Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Sale of public lands and drilling everywhere

I realize this is not a political forum but there is a very serious threat to all of us fellow hunters. The current regime in the white house has just authorized the sale of massive amounts of public land. I for one truly don't want this to happen.

My hunting days are limited but I want my sons to have some of the wonderful opportunities I have had. The future is bleak indeed.

As a concerned community we need to oppose this with everything we've got. Flame on but this is a very real concern to me.

David Boston

Link?

All I've seen is a proposal by US representative Jason Chaffetz of Utah. Utah has been fighting this battle for decades. Nothing from "The White House".

http://www.denverpost.com/2017/01/07/trumps-bulwark-against-selling-off-federal-land/




David

Where's this coming from? Do you have some wires crossed?

? ? ? D P immediately raises ?? To me.

? Maybe Fake News ?

Will be alert.

Jerry

That article makes it appear that the new administration is _opposed_ to that particular type of tax money giveaway.

I also STRONGLY OPPOSE the giveaway of federal lands (and cash, and benefits, and ...) at this point.

The future is bleak? Hell the future was bleak with the prospect of Hillary.

Hunting on public lands would be under severe fire from the greenies, and who can afford to hunt when they are unemployed?

If you don't see the future in this country as the brightest it's been in 30 years, you're missing the big picture.

Utah's large land owners and investors want the public lands under state controls. The LDS chruch the largest ranching and land leasing concern in Utah favors this.

If the public lands become state controlled they will be sold to these powerful orgs. They will be gated and you will pay high fees to hunt. The LDS church owned Deseret Ranches charge $10,000 for an elk.

It's not coming from the White House, but from some western states' congressmen and senators. Jason Chaffetz from UT put out HR 621 that called for the sale of 3+ million acres of lands that were tagged for disposal under Clinton. LOTS of folks have been making him and their representatives know that is unacceptable. He has since killed the bill.

The fight is just beginning!

Chaffetz is withdrawing the bill

http://www.idahostatesman.com/news/...ters-from-the-west/article130291054.html

drover

Thanks I was concerned but this will come up again.

I would like to see the gummint get a fair price for the stuff companies take from public lands, like timber, oil, minerals, grazing and such. Not much in favor of selling any off, but transferring some to the states is okay, as long as it can't be sold by them afterwards. I've seen too much public property in the East sold off in sweetheart deals to developer friends of public officials to go for that. To paraphrase Chico Marx, they're honest, but you've got to watch them a little bit.

Be advised that the Sierra Club has expanded its agenda to all sorts of left wing causes, such as abortion, transgender bath rooms, immigration and many other causes that have no impact on the environment. They were founded to support a good clean outdoors, but they have gone ballistic with just about every left leaning social issue. That includes utilizing fake news! They lost me long ago....

Jack

The above is absolutely and completely false. Trump is on the record opposing the sale or transfer of public lands; Don, Jr., is a massive supporter of sportsmen and public lands; and, SecInterior Ryan Zinke is on the record and strongly opposed to the sale or transfer of public lands.

If anything, we have a far GREATER degree of support for sportsmen and public lands in DC than we have had for decades.

I remain unconvinced, and now is NOT the time to relax vigilance. Aside from TR, Republicans have historically and notoriously been poor on conservation issues. A case in point is the current H.R. 622 which is just another Republican's attempt to weaken Fed Land Mgmt. It's its own sort of Trojan Horse, chipping away at Public Lands.

And while Zinke opposes the transfer of federal public lands to the states, he supports transferring management of federal lands to the states in some circumstances. Zinke voted for a bill sponsored by Rep. Raul Labrador (R-Idaho) that would transfer management of up to four million of acres of federal public lands to states and counties. Under such a scenario, federal environmental laws that protect wildlife, clean water and clean air would not apply to these lands.

I think it remains unclear what sort of Interior Secretary Zinke will be. Will he be a James Watt's? I'm hopeful he won't, but I'm not going to relax on this.

