Time was, a hunter nobly tracked his quarry step by step through the forest primeval. His skills proving worthy, he’d down the prey, field-dress the kill and likewise pack out the proceeds, one foot after another.
Then came GPS, off-road vehicles and bulging waistlines. Now it seems many hunters hanker to do the deed with a bare minimum of human exertion.
If so, they have a splendid friend in the Arizona Game and Fish Department.
Eight years ago, in response to an increasingly trashed landscape, the U.S Forest Service decided to limit the acreage accessible by off-road vehicles. Known as the Travel Management Rule, this new policy would largely ban cross-country travel and restrict machines to a fixed set of roadways.
These modest reforms brought the predictable howls from Game and Fish, which has long toadied to piston-powered sportsmen and their backcountry din. In nearly all cases, the department has agitated for maximum motorized access across Arizona’s forests—despite its own survey showing that even a majority of hunters despise the racket made by increasingly abundant trucks and all-terrain vehicles in the outback.
“It is the policy of the Arizona Game and Fish Commission to place high priority on conserving existing access and modes of access upon public lands for hunting, fishing, trapping, shooting, wildlife watching, responsible off highway vehicle use, and other forms of outdoor recreation,” says a draft department statement, “and to place high priority on improving access upon such lands in areas of the State where access is currently difficult or nonexistent.”
Along with asking for yet more forest roads, Game and Fish has also pushed to let hunters venture a full mile off the road in many areas to retrieve their downed game.
But even as Game and Fish claws to maintain motorized access, the impact on public lands continues to grow. Similar struggles are occurring throughout the West, where nearly 30 million homes now sit within 30 miles of federal public lands. The number of registered off-highway vehicles, or OHVs, tripled across the region between 1998 and 2006; wildcat routes carved by these vehicles on national forests are estimated to stretch for tens of thousands of miles.
Ironically, while the Travel Management Rule has prompted a patchwork of changes across Arizona, it appears motorized travel has been treated quite generously. For instance, roughly 70 percent of the roads—covering some 3,000 miles—remain open to trucks and OHVs on the Coconino National Forest near Flagstaff. And Kaibab National Forest near the Grand Canyon still allows vehicles on 3,100 miles of roads, down from 4,000 miles before the travel management plan took effect.
Although Game and Fish grouses that the rule has been inconsistently applied from one forest to another, Forest Service spokesman Cathie Schmidlin argues that those differences reflect federal flexibility. “It’s the recognition that forests have unique recreation and economic issues they need to consider,” she says. “You can’t have it one-size-fits-all.”
Although Southern Arizona’s Coronado National Forest has long prohibited cross-country motorized travel, decisions about existing roadways were similarly made on a case-by-case basis—deemed necessary “because our districts are spread so far apart,” says spokeswoman Heidi Schewel, “and they each have their own communities of interest. It made more sense to divide it up by district, and respond to the needs of each community.”
The result is more than 2,100 miles of roadway on 2,787 square miles of forest remaining open to vehicles.
While Coronado’s lack of big, heavy-to-pack-out prey such as elk has mostly kept it out of the Game and Fish cross hairs, elsewhere the department has pushed for extensive retrieval access. To spokesman Jim Paxon, that’s just a reflection of changing times. “When I was a kid, we rode horses and packed,” he says. “If it was a deer, you actually used a meat saw and cut your animal in half and toted it out on a backpack frame.
“At age 65, I’m probably no longer able to do that, although I’m still in shape and able to go up and down mountains. So the matter of getting game out and not wasting meat is a huge consideration.”
In some forests, he says, easy access also means hunters retrieve all of their game, including potentially polluting lead shot contained in the entrails. “We are much more conditioned towards getting the cooperation of those hunters if they’re able to put that on an ATV and get it out.”
But to Cyndi Tuell, a Southwest conservation advocate with the Tucson-based Center for Biological Diversity, Game and Fish “is trying to get as many roads open as possible across all the forests in Arizona. They’re also pushing for hunters to be allowed to drive off any open road for up to three miles, to pick up everything from turkey to elk, because hunters in Arizona apparently don’t know how to hunt the traditional way.”
