I like having access to hunting lands and I drive a car not a horse! The Federal Government owns far too much land in the West and you want to severely limit that access. We are talking about hundreds of thousands of square miles with very limited access. Follow federal law- more like use the law against hunters, hikers and fisherman because so many socialist idiots either believe the sky is falling, or hate industry so much that they believe anything that hurts a gas company is good. I hope the “endangered” wolves that you eco-geniuses repopulated catch up to your horses!

Hal Herring should run for Congress. Of course, campaign season overlaps with hunting season, which could be a problem. No wonder we don't have any real outdoorsmen in politics... maybe we should move Election Day to, say, March...

Pacific hunter,

You make a well-reasoned argument here, and I appreciate it very much. As you say, we are indeed, on the same side.

You and I disagree on the interpretation of the law, and we are not alone in this disagreement. Part of my understanding of the law is based on a letter written by a 55 law professors from universities across the nation, calling on the Dept. of Interior to recognize the 1976 FLPMA. These legal scholars make a very good case, in my opinion.

It's to be noted that these scholars don't call for sweeping, dodge around Congress-style wilderness designation. I don't support that either.

But as you note, one side of the bi-partisan effort that produced the FLPMA has not kept up its side of the bargain. I'd actually say that neither side has kept it.
As one commenter wrote last week, politicians know that only 8% of the voters hunt. And, in 2004, when Republicans were swept from Congress by voter anger, polls conducted showed that NOT ONE of the people questioned mentioned the environment as the reason they had voted Democratic. And this was during one of the most anti-environmental administrations that the US has ever witnessed. So, maybe these political guys and gals can be forgiven for not holding up their ends of the bargain. Or not.

I'm very interested in your (correctly) pointing out that most of the biggest Montana bulls come from, say the Breaks, or the Elkhorns, or the northern Yellowstone. We have the habitat there to produce them. But these are tightly restricted hunting opportunities. I've applied for those tags almost evey year, and never gotten one of them. And year, after year, I find myself going happily into the Bob, or into the Bitterroot or the Pintlars, to hunt much less restricted districts. I'm free there, by golly, to wander, to set camp, and shoot what's legal. And there's some big ol' toads hanging back in those places that seldom see a boot print.

We can always have big bulls if we restrict tags- look at the big muleys on the east side of the Bitteroots.

But what I'm talking about is freedom, and the opportunity that goes with that. The Bob has the habitat. It's not just a "rock and ice" wilderness like what we've been allowed to preserve over most of the West, begrudgingly given what none of the "wise use" crowd could actually find a "wise use" for. What I'd like to see is wilderness areas that have grass and coulee systems, that have real winter range. In an ideal world 'wilderness" would not be place we preserve just because nobody can find another use for it. It would be recognized for the values that it possesses, and these are economic as well as spiritual or simply for the preservation of biodiversity, a kind of Ark if you will.

If we ever had those kind of wilderness areas, you'd have something like the Bob, where regular folks who are willing to put in the effort to get there, would have a good chance to take big animals, without waiting years to draw. And what would we lose? It's estimated that 98% of America's land surface is within a few miles of a road now (I know that's a vague figure). Fly from Seattle to Miami, sitting y a window, and come back and tell me we couldn't use a bit more land where the main focus was on wilderness.

How do we do that without offering/giving the federal or state government more power than is good for them? I don't know. But we care about this stuff, we need to figure it out.

And you are a great voice in all of this- you obviously know alot, and care alot about it. Your instinct for being cautious before giving government the power to restrict anything on public lands is a very good one. You and I are in agreement on that one, for sure.