I wrote Zinke this morning on HR622...

Well stated.

I have to admit to having mixed feelings with this issue. I am quite conservative, but I do enjoy climbing, backpacking, and hunting-all on public lands. Being in southern Idaho, most all the recreation I do is on either National Forest or BLM land.
I think 4ager and Brad both make some good points.
I am cautiously optimistic, but, as stated in this thread, we need to stay vigilant.

Not to stir the pot any, but a lot of the land earmarked for "disposal" has no access to it for the public.

I am not saying that a bill like this is not the camel's nose under the tent, but little bits and pieces left over from the homestead days are difficult and very costly to manage.

Here is another link about this bill. Proud of the Montanan's that opposed this. http://usuncut.com/resistance/hunters-fishermen-public-land/

Count me as one Montanan that did...

Well, maybe if you get on a high spot, with good binoculars, you might ever be able to see this land that is our heritage, economy and so forth.

Thats about as close as you are gonna get most times anyway.

I certainly don't want to see public lands sold, but according to that article linked, the sales would have been of parcels that aren't useful. Fact or fiction? Is the opposition to this sale rooted in a knee-jerk fear of slippery slope or were there parcels that see heavy public use for hunting, etc. involved. I'd like to see those who oppose this sale post up something specific. I agree that staying vigilant against the sale of public land is a good idea but if it isn't being used because it is landlocked, etc., why oppose it?

I think that there are probably tens of thousands of small land-locked parcels of BLM property that could be sold without causing any negative impact to other American Citizens.

For example, my MIL owns a ranch in Colorado that has two land-locked pieces of BLM land within its boundaries. One is a whole section, 640 acres, and the other is approximately 67 acres. She leases the grazing rights for almost nothing, but would be happy to pay fair market value for those 707+/- acres just to be rid of the aggravation of dealing with the leases and to have the opportunity to improve that land. I'm reasonably sure that a majority of ranch owners who are in similar situations would also like to buy their land-locked leases.

Exactly

Being a former Utahn, they want ALL federal,lands . What they can't mine or drill for oil will be sold. We need to drive a stake in this. Utah has many what they call cwmu- Cooperative wildlife management units. You pay to play on those. They get extended seasons. The cooperative part is that they give the state some portion of the bull/buck tags to the state, and more of the antlerless tags. I would bet that much of this land would end up in cwmu

As guy who has supported Trump virtually from the beginning, my biggest reservation I have about him is the management of federal lands here in the west.

Our problem is most of the senators and congressman we send to Washington are in the pockets of the traditional resource extraction industries, and most of the Republicans who come kfrom outside of the interior west have this Hollywood view of limitless tracts of land that can never be "used up".

It all begins and ends with habitat. Without functioning, unfragmented habitat, there is no wildlife, without wildlife there is no hunting. Despite most Republicans who claim to support hunting, they are usually entirely unable to connect those three, simple dots.

What's worse is most of the critical habitat (read: winter habitat) occurs at lower elevations on BLM and private land. BLM is the most resource extraction oriented federal land agency of all. And this is where most energy extraction occurs.

Chaffetz bill is something he introduces practically every year since he has been in Congress and is considered a "message bill". Even though he has withdrawn it, it may well pop up again in some form. And given the current environment in Washington it does cause me concern.

Although it completely belies the stereotyping on places like the 'Fire, sportsman's groups and environmental groups have partnered up to preserve/protect public lands in the past, and I am aware of a LOT of conversation going on between sportsman's and environmental groups currently because of what they have seen since Trump's election.

Employees in the Interior Dept resource agencies I have talked to are generally pleased (relieved) with the choice of Zinke for Secretary, but nobody in the Dept of Ag (USFS) knows a thing about Perdue. And I got a feeling Perdue probably doesn't know a thing about NF management issues.