She points out that sportsmen in neighboring New Mexico are apparently more physically robust, since that state’s wildlife department has not argued for such sweeping game-retrieval access. The response by New Mexico’s Department of Game and Fish to travel management plans on the Santa Fe National Forest certainly do stand in sharp relief to Arizona’s combative rhetoric. “As stated in our previous comments,” says a 2008 letter to the Forest Service, “the Department strongly supports the ongoing efforts of the Santa Fe and other National Forests in New Mexico to implement the Travel Management Rule, which will limit the number of roads and trails on national forests open to motorized vehicle access.”
That missive even raises concerns “about degradation of aquatic and riparian habitats because they are essential for the survival of a majority of wildlife species of New Mexico.”
Why the difference? To critics, Arizona Game and Fish is simply beholden to the OHV crowd, regardless of whether their access traumatizes wildlife and pummels sensitive habitat. “We asked them, ‘Why are you guys recommending this?'” Tuell recalls from a discussion with department officials. “We told them, ‘It’s just going to continue the spread of invasive species of plants. It’s going to continue to degrade habitat. And the noise alone is going to drive elk further and further into remote wilderness areas, where people who hunt from roads aren’t going to be able to get anything.'”
At the time, says Tuell, she felt that Game and Fish officials hadn’t really pondered the impacts of motorized access. “But now they’re disregarding it. They just don’t care. They only care about making sure that hunters can drive wherever they want.'”
This article appears in Feb 14-20, 2013.
Down with motorheads who trash public lands!
As usual, Mr. Vanderpool presents a distorted and misleading view. I say this as a hunter who backpacks into remote parts of the Santa Catalinas each year, cuts up a deer and packs it out. And I never see anyone from Center for Biological Diversity or the other anti-access groups out there in these remote areas. Apparently they are only comfortable near roads where they can observe and complain about the behavior of others they see along the roads. Neither Vanderpool nor Cyndi Tuell are hunters, and their remarks make it obvious that they don’t understand much about big game hunting in Arizona.
It makes sense that forest policy on off-road game retrieval would vary depending on the terrain and type of game in a particular forest. Archery elk season season is generally the second half of September when daytime temperatures even in the White Mtns and Mogollon Rim can reach 75 or 80 and morning lows often don’t go below 50 . Each hind quarter on an adult elk weighs 50-60 lbs. The remainder can add up to200-300 lbs of meat and bone after the hide is removed. That can require about 5-6 man-trips over whatever kind of terrain the elk was dropped on, and few of us walk at a normal pace when carrying a load like that. The meat has to be put on ice within a very few hours if it’s to be any good. Unless a hunter brings a large entourage or pays hundreds of dollars or even a couple thousand dollars to hire horses, most elk hunters are pretty much limited to retrieving elk within a mile or so of a road. I make no apology for this. If Mr. Vanderpool or Ms. Tuelll feel this is being lazy or weak, they’re welcome to appear on the Mogollon Rim next fall to show us how it ought to be done.
>>In some forests, he says, easy access also means hunters retrieve all of their game, including potentially polluting lead shot contained in the entrails<<
So what megafauna is being hunted with shotguns that is so large it can’t be packed out? The rare and elusive Sonoran Giant Quail?
As a husband to a handicapped wife what should I tell her – sorry honey I can’t take you out because the road to the campsites we prefer, away from the toy haulers and music blaring while drinking all night, are closed. I know we have used them for over 20 years but now they are closed.
First of all were you forced to put in for a Hunting Tag? Wow! And now that you shot your Game Animal, it’s our collective problem, to make it easy, for you to retrieve it, uh? Follow the rules of the Forest. I have worked for U.S.F.S for over twenty years…Doing various survey work…And yes, walking the Land. I have seen our Great White Hunters, driving their all terrain vehicles, all over the Forest…And much of the time, where they shouldn’t be…Because, they’re creating ruts when it’s wet, and those scars remain on the Land for a very long time. They also drive through meadow lands destroying these meadows as well…And not to mention crossing, and driving up and down sensitive streams…killing more Riparian Habitat. This is just some, of the reasons we restrict access, in the U.S. National Forest…to protect it, for all of the citizens, not just a selective special few. I hunt and I walk ridges to track wildlife movements…And I sit at points waiting patiently… waiting…And, if I’m successful with a kill, I do whats necessary to pack my meat out…And yes that may mean quartering and packing it out on my back. Wake Up! Sometimes that is the Nature of hunting. Maybe, you shouldn’t be hunting if your that frigging lazy. Sincerely, Micky Smythe
Mr. Smythe, the point isn’t to make it easy. The point is to make it possible to quarter and pack out your meat without it getting spoiled. Round trips totaling six miles or more packing elk quarters, head and possibly antlers in a sngle day is plenty to ask of most men. Restricting access so as to lengthen that effort to two or three times as long will lead most responsible hunters to consider these areas as unhuntable lest they risk wasting game meat.
