" Dube, the ex-mayor of Twentynine Palms and an aide to San Bernardino county supervisor Bill Postmus, said on a recent Saturday. "At 1:15 in the morning they were spinning around two feet from my bedroom, and I'm sick and tired of it."

Dube spoke at a February conference in Joshua Tree entitled "Desert Communities Under Siege — Take Back the Power."

Speaker after speaker told of sleepless nights, clouds of dust and rocks, cut fences, hurled curses and threats, and return visits by off-roaders to carve permanent ruts in their yards after they had complained to sheriffs.

When Philip M. Klasky, co-founder of Community ORV Watch, hears the familiar guttural rumble in the Mojave Desert's Wonder Valley, he climbs a ladder to his roof to locate the trespassers on his 15 acres.

"Many, many times … I've stood in front of two growling ATVs on my land and said 'you are trespassing.' They just continue on their way …. They tell you time and time again, 'This is a free country, I'll ride any place I want,' even though they're on private property.

"They have complete carte blanche to go wherever they want because there's nobody available to catch them," he said. "It is a complete Wild West situation."

Riders can and often do leave police in the dust. With two officers per shift to patrol 5,200 square miles, and more serious crimes taking priority, Capt. Jim Williams of the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department admitted it took up to four hours to respond to a trespassing complaint.

As the pastime's popularity has skyrocketed, access to public lands has also shrunk.

Since the Bush administration took office, federal land managers have rolled back some closures. But since 1980, half of 13.5-million formerly ridable acres in the California desert alone have been lost, according to the Off-Highway Motor Vehicle Recreation Commission. There are an estimated 100,000 miles of dirt roads and trails across the state, but most require a lengthy drive to reach, says Klock, the state parks official.

"There's no place to ride," said Ryan Macdhubhain, 16, of San Marcos, a mud-splattered teen who wears rivets in his earlobes and a white bandana over his spiky black hair. "It's ridiculous."

Macdhubhain was riding his Suzuki motorcycle in Riverside County on a recent Sunday when he was stopped by sheriff's deputies while he was on private undeveloped land. He said it wouldn't quell his love of the sport. "I go off riding really hard and get it out," he said. "It's adrenaline."

He said he tried to avoid riding near peoples' homes, but sometimes strayed. On some occasions, those encounters led to yelling matches with property owners — even though Macdhubhain said he tried to treat unhappy residents with respect if they did the same with him.

Lobbyists and manufacturers say off-roaders are a law-abiding bunch tainted by the actions of a misguided minority.

"A very, very small percentage of people can do a lot of harm … But it's a small percentage," said Mike Mount of the Specialty Vehicle Institute of America in Irvine.

Hogwash, said George Buchner, now of Tallahassee, Fla., who said he was "run out of Michigan by off-roaders" who broke his nose, threatened his life, ran over his wife's leg and destroyed his trout stream.

Buchner said although he sometimes dealt with a polite family that got lost on his land while riding, most were "25-year-old motor heads high on pot with a belly full of beer."

Promoters say educating riders and providing legal riding areas is the best solution.

Public parks and private tracks do exist, including one in West Virginia where officials have turned tensions into a profit-making venture.

In five years, the Hatfield-McCoy Regional Recreation Authority has carved 500 miles of trail through 250,000 acres of private land in eight counties. More than 400 property owners signed on, including coal mining and timber giants who had grown tired of steep insurance bills and trespassing near blast areas and logging sites.

Admission fees now pay the insurance bills. A dedicated police force patrols for rowdy behavior or trespassing off trails, which are marked with discreet Kawasaki and Suzuki logos.

The area has turned into a major tourist attraction, said Hatfield-McCoy executive director Matt Ballard, drawing tens of thousands of riders and pumping millions into the dirt-poor Appalachia economy.

Klock, of the state parks off-highway vehicle program, said he would love to see such a project in California but doubted it would happen. Even if one owner went for it, his neighbors wouldn't.

With 14% of all homeowners statewide saying they own an off-road vehicle, and millions of new residents, he predicts off-road disputes on private land will continue to rage.

"For every 100 people you put into a new housing development, 14 are going to have a dirt bike. So where are they going to go riding? In the vacant lot that's the soon-to-be subdivision next door."

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tm...08/ts_latimes/twovisionsofthecountrysideclash
 
Good deal, the fat-assed ATVers are doing a fine job of getting themselves banned from private AND public lands. Couldnt happen to a nicer group of people.
 
If the Ohio farmer was in Arizona he could have blown the head off the more aggressive attacker thus sending a warm welcome to others who were of the same ilk. There exist criminals, lunatics and pigs in every segment. Thanks so much for continuing to reprint every news article in the country on this subject as it makes the site so much more interesting and hunting oriented.
 
Speaking of the fat ass crowd...

I went trukey hunting on the Eastern Shore last weekend. The state purchased a pile of land from a big paper company a few years ago... anyway over the course of the last few years they have been opening this land up to the public for hunting/fishing etc... In the form of 200- 3000 acres at a time.

Its against the law in MD to ride an ATV on State owned land, yet every road that I've been on in the new sections have ATV tracks on em, and most are fresh, even last fall when I was on a nother peice... fresh tracks... I will say that for the most part they are on the trails... The only reason is because the trees are too thick for them to drive off the road though... and the ditches are to deep and muddy.

Even baning them from areas won't stop them from breaking the law...

I also saw a bunch of them the other day riding their bikes/atvs/ etc on a fuggn baseball/soccer field in a park in town... The cops just sit and watch as they trash the park because they know that there is no way to catch them, and the money and man power required would be better spent catching worse offenders... i.e. solving the 80+ murders so far this year. ;)

No ammount of restrictions is going to keep the fat ass crowd from breaking the law... Just look that the first article. They were on private land and could give a rats azz what they were destroying or even disreguard to people. And they wonder why they get a bad wrap...
 
ELKCHSR, "WHY???" 'Cuz I wanna see if they've given up yet. Here's another good article in today's news:

Chicken Ticketed for Crossing the Road

"The chicken's owners say they believe they were cited because they were among several people who complained that sheriff's deputies haven't done enough to control off-road vehicle riders who damage roads and create dust and noise in their neighborhood.........."

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050509/ap_on_fe_st/chicken_ticketed
 
Bambi,

Good post and good point. It seems like around here, the further an area is from bozeman or other population centers, the more the trail restrictions are violated. I cant tell you how many times I have seen ATV tracks all over trails that are closed all together or under seasonal closure, trail signs ripped off, etc. They are going to end up closed out of a lot of areas around here and I'm sure there will be some violators. But, I think there will be less problems in areas with larger closed areas or blanket closures. An ATV trailer or unloading ramps will stick out pretty bad at the trailhead if ATV's aren't allowed in the area. just my opinion.
 
Ringer, you are so right.....There ARE a lot of loser/treehuggin', faggot, LIBERAL commies on this site!!!! Thanks for the heads-up.....WHAT A BUNCH OF LOSERS HERE!!!!!!
 

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