Here in Colorado I'm not too worried about transfer of federal lands. One of the very few good things about the three million immigrants into my state over the last 25 years is most of them have moved here for the "Outdoor Lifestyle" and a lot of them have money and connections. Transfer of federal lands probably ain't gonna happen in Colorado. Gov Hickenlooper is already on record as opposing it.

If tomorrow we had state by state ballot initiatives in the interior west and the west coast concerning the transfer of public lands, the vote would be an overwhelming "NO".

Casey

And as 4ager mentioned, the word on the grapevine is Don and Eric Trump do understand a bit about wildlife conservation and are pro federal lands.

Casey

Good post Brad, I figured you would be in the know.....


Casey

Or...if your MIL were to be put up the ranch for sale eventually, BLM or another agency could purchase it and open a nice size chunk up to the public. Doesnt it work both ways? I know that how most of the state forest and game lands were procured where Im from.

All the rifles in the world are no good to me without game and country to roam. Game needs habitat, the population is growing, growing population needs a place to live, shop, haul there garbage to, etc. The more land set aside for Game, the better. This is why I am much more generous to wildlife based sportsman organizations than just gun/2nd amendment organizations. Both have there places, but one has seen a surge, not so much for the other.

In the 1980's the Reagan/Watt/Hodel Triad declared they were going to do just that. They ostensibly said that certain parcels of inaccessible lands could be sold or traded for other private lands to consolidate NF lands with small private inholdings within the NF.

They started with USFS lands. Each National Forest created a citizen group who were instructed to create a list of parcels of NF properties that were landlocked or "flagpoled" into private lands, or otherwise inaccessible for public use.

My father was on the citizen's committee for the Uncompahgre National Forest.

The committee my father was on spent over a year, meeting once or twice a month to identify these lands and create the list. Then handed it over to the Forest Service, where it made it's way back to Washington to the Dept of Agriculture. The list recommended 102 parcels of land to be sold or traded.

A year later the "revised" list came back from the Dept Of Ag. Of the 102 parcels the Uncompahgre committee recommended, only THREE of the original parcels were on the list. The rest of the parcels recommended were prime water, private access, and energy/mining parcels.

The same thing was happening with all the other committees across the west.

The [bleep] hit the fan, and the Reagan administration dropped the whole scam.

Today, in polysci 101 in colleges here in the west, this is often used as an example of how Washington can sometimes work.

Casey

We need to be informed, vigilant and ready to fight when needed. Our hunting heritage is at stake here. I think this forum excels when there is a good exchange of information and little in the way of piss wars. We have bigger issues that will affect all of us regardless of our political views.

As I posted before this will come up again. Let's be ready.

David Boston

I don't want our public lands sold. But I do want them open to drill and mine. Sell mineral leases. Set standards and enforce the standards. The people enjoy a new revenue stream and good jobs. And it is done where there was no economic production of relevance before.
On the federal leases in the Gulf of Mexico. The operator of the lease pays a lease fee determined by highest bidder then 12 % of the production. With some exceptions for royalty relief on marginal prospects. Under the Rockies are some huge prospects for oil and gas that would make a difference for our National economy, likewise in Alaska. The Oceans off the east coast are untapped. If done responsibly, everybody wins.

Years ago, I saw them use a helicopter to haze some big bulls away from moving onto public land, from one of these ranches.

Some WYO hunters were salivating, waiting by a Wyo reservoir for a rogue bull to get there.
The helicopter was moving elk, already crossing into public lands, back onto the ranch.

The LDS Church and Ted Turner are the two largest landowners in Nebraska. I don't think either allows any recreational trespassing on their properties.

But hazing with a helicopter on public land, to get elk back onto private land should be illegal......I would hope anyways.

Takes some big money to use helicopters to patrol a private ranch.
Deseret ranch must be making some big money there.

What is wrong with selling public land that no one can access?

Why not trade inaccessible land acre-for-acre for accessible?