If the opponents of off-road game retrieval were truly interested in protecting the habitat, they would be protesting the forest service’s permissive policy of allowing unlimited off road travel for wood cutting. It’s OK to drive cross country with a truck loaded with juniper wood several times a year, but not a single elk once a year, right?
And your claim to be a skilled sportsman doesn’t ring true.
What a contorted irresponsible misrepresentation of hunters, AZGFD, sportsmen and the travel management plan.
Skeptic,
I’m often in the Santa Catalina backcountry. haven’t seen you there so that of course means you never go there, right? (of course not)
There is nowhere, not one single place, in Arizona’s National Forests outside of Wilderness Areas, where you can get more than about 1.5 miles from a road. Where is it people are having to haul their elk out for 6 miles? Please show me on a map. If you include Wilderness Areas, there is rarely a place that is more than 2-3 miles from a road.
Why do you believe that driving off road for fuel wood gathering is unrestricted, or that conservation supporters do not have concerns about that issue?
Slim,
The roads most people have been using for camping (for hunting or other purposes) will remain open, literally millions of acres left for car camping. Many of these roads are infrequently used, but have value for quiet camping experiences. Why should anyone with any disability be forced to hike into the backcountry for a quiet camping experience? We need front country, roaded areas, that are protected from hunters driving off road to pick up game and that allow families to enjoy a less roaded, more traditional, camping experience.
Well Skeptic, you said nothing to change anything I stated. And… in my email I never said I was a skilled “sportsman”. I let all I stated stand. I hunt… And quite successfully. Fuel wood gathering(cutting) is definitely restricted, I say this with experience also, for, I have surveyed and set up, and established multiple Fuel Wood Blocks and or sections, with the U.S.F.S. Fuel Wood cutting is regulated also. Once again as to minimize damage to the natural resources. You seemed to be one of those you call Sportsman, we’re always pulling out of the muck after you have damaged our natural resources. Hang Tough! Skeptic, I’m sure I’ll see you out there somewhere. Sincerely, Micky Smythe.
Six miles… Ok, let’s try this again. Say you have two elk hunters and one of them drops an elk a mile from the nearest road. They will likely need to make three trips each to get the elk and their gear and equipment back to the truck. Two hunters times three trips at one mile per trip equals six miles. Young, extremely fit hunters might do it in two trips if the elk isn’t a big one.
Non-hunters should recognize that going into the back country to take a big game animal isn’t like a long day hike or even a non-hunting backpacking trip. It involves lugging equipment and a lot of bulky animal weight. Hunters seldom use FS-maintained hiking trails. We bushwhack, often in steep and rugged terrain.
Last I knew, the forest service was allowing off-road elk retrieval up to one mile through the end of November, after which time the weather is usually cool enough that an elk doesn’t need to be retrieved the same day it was killed. Fair enough. But evidently Center for Biological Diversity prefers NO off-road retrieval, which would mean most elk would be killed within one mile of a forest road. Is that how everyone wants it? I think what irritates me most is that some people want to make their living demonizing others, and they don’t care whether their smears are accurate. Smythe, nobody has ever had to pull me out of the mud. And refraining from using cornball terms like “Great White Hunter” would make it less obvious that you are an outsider to the sportsman’s world.
Hmmm… now I see I didn’t explain it very well the second time. Each of the two hunters makes 3 round trips, one mile each way. Each walks a total of 6 miles carrying a heavy load each time. That’s what I’m trying to explain.
There are various ways to do this. While one guy stays and works on the elk, the other might go back to the truck, drive to a store for a massive amount of ice and return to the kill site with additional equipment, such as a hoist or come-along for hanging the elk in a tree to work on it, stuff that isn’t taken along on each morning’s hunt. But any way it’s done, bringing in a downed elk a mile from a road is a serious day’s work.
