Real Hunters who subscribe to the "fair chase" docterine do not and will not utilize All-terrain vehicles(ATV) in stalking their prey......Have we become the UNITED STATES OF ENTERTAINMENT where the only thing that matters in every walk of life is immediacy and ease of accomplishment?........... Can we no longer derive satisfaction from preparation, hard work,persistance and sacrifice?............. If ever there was a place for "old school" policies and behavior to persist, it is in the woods, fields and meadows where the "thrill of victory and the agony of defeat" should continue to play out for hunters persuing their quarry.....................NO to ATV"S

 

How Much Should Hunters With ATVs Be Regulated?

Across the West, bills favoring motorized hunting gain favor, but many tracking elk and other animals on foot or horseback resent the disruption of off-road engines.

By Kimberly Hira

	Image by Flickr user Marada.

The hunters stalked their game for hours, carefully taking note of scat and tracks the herd left behind. They hunted on foot through the West's backcountry wilds, through brush and over mountains. A rumble in the distance sounded like the characteristic clap of a Rocky Mountain thunderstorm. It spooked the elk. Over the hill emerged a firearm-clad off-road vehicle rider.

Many hunters contend they should be protected from noisy, ungulate-frightening machines when out seeking their prey. And in numerous states they are, with rules keeping hunters on ATVs tied to major roadways instead of backcountry paths.

 But ATV advocates want those restrictions changed, and across the West lawmakers continue to propose bills favoring motorized uses for hunting.  In Idaho, the issue is coming to a head, where a back-and-forth on whether hunters can use ATVs to access wilderness is under way.

This spring, Idaho's Senate considered, but ultimately tabled, two bills that would have prevented Fish and Game from regulating off-highway vehicle (OHV) hunters who use the brawn of a machine to reach their prey rather than hunting by foot or horse. The bills failed, but Fish and Game came back in July requesting public comment on a new rule that would impose motorized vehicle restrictions on trophy hunters (for moose, sheep and mountain goats) where the restrictions already apply to big game hunters (deer, elk and bear).

A 2002 regulation currently governs the state's motorized hunters. It prevents hunters from using the ATV trails that recreational off-roaders do in 31 hunting units south of the Salmon River. So hunters with OHVs are currently chained to roadways used by full-size automobiles while hunters who hike or ride horses have greater access to backcountry.

The shelved bills, 1015 and 1016, would have stripped Idaho Fish and Game's ability to regulate where hunters can drive their vehicles in a third of its 99 hunting units.

Lew Pence, a 70-year-old hunter from, Gooding, Idaho, voiced his concern and desire to keep the hunting woods quiet when he testified before Idaho's House and Senate resource committees in a February hearing on the bills: The real hunter does not hunt wildlife with vehicles, he said.

While Fish and Game is currently taking comment on the proposed rule, an Idaho natural resources interim committee plans to explore solutions to the previously shelved bills. But too often, trying to troubleshoot a balance between non-motorized hunters and off-highway vehicle hunters is like spotting a gray wolf through the scope.

Non-motorized hunters wonder whether use of a vehicle to access game animals like elk and deer in the backcountry should be allowed under a "fair chase" ethic. They also argue technology takes the skill out of hunting. But advocates of ATV-based hunting say the vehicles are not a hunting aid like dogs or bait, just a means of getting to hunting grounds. So a few motorized vehicle hunters who act out are causing conflict when most may be law-abiding and respectful.

But fish and game commissioners cite impacts to wildlife populations: Elk and deer were subject to greater harvest with more hunters in the backcountry. The issue over motorized hunting is not new to the West; Idaho is simply the next locus of action where hunters must weigh in on the appropriateness of off-highway vehicles in the backcountry.

Other states have struggled with the same dilemma and also shelved proposals, leaving the matter unresolved as the number of OHV users increases. In 2003, Nevada hunters traveling by foot blamed hunters on vehicles for dashed hunting opportunities and public land damage. A group in the state then proposed a regulation that would have prevented hunters and trappers carrying a hunting weapon from straying more than 25 yards off an established road.

That idea got pushed to the side. But the same arguments appeared elsewhere — hunters using off-road vehicle users were cast with blame over newly dug trails on public lands. Individuals hunting by foot or on horse had their experience ruined by the resounding hum of an off-road vehicle chasing their carefully stalked prey away.

Complicating Idaho's debate is the ability of campers, landscape chasers and berry-pickers operating off-road vehicles recreationally to travel on trails and paths, though hunters using those same vehicles cannot. The rules of the game aren't the same for all, and lawmakers have yet to address this discrepancy.

Whether or not the new Fish and Game rule goes through, the issue won't be left in ATV trail dust — Idaho Conservation League associate Brad Smith says the debate "seems to be kind of a perennial issue in the Idaho Legislature the last few years and I'm not certain how much longer it will go on until the legislature finally passes something."