The sale of public lands has been advocated by a number of conservative Republicans for years; maybe it will happen under a Trump Administration.

You have to find someone to trade with you. Not sure why someone would trade the 'public' land that only they have access to for land that anyone can have access to.

Ya have to factor in that it was all government land at one time. Some other governments, that the land owners got to keep title to when governments changed. Lots of what is now private land, our government gave to the railroads, for building them, plus money too. In other words, the government selling land is not new, or trading it for something they wanted. miles

To that last part, I'd agree but only with qualifications. Many in the Legislative branch are those trying to undo a very unique and valuable legacy.

The fly in this ointment, IMO, is how one defines access. Many consider it inaccessible if they can't drive to it.

I don't have any faith that wholesale drilling and mining would be done without big problems on our public lands. In this era of deregulate just about everything, I especially don't trust the part about setting and enforcing standards; there is too much likelihood of fraud and corruption, or just plain error. And with the return of the idea that it's okay for coal mines to dump their mine waste and fill streams, why should we expect better on our public lands? Consider all the miles of streams polluted by existing mines.

If you want to see a mess, take a look on Wikimapia at the Bakken oil area on the MT/ND border. Looks like a bad case of acne. Lotsa money being made I assume, but Which of the public lands you hunt or fish do you want covereed with a rash of oil wells or coal mines?

I call it inaccessible if all the land around it is PRIVATE and they only way on is to get permission to cross said private land.

This was posted by Rock Chuck, kinda telling ain't it?


[quote=Rock Chuck]Before you scream too loudly, take a look at this map. I pulled a screen shot of a map in SE Idaho where there a quite a few small parcels listed in the bill.
white is private
yellow is BLM
pink is state
green is Nat Forest

Note that there are quite a few small BLM plots completely surrounded by private land. There are no roads to them so there is no access to them if the landowners post their land. We can't use the land, the feds can't use it. The only way to gain access is to buy the land for roads and that would cost a lot more than it's worth.
I'm sure this isn't the case with all of the affected parcels, but it does apply to a bunch of them in Idaho. Since they're landlocked, the only potential buyers are the owners of the adjacent lands.

So the above is my definition of inaccessible ain't I don't see many flies in that ointment.

What about flying in?

What part of surrounded by private land is tough to grasp?

The BLM actually trades non accessible land for accessible.It usually is not acre for acre but works out good for both parties.

Yeah, it happens just about every year in Montana.

Nothing. Flying in would not require permission of crossing private land to enter, which was a qualifier in your first response. It's being done yearly in some spots with the Durfee Hills of Montana being nearly infamous for it.

True, but flying in is not generally affordable which means, practically speaking, the land isn't accessible to the public.

Hence my problem with all manner of folks having to define "accessible". Means are not a good litmus test IMO. Lots of things I cannot or choose not to afford at this time. Like a pack trip into the Bob Marshall Wilderness. Or a float plane into interior Alaska.

These sales or trades are legitimate. But the land locked or isolated parcels frequently turn into sanctuaries and honey holes due to lack of hunting. When I have tags I look for these and where Elk and deer may come and go to access them as a good places to hunt.

The drone being tested in Norway will carry 600lbs

Nytimes has an article regarding drones today-
https://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2017/02/13/world/middleeast/ap-ml-dubai-passenger-drone.html?_r=0

Don't sell our children out because we can't imagine the future.

I'm a proponent of public lands, but that argument is weak and ridiculous.

I don't care about your children.

You shouldn't be quoting the New York Slimes. It undermines your credibility.

