WY trespass

[Irrelevant]

Good to keep informed on the topic. I liked that someone brought up the idea of making it easier to go after landowner who illegally block access to public lands.
https://www.wyofile.com/lawmakers-eye-stricter-trespass-laws-at-agricultures-request/

 

[Big Fin]

From the later part of the article.

Chad Trebby works for the Gillette College Police Department, but spoke to lawmakers not in his official role but as “a private citizen and sportsman,” he said. The judiciary committee meeting was held on that campus.

“I agree that the proposed legislation does strengthen landowners’ rights and … I’m all in favor of that,” Trebby said. “But as a sportsman I think there is some other landowner rights that needs to be considered… and that is public landowner rights.”

While hunting, Trebby uses current GPS technologies and maps to stay off private property, he told lawmakers. But he’s run into efforts by landowners to block his access to public lands, he said. He’s seen fence lines well off private property lines marked with no-trespassing signs and blocking valuable hunting grounds, he said. He’s had confrontations with landowners who attempted to run him off public lands, claiming it as their own when he knew better, Trebby said.

Trebby suggested if the committee is going to make it easier to prosecute the public for trespassing it also should consider accountability for landowners who block access to public lands.
“As we look at revisiting our trespass issues, maybe it would be appropriate to consider something to the effect of interfering with public land access as an inverse response to trespassing [penalties],” he said.

Lawmakers did not act on his suggestion, with several suggesting it was not relevant to the laws being discussed.

Thanks for posting the article.

Being from Montana and reading this article and the lack of interest in reciprocity with regards to trespass and illegal posting of public lands is like Yogi Berra's "Deja Vu all over again." If I had a chance to put money on the outcome, I would place my money that this legislative committee will never, no matter the evidence provided and fairness it creates, find illegal posting of public lands to be "relevant to the laws being discussed."

 

[dirtclod Az.]

Fences are there for a purpose.I climb fences for progress. CONSERVATION>
Hunting is conservation.

 

[ImBillT]

I believe that private property rights are deeply important. I also believe that public land rights are deeply important. I encountered misleading signage and even a locked gate across a public road, and have been run off of public land by the adjacent land owner claiming that the maps I was using were wrong. We definitely need some improvement in the way we handle illegal posting of public land.

I think some improvement in PR would be of great value. Last season while hunting state trust land in NM the adjacent landowner struck up a conversation with me and offered my the opportunity to hunt his private land that bordered the state trust land completely free of charge and even offered to take me through his neighbor’s property and use his ATV to recover an animal if I happened to shoot one on the back side of his property where the only nearby roads where his neighbor’s. I thanked him and mentioned how different his attitude was compared to others that I’d encountered during the hunt. He replied “well I’m not greedy, and we’re supposed to let you hunt state lands, so I’d rather just be helpful, but I see why other ranchers act that way. We pay good money to lease these lands and try to make a living and then you hunters just show up for free and do your thing, and it’s just not fair. I can tell you’re going to respect my property and not shoot my cows or tear up my equipment, but some hunters cause a lot of problems”. Not wanting to appear ungrateful I left it at that and thanked him again for his generosity. However, I wanted to say, “we lease these lands too. I payed $65 for a hunting license, $9 in stamps, $13 for the application and $270 for the deer tag, and part of that money goes toward leasing state trust land for the purpose of hunting during hunting seasons” The rancher only leases the ranching rights, and the hunter leases the hunting rights, in my case, only the deer hunting rights and only for a seven day scouting period followed by a five day hunting period, with no right to camp. Anyway, the point is that even the most generous private land owner in likely to encounter in the state of NM did not seem to understand the situation, and although he went above and beyond in offering me the opportunity to hunt land that he was in no way obligated to, he seemed to view it as generous even to allow me to hunt state trust land without a hassle. For someone so generous to look at it from such a perspective, I believe that the state is not doing a very good job of representing the situation to the leaseholders, and hunters are probably not representing themselves in the best way possible either.