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ATVs Wreak Havoc in Forest Lands
1/12/03
By Skip Knowles, The Salt Lake Tribune
When the hunting question pops up and people ask how I can kill animals, and I tell them it is because it still is illegal to shoot all-terrain vehicles.
ATV enthusiasts had better get their act together, fast, because responsible users of the outdoors are eager to do it for them.
Yes, most riders stay on-trail. But someone is wreaking havoc in national forests and scarring the Wasatch Front with illegal trails stretching down like varicose veins from the hills, and it is not elves.
There is nothing like hiking two hours into a remote area to be there when the sun rises only to have some slob with a jelly doughnut in one hand throttle up and shout "Howdy!" loud enough to be heard over his engine.
But most of the time, they do not even see you.
State big game manager Steve Cranney is not up for Presidential Fitness awards, but as an ethical black-powder hunter, he enjoys getting well off the trail and into the timber.
He feels like ATVs are getting way out of hand. Far from a legal road, he has seen guys on ATVs cruising through timber, passing right by him, oblivious. One such "hunter" even claimed to be stalking game he had spotted!
"What kind of hunting experience is that?" Cranney asks.
ATVs are ugly, noisy, polluting, erosion-boosters that are antithetical to all that is natural. They keep people out of touch with nature and out of physical shape.
Sadly, deer that would flee from a natural predator often stand and stare at these alien machines and are shot. This validates the use of machines to these "hunters."
It hardly is all hunters who trash the hills; weekend joy-riders also tear up the Wasatch Front. ATVs finally degraded the Bountiful foothills to the point reclamation efforts pushed them from 90 percent of the area. I have seen up to eight illegal trails in 100 yards on the Farmington Loop, and was tailed by an ATV as I hiked down the mountain with a friend last weekend. Illegal and off-trail, of course.
I had used my feet, and it didn't even hurt.
It is not the machines. I love riding them; I hate their illegal use. ATVs are dangerous but exhilarating.
They do not, however, belong in the forest. Vast parks exist in the desert on BLM land where people can kill themselves if they want to.
We lost one of the best diversity-advocate politicians this state has seen, badly needed Democratic state senator Pete Suazo, to a four-wheeler while bowhunting two years ago. ATVs kill and paralyze an awful lot of people -- every rider knows a now-dead one -- but personal safety is another issue.
Getting them kicked off the public land is not, but is proving surprisingly easy in a state in which it seems every middle-class garage has an ATV. They are doing it themselves. An old Nevada cowboy I met in Salina calls them "wilderness makers."
"Every time I see one of them being used illegally," he told me, "I know that area is one step closer to being closed off to everyone."
Each year, ugly new lacerations appear across the deep grass meadows of the high Uintas, and miscreants ride illegally up to a mile off-road on the edge of Skyline drive, too lazy to walk to the edge of the stunning bowls.
Last year, two drove right through our deer camp, well off road, sparking a confrontation. My 60-year-old mother, the sweetest woman you ever will meet, once lost her cool and confronted ATV idiots driving through timber while she deer-hunted -- "are you guys animal rights activists or what?"
They should be banned completely from at least half the state's forests. Regular truck access is plenty for hunting purposes, way too good for mule deer and elk populations, actually.
Handicapped hunters do well hunting from vehicles. I know, my brother is a 26-year-old with cerebral palsy. Many times we have ridden the backroads, chasing grouse. If we got a handle on illegal road-hunters, the pickings would be much better for legal handicapped road hunters.
Besides, nobody wants to ban handicapped people from hunting with ATVs.
Just the doughnut-munching slobs.
1/12/03
By Skip Knowles, The Salt Lake Tribune
When the hunting question pops up and people ask how I can kill animals, and I tell them it is because it still is illegal to shoot all-terrain vehicles.
ATV enthusiasts had better get their act together, fast, because responsible users of the outdoors are eager to do it for them.
Yes, most riders stay on-trail. But someone is wreaking havoc in national forests and scarring the Wasatch Front with illegal trails stretching down like varicose veins from the hills, and it is not elves.
There is nothing like hiking two hours into a remote area to be there when the sun rises only to have some slob with a jelly doughnut in one hand throttle up and shout "Howdy!" loud enough to be heard over his engine.
But most of the time, they do not even see you.
State big game manager Steve Cranney is not up for Presidential Fitness awards, but as an ethical black-powder hunter, he enjoys getting well off the trail and into the timber.
He feels like ATVs are getting way out of hand. Far from a legal road, he has seen guys on ATVs cruising through timber, passing right by him, oblivious. One such "hunter" even claimed to be stalking game he had spotted!
"What kind of hunting experience is that?" Cranney asks.
ATVs are ugly, noisy, polluting, erosion-boosters that are antithetical to all that is natural. They keep people out of touch with nature and out of physical shape.
Sadly, deer that would flee from a natural predator often stand and stare at these alien machines and are shot. This validates the use of machines to these "hunters."
It hardly is all hunters who trash the hills; weekend joy-riders also tear up the Wasatch Front. ATVs finally degraded the Bountiful foothills to the point reclamation efforts pushed them from 90 percent of the area. I have seen up to eight illegal trails in 100 yards on the Farmington Loop, and was tailed by an ATV as I hiked down the mountain with a friend last weekend. Illegal and off-trail, of course.
I had used my feet, and it didn't even hurt.
It is not the machines. I love riding them; I hate their illegal use. ATVs are dangerous but exhilarating.
They do not, however, belong in the forest. Vast parks exist in the desert on BLM land where people can kill themselves if they want to.
We lost one of the best diversity-advocate politicians this state has seen, badly needed Democratic state senator Pete Suazo, to a four-wheeler while bowhunting two years ago. ATVs kill and paralyze an awful lot of people -- every rider knows a now-dead one -- but personal safety is another issue.
Getting them kicked off the public land is not, but is proving surprisingly easy in a state in which it seems every middle-class garage has an ATV. They are doing it themselves. An old Nevada cowboy I met in Salina calls them "wilderness makers."
"Every time I see one of them being used illegally," he told me, "I know that area is one step closer to being closed off to everyone."
Each year, ugly new lacerations appear across the deep grass meadows of the high Uintas, and miscreants ride illegally up to a mile off-road on the edge of Skyline drive, too lazy to walk to the edge of the stunning bowls.
Last year, two drove right through our deer camp, well off road, sparking a confrontation. My 60-year-old mother, the sweetest woman you ever will meet, once lost her cool and confronted ATV idiots driving through timber while she deer-hunted -- "are you guys animal rights activists or what?"
They should be banned completely from at least half the state's forests. Regular truck access is plenty for hunting purposes, way too good for mule deer and elk populations, actually.
Handicapped hunters do well hunting from vehicles. I know, my brother is a 26-year-old with cerebral palsy. Many times we have ridden the backroads, chasing grouse. If we got a handle on illegal road-hunters, the pickings would be much better for legal handicapped road hunters.
Besides, nobody wants to ban handicapped people from hunting with ATVs.
Just the doughnut-munching slobs.