Geeze,won't anyone on here consider that much federal land is badly managed? Huge wildfires, which destroy habitat or at least the desirable attributes of an area?
And why is there bad management? Because of bad federal law that paralyzes the agencies. By the time the anti-capitalist greens get done attacking a grazing right or a timber sale, the proposal is too small or costs too much, much less making a return for the taxpayers.
It is a simple fact that you can get more good work done, if the work somehow pays for itself. This is possible. It happens ALL the time on state-run lands, usually by a constitutional mandate. Indian tribes accomplish the same, in a balanced manner of benefit and consequence.
More important, for tribes and states, the policies are mainly controlled and influenced by those most affected by the benefits and consequences of these policies. That is at the root of self-government.
On federal lands, the policies are set thousands of miles away by those with the best lobbyists.
I live in Montana, and I can show anyone here physical proof that state lands are better managed and more productive overall than the federal estate. In fact, in comparison, the condition of federal lands to state parcels is criminal. Just terrible, across vast reaches of ground.
I know it's nice to pretend we're in a pristine environment, but the historic reality, from even before the white eyes showed up, is that the American landscape evolved and appears as it does today because of human management aimed at increasing game productivity through the timed use of set fires. That's management.
Deliberately managed vegetation on both open and forested habitat almost always provides more forage and cover for game. America's environment actually EVOLVED that way, for Gosh sake, and federal management by neglect doesn't cut the mustard. States can, and often, do a better job of doing the things we want to see happen.

It's not just the bad federal law and lawsuits by greenies that hamstring the federal agencies tasked with managing the lands. Those federal agencies have been infiltrated and staffed by greenies who can't/won't properly manage the lands.

Those same agencies are also hamstrung in budgeting by the politicians trying to make a land grab and sell of those lands. How? By continual rejections of proposals to have those catastrophic wildfires classified as "natural disasters" the way every other natural disaster is classified and funding to fight those fires coming out of budgets other than the management budget of the agencies. If the management budget is eaten up fighting fires each year, there's nothing left to manage the lands with and the politicians get to complain dishonestly about poor management.

As to the state mandates for management; that's a laugh. The state mandates are to manage for maximum economic benefit, including sale, and not for any other purpose.

Budgeting wouldn't be a problem if something was actually returned for that money.
The billions spent standing around watching fires should have gone toward planning vegetation management actions targeted at making fires fightable. This is possible, and its also possible to make money doing so.
And 458 brings up a heck of a point. I have been around long enough to see an amazing number of USFS staff retire and then come back into the process working for environmental groups, actually on the payroll. There are others who volunteer, safe on their cushy pensions, taking amazingly extreme positions that call into question their entire body of "public service." Oh, taxpayers got SERVICED, all right.
I mean, why does someone work for EPA rather than as a private sector environmental engineer or something? Why do people work for the Park Service? The cool uniforms?

All this^^

Dave Skinner,
Fires are necessary, healthy and have been occurring since the Pleistocene. Many (but not all) forests in the west are overgrown with trees with little market value. Indians in the west routinely set fires when they left the higher terrain for the lower winter ground.

There is evidence that between 800 AD and 1100 AD 60%-80% of all the Ponderosa pine forests in northern AZ, NM, and southern CO burned, and burned straight through several winters.

Many (but not all) species of wildlife benefit from fire.

We gotta ask ourselves how did these lands survive until modern Europeans showed up to play god..............

Casey

I didn't see Dave saying anything bad/wrong with fires, but not in the way they currently occur.

'Tis true........

This needs to be read and re-read by lots of folks.

Oregon is privatizing Parkland as we speak.

Yep. 80K acres of the Elliot State Forest.

Oh, right, the Elliot.
Don't insult me with that false canard, Pointer.
The Elliot was MAKING MONEY until the ENVIROS sued to have restrictions imposed for either the murrelet or the dotted phoul, I forget which.
But the CORE REASON the ESF is on the sale block is because environmentalist litigation -- even the Oregonian's editorial board (not exactly a producer-friendly entity) pointed out this bitter fact.

Fact:
"The case began in 2012, when the Audubon Society of Portland, Cascadia Wildlands and Center for Biological Diversity sued the Oregon Department of Forestry to halt timber sales on 1,956 acres in the Elliott, Clatsop and Tillamook state forests."