In a September archery hunt or an October antlerless elk hunt, you’re doing all this against the clock because the meat needs to be brought in and cooled as quickly as possible. It can be a grueling effort, and you can’t stop to rest just because you feel like it.
The notion that elk hunting is for lazy, overweight slobs is being successfully promoted to a public that has no way of knowing any different. It’s true there are people like that out there, and unfortunately that’s who is chiefly on display to others who also hug the roads.
I’m an old school Arizona big game hunter. I don’t use, need or like off-road vehicles. ORVs have been bad for the hunting experience in Arizona and across the USA. AZGFD should show some balance and do more to support traditional hunting. D.R. Patterson, Tucson @DanPattersonUSA
Mr. Patterson: I don’t use them either. I don’t own an ATV, just a 4X4 truck for negotiating the rough roads that receive little if any maintenance. As I said at the beginning, I backpack for Coues deer, and I do a lot of walking on all my hunts including elk and even antelope. I’m a traditional hunter in most ways, and AGFD heartily supports me.
Most ATV use by hunters takes place legally on authorized roads. Although I still do not care for them (noise and dust), the image of hunters tearing across pristine habitat searching for game is largely propaganda. The few bad apples out there are being exploited for the benefit of groups that profit from sowing discord.
Anyone who has been paying attention should know that AGFD led the effort to license ATVs back in 2008. This was considered a necessary first step in achieving effective enforcement. Without license plates to identify violators, officers in the field found it difficult to prove violations in court. Center for Biological Diversity did not support the bill for reasons that give rise to speculations about their primary motives. It was eventually signed into law over the objections of anti-tax conservatives.
The spectacle of past or present employees of Center for Biological Diversity demanding that AGFD “show some balance” is beyond parody.
DR Patterson, you are the type of Hunter we like to have stalking game on our public lands. Which, I consider myself to be similar to you in position. Mr. Skeptic I apologize to you, for stating an assumption on my part, that you are a bad apple. You have a dilemma, and I hope you can find a viable solution to it, without violating the Codes of Federal Regulations, Governing our public lands. Sincerely, Micky Smythe.
Closing the National Lands to all off road vehicle use, sounds like Discrimination against, Women, Children, Older people, Disabled people, and others who because of physical reasons, cannot carry their game out quickly. The threat of severe Erosion caused by off Road Vehicle use is somewhat False also, as Erosion IS Nature. It happens, It will Continue to happen, It will ALWAYS happen, and cannot be Halted without Extreme measures, which do more damage to the land, such as retaining walls or those unsightly straw rolls. The material of the Desert Valley floors, at one time was up on the Mountains, sometimes Thousands of feet of of it. So I think Controlled access to most areas is proper, unless the Area is “Wilderness”, which should mean “No Trails”.
My ranch is at the foot of Apache Pass.A lot of up and down…50 miles of the middle of nowhere.Two months ago one of these armed mooks shot a big buck 50 yards from the road and chopped it’s head off and left the rest.On the other hand the rough terrian brings old school bow hunters that hike in and out..skilled and polite,for every one of them there are 10 drunken assholes that got a late tag and have no knowledge of the area.One of them shot my metal gorilla sculpture last year,5 new bullet holes in my barn from idiots shooting down a blind draw in the last 3 years,holes in the windmill because they were locked out and got mad,late night Atv racing to town to get beer,drug smugglers picking up backpackers on the flats tearing up the flats….I say limit the shit out of those fucking things!
The policies of the Arizona Game & Fish Dept reflect the politic of appointed commissioners, who generally have priorities other than wildlife. Arizona and other states have their governors appoint people to multi-member boards and commissions that govern state agencies. The contrast is that some state agencies are managed by one (often professional) commissioner or superintendent, also politically appointed. From what I’ve observed and been told about Arizona’s agencies, the one person leader and policy maker performs way better than multiple-member boards and commissions. Case in point is the AZGF Dept. I am more familiar with the Arizona Board of Appraisal, which for all intents and purposes would accomplish just as much if it didn’t exist at all. I used to be familiar with the G&F Commission back in the 1970s, when destructive acts by irrigated agriculturists and grazers were supported by the Commission with a member related to a farmer in the Wellton Mohawk Irrigation District and the grazing allotment owner on the Kofa Game Range.