Hal:
I enjoy reading your work but please be careful what you wish for. I certainly can't comment on BLM lands. Except for my military time, I've lived and worked in Northern Michigan and Wisconsin all of my life. All of my experience is with US Forest Service wilderness areas. We in Michigan are faced with a new twist. An attorny from Lower Michigan has sued the Forest Service to ban snowmobiling AND HUNTING WITH GUNS in Semi-Primitive areas.
I can somewhat agree with the snowmobiling. However, if guns are banned in semi primitive, how long before they're banned in wilderness?
Also, if you can ban guns, fly rods can't be far behind.
If we carry this to the logical conclusion, horses gotta go to. They're not indigenous to the Americas. Why should they be allowed when ATV's are not.
I love hunting. I want every qualified person to have that opportunity. As a forester, I want as few restrictions to land management as possible. None of this is possible with wilderness designation.

What is missing from most dialogue about wilderness is that there needs to be an understanding that we are part of a web of life. We can take care of it or break the strands one by one.

Ferraro,

You get more disconnected from realty every day. I'd invite you out west to look at this place and maybe try to understand it, but I have more than a passing suspicion that you rarely get outside an office building and that you prefer lattes and designer shirts to wild places.

First off, I second the call for Herring to run for congress. What a refreshing change that would be.

I think the wildlands policy move on the part of Salazar needs some clearing up. It is true that the FLMPA directed the BLM to inventory and designate areas with 'wilderness characteristics' which today are either wilderness areas or wsa's. The wild land policy does not affect those areas. The wild land policy will allow wild land areas to be proposed and special wild land management adopted without congressional legislation where as wilderness areas require an act of congress. What this does is to give local constituents a voice and a say in how their local wild lands are managed. I can't imagine why rep. Heller would have a problem with this? Isn't this what conservatives and sagebrush rebels are fighting for? This is management on the ground level rather than a western 'land grab' by big gov. Or could it be that rep. Heller doesn't actually care about local input, at least when it might obstruct industry. Bob Abbey, director, explains in a BLM press release:

"Wild Lands," which will be designated through a public process, will be managed to protect wilderness characteristics unless or until such time as a new public planning process modifies the designation. Because the "Wild Lands" designation can be made and later modified through a public administrative process, it differs from "Wilderness Areas," which are designated by Congress and cannot be modified except by legislation, and "Wilderness Study Areas," which BLM typically must manage to protect wilderness characteristics until Congress determines whether to permanently protect them as Wilderness Areas or modify their management."

So, a piece of wildland can be managed to preserve wilderness traits, and can be later modified, all without a congressional(aka big govey) act. This is not big government, this is not reinterpretation of the FLMPA, this is sound DOI policy regarding public wildlands that includes public involvement and decisionmaking by the DOI. The major difference between the wsa and wildland designation again, is that the BLM decides, with the public, rather than congress.

The new wildland policy allows those people who believe the original inventory may have missed wilderness areas to propose protection for lands with outstanding natural or ecological qualities. I don't know how this differs from industry having the right to propose to drill or mine a piece of public land? If industry has the right to propose management projects, why shouldn't citizens and groups also have the right to propose wild land protection projects? The decision however, will always belong to the BLM.

What congressman Heller fails to see is the beauty of the wildlands designation. It is not a wilderness designation and the BLM management will not be constricted by a federal statute. The designation is an internal one guided by DOI policy and molded by public involvment which could include various management tools to deal with wildfire and t&e species that would otherwise be unavailable under a wilderness designation.

I wonder how Rep. Heller thinks cheatgrass is most spread. Overgrazing and roads are the leading cause of invasive plant proliferation. Wilderness areas have to be possibly, the last area where invasive plants pose a threat. Rep. Heller writes as if the ecological processes could not occur properly without the intervention of humans. I strongly disagree with this point. Many of the old land management practices have led to the problems we see today with the build up of fuels and introduction of invasive species. No matter what these politicians say, there can never be more wilderness in the future, only less, and that's why we need to save as much as we can.

Thanks, Yooper,

I'll read on it it tis morning. Who could have imagined?

Makes me think of the exchange from the movie Raising Arizona:

"It's a crazy world."
"Yeh, Somebody oughta sell tickets."
"I'd buy one."

Ain't nothing simple, is it?

Hal