And yeah, it was the murrelet. The commie Governor is now trying to have a public bond floated for a park, to save it. And is she reaming the litigants for their shortsighteness? No, she's a commie, remember?

So, are these green groups anteing up? Heck no, there's no accountability for them. Doesn't cost THEM anything.
And let me remind you of something ELSE that was just criminal. The Tillamook, burnt abandoned forest, home of the infamous Seven Year Jinx of repeated fires from 1930 on, the state floated bonds in the 1950s to take over and replant the lands, nobody cared except dirt bikers until the forest came SCREAMING back.
Been there, done that, with the aging foresters who are seeing a lifetime of work finally pay off. In spades. To anyone with a clue about forestry, the Tillamook is the gold standard of long-term, sustained yield forestry. Just wonderful,stupendous. A fabulous example of forestry done right BY THE AFFECTED STATE.
So what do the moron Greens want? They wanted to turn it into a wilderness, basically. To stop doing forestry, close off the trail networks to everyone but hikers, let it burn in the next drought.
There was a ballot issue, and it failed, thank God. Even in Oregon.
The sick truth is that ESF would not be on the block for sale to private owners (not constrained by the terms of the litigation) were it not for the eco-idiots.
And the not-sickening truth is, state forestry departments do, in toto, a good, even GREAT job of forestry and habitat managment on state lands.
Sorry, but some of you "sportsmen" really need to get out of the scope and start looking at the big picture and where your problems really originate. Who, pray tell, are your real enemies?

Steelie, thanks for that backhanded support.

Turns out there's a growing body of academic work that recognizes something about North America -- it has been a managed landscape ever since humans came across from Asia.

Burning triggers a lot of vegetative changes that benefit hunting and food-gathering. It's not hard to grasp -- some of us have set fires on spring pasture to impressive results in the growing season. Indians certainly noticed where the game went after fires, and quickly caught on to triggering desired outcomes.

The bottom line is, much of North America was under intensive and deliberate vegetation management from the time the glaciers backed off. Indians set fires time and time again where those fires would either help hunting or mess with tribal enemies. Fire was a weapon and a tool, with "natural" fire dominating only in areas where it didn't make sense for an Indian to set a fire.

If Indians had invented iron before the white eyes, the world would have been different, for sure. But we must all remember, fire was a human tool, used by humans for thousands of years on this continent, and the "pristine" environments supposedly "discovered" by white people post Columbus were not really natural. What they were, mostly, were vegetative artifacts of human origin.

So yeah, fire, controlled and set by humans, WHEN THE CONDITIONS ARE RIGHT, need to play a role. Want an example? Try your local neighborhood Indian reservation and have a tribal forester walk you through their timber plans, with repeated entries, repeated set fires after harvesting, a light hand applied early and often, that makes a buck and produces great hunting, too.

The practice of setting fires is still used in Africa by the herding tribes. After the long grass season fires are set when cattle are pulled out of an area. This burns the dry low nutrient dormant grass and makes way for new growth. It also makes hunting better as you can see the game better and they concentrate in the new grass areas.

Tejano,
North America, no matter how many times the Greens describe someplace as "America's Serengeti," isn't Africa. Not even in Texas where they have exotics (I'm okay with that, by the way).
But the landscape is such, with 83 million acres of USFS in Class 3 condition (meaning unprecedented fire conditions, completely unnatural), with megafires immolating miles upon miles of sage (and further affecting the sage grouse, with all the implications of THAT) -- if we are going to have fires, they need to have their fuel loads adjusted so the resulting fires don't destroy what we want to keep, and KNOW we need to keep.
Again, the tribes have already figured this out. They don't have to listen to the white Greens, and don't. They do it their way, and pretty effectively. They don't manage for pure profit, but they do manage so that the outcomes are worth the effort input.
And states have to manage for the long term and at least break even or generate schools revenue. Most of them succeed quite well.
You can't say that for very much of what happens on federal lands.

