Certainly, there are folks who use ATVs responsibly, but there sheer numbers here in the West are ruining everything for everyone, including the riders, who have a lower success rate on big game in most states. And the "few bad apples" seem more and more like an orchard. In recent years I've lost all of my public lands walk-in hunt spots to motorized invasion. Opening weekend this year I backpacked in 3 miles to a place I'd scouted the week before, with elk and bugling everywhere. One reason I chose this place is that the whole area is off-limits to motorized access. When I got there for my hunt, and ATV had been through just before me, smashing aspen saplings, leaving a trail of litter ... and the elk had either left or become invisible, and no bugling. I am 61 with arthritis. So far this year I've backpacked out two elk, for friends I've guided, and will get one of my own this week. Every year I have to hike in farther and back out farther, due to the constant encroachment of ATVs into the backcountry, legal and illegal. The chiefs of both FS and BLM have stated that unmanaged motorized abuse and overuse are among the very top threats to public lands and traditional quiet uses. Our senior game warden here says it well: "If we don't get this stopped real soon, ATVs will destroy hunting as we've always known it in the West." Because their "footprint" is so huge -- the places they can get to, the miles they can cover in a day, and the range of the noise they make -- a single ATV have more negative impact on the landscape, wildlife, and traditional quiet muscle-powered hunting than countless people on foot. Everyone has a right to use our public lands as they see fit. No one has the right to spoil it all for everyone else.
Topic: Show Me Your Trad ATV (Read 914 times)