I wouldn't characterize the fires indians set as intensive management. Lightening created fires burned far more acreage than humans do, even today. Most fires burn only small plots. Some types of forests only burn every few millenniums, some every decade or so, most burn somewhere in between. Without a doubt when indians showed up 20k years ago, they had an effect on the ecosystems, but it's important to remember we had mostly the same ecosystems in between ice ages going back a few million years. Couple million years (at least) before humans appeared in North America we had lots of fires and we had most of the large mammals currently living here existing back then too.

Secondly, it's a bit of a straw man to compare the pitiful few acres the western states own and manage as state forests compared to the the amount of land the feds manage. The western states can't even begin to cough up the money needed to manage 100's millions of acres compared to most western state forests consisting of a few hundred thousand acres. Heck, single BLM Districts in your state or mine manage more land than probably all the western state forests combined.

It still keeps coming back to this: For anybody other than a full blown socialist, we have to have a willing seller for any willing buyer. The American citizens aren't willing sellers.
And secondly, most of the "buyers" advocating federal land transfers have their hand out wanting that land for free. Because the majority of those advocating land transfer are used to getting those traditional natural resources FAR below market value. It's even more foolish to think that's going to happen for free anytime in our lifetimes.

Lastly, sport hunters and anglers are realizing they have something very important in common with environmentalists--preserving habitat.

I know it goes against the "fire's stereotyping, but most environmentalists are not opposed to hunting. It's just the press and media love to report on the extremists. Whether it's the stereotype of all firearm advocates being ignorant beer-swilling rednecks or the stereotype all environmentalists being bunny hugging ignorant anti-gunners.

Most active environmentalists I know may be more likely to have a Sierra Club sticker than a NRA sticker on their truck or Subaru bumper, but they still break out the $150 Monkey Ward '06 with a 40 year old Bushnell scope on it once a year and go elk hunting. Partly because they like elk meat, partly because it's one more great excuse to get "out there".

Casey

Uh-oh. Ringman's gonna be pissed.





And conversely, not all hunters are against conserving habitat, clean water, ans clean air.

Well yeah, I just assumed we all knew that!.........

And why is Ringman gonna be pizzed at me? What did I do now......

Casey

he thinks the world is only 6000 years old LOL...

Not if you read the Hunters' Campfire.

Sorry in find offense to stating what the state of OR is selling. Canard? You can do better than that.

PS- I'd gladly discuss differences of opinion as to the management of federal lands much more easily than lament their loss.

Pointer,
The fact remains that you used a terrible example to narrate the "states will sell" story. I'm fortunate in that I've been able to actually see these places, talk to the managers in rather formal contexts.
What I resent the most is that many people will take your assertion at face value because it does take a lot of effort to actually verify reality. A good sound bite, passed on to lazy, ignorant "media" by a savvy fib-teller, does an incredible amount of damage over time.
I've been on the press meat wagon, with credentials, and been horrified at what passes for professional conduct from bylined, credentialed people. You know about guns, right? And you know how "reporters" tell THAT story, who gets quoted or is treated like an expert? Do gun control stories in your view have ANY relationship to reality?
Well, guess what? Natural resource issues are similarly distorted.

And Crick, I'm sorry you can't quite wrap yourself around the history of induced fire. Indians burnt north and south, east and west, everywhere it made sense for them. It was intensive, which is why whites found "Pauite forestry" so objectionable upon settlement. With no fixed infrastructure for the most part, for Indians, fire didn't pose a risk to "wealth" worth worrying about.

Finally, this thing about CONSERVING habitat. Does anyone here care to explain the difference between conservation and preservation posing as "conservation?"

No, but I'd love to hear your explanation of the differences between a false canard and a red herring.

Seems apropos.

I had the pleasure of working for a semi-retired State Forester one summer. I was working as an Emergency Fire Fighter for the state, and they brought this guy out of retirement due to the busy 2012 fire season.

Listening to him it was not real hard to figure out why all this "management" was a disgrace.

Fire management or what, Jim? Was he a let it burn or out by 10 kind of fellow?

I have my office at the headquarters of a USFS contractor "task force." The only reason these guys do it is because the checks clear and they need the money. Otherwise, they'd rather be logging these same areas BEFORE the fires blow up.

As for smoker, okay, false canard is repeating the same general concept, that of a red herring. Happy? Bringing up the Elliot was a canard, a complete red herring.

It was a rhetorical question Dave. I think you missed my point, which was, as far as false red herring canards, so is this:

I didn't make any "state will sell story". The post above me stated that Oregon was selling "parkland". I only posted that what was being sold is the Elliot State Forest. You are reading way more into my posts about that than what was written.

He was an out by 10 fellow.

Instead of letting everything burn, he liked they way they used to do it.

Grazing and logging.

I reckon you can manage a forest like an apartment complex. You can have tenants, and show some income through out the year. The tenants provide a revenue stream so you can afford to fix the place up.

They way they do it now, its like owning a rental property that you purposefully keep vacant. Sooner or later the damn thing will burn down or become so infested with termites that you are left with a trash heap. All the money you spent managing the damn thing will be wasted.

We talked at length about the forest turning red. I was pretty concerned about the change.

He told me that I was not to worry about it. The beetles had been there for a long, long time.

Previously we logged and grazed the forest, and of course did some burning.

Once we quit all that, Mother Nature took matters into her own hands. Hence the beetles.

Gotcha Jim.
I made a pass through Winter and North Parks after being gone for about ten years. When I left, we'd just gotten a massive blowdown in Diamond Park and the spruce beetles were going crazy. At the same time, the LP was getting really ripe all across Northern CO.
I mean, I knew it was going to get really bad unless something was done. But I never imagined what actually happened, horizon to horizon, across divides.
And we have the same thing, worst in SW MT on the B-D. Looked at some sales down there and it was just devastating to comprehend the blown chance, just thrown away. By whom? Litigous morons who don't understand what conservation really means -- or do, but don't care.

I'm still waiting for you kids to answer my question.

I guess it means to stop managing it as a resource, kick most everybody out, and spend hundreds of millions fighting fire.

Which question is that, Dave?

While we are at it, can you summarize your current, ever-changing position on what should be done with Federally-managed public lands? Are you advocating for their sale again? Or, for their transfer to the states for eventual sale? Or, transfer to the states for supposed management like the tribes do with their granted lands? Or, something new? What is it this time?

History certainly shows that the states will sell. Finances once a major fire happens given the restrictions on state budgets would predict that states would sell. Mandates for economic return above all other, and in fact often to the exclusion of all other, concerns would dictate states sell.

The conception that states would NOT sell lands transferred to them is fallacy, with no basis in reality.

Yep, one way or the other nature will have her way. Beetles are replacing fire, and probably have in the past.

Interesting note: in Ponderosa forests it's the green needles with very low moisture content during dry/windy spells that are the most flammable as opposed to the red needles. We saw this in the High Park fire west of Fort Collins a few years ago.

Casey

That might be what Dave's getting at, but I haven't seen anyone here advocate for that.

That's why his question is a red herring. He's the one who introduced the topic, yet he's asking others to provide an answer.

Dave,

The second part of my post was rude and unnecessary. I retract that.

For the sake of clarity and simplicity, why don't you just lay out for us how you believe the Federally-managed lands ought to be handled. Hypothetically, you are now in charge of them all and your word gets it done; so, soup-to-nuts, what's your plan?

I'm not Dave but speaking locally here in northeast MT I think the Feds do a good job managing the BLM and CMR.


The country is in good shape.



Pretty much leave management as is.