Several recreation and public lands advocates, including Backcountry Hunters & Anglers, have weighed in on the case, stating its significance in unlocking previously inaccessible public lands. In addition to questions that arise due to the UIA, there is the issue of ownership of airspace above private and public land parcels that join at a corner. But absent that, does that law have any sort of operative effect regardless of whether the government comes in and prosecutes it? There are some people who say yes and some people who say no.” “The question is what’s the effect of that? It’s clear the government can come in and prosecute these landowners. “There’s little doubt that made fencing illegal,” he said. The question in the case before the Wyoming District Court, Kalen said, is whether the UIA preempts state statute.
The marked fences that Grende mentioned when he reported the hunters’ trespass to the police are technically illegal under the UIA, which says nobody can close people out of public land. Still, a few days into their trip, the hunters were approached by a sheriff’s deputy after Elk Mountain Ranch Manager Steve Grende called to report a trespass. That’s why on the morning that Cape, Smith, Yeomans and Slowensky drove their truck from their base camp down Rattlesnake Pass Road to hunt elk, the group used onX to distinguish public acres from private land. It’s the type of place where there are far more animals than people - and where property boundaries aren’t always obvious. Running parallel to Interstate 80, Rattlesnake Pass Road winds through private and public land in southwestern Wyoming’s vast sagebrush. The case Sunset over Elk Mountain in Wyoming. The opinion, however, does not establish precedent, and Western state legislatures haven’t yet passed any laws on the matter, meaning that the question of the legality of corner-crossing is still up in the air. In 2004, the Wyoming attorney general’s office issued an opinion interpreting the state’s trespassing statute to mean that a person can only be cited for criminal trespass if they hunt or intend to hunt on private land, leaving crossing a corner of private land to reach public land a technically legal act. So far, Iron Bar Holdings hasn’t been ordered to remove the fencing that the Missouri hunters crossed. The suit was originally filed in state court and moved to federal court following a petition from the hunters’ attorney, Ryan Semerad, invoking the Unlawful Inclosures Act, or UIA, an 1885 federal law that makes it illegal to deny access to public lands. And then when you look at the legal issue, what makes it really more complex is we don’t have clearly defined case law.” “We know that it is an important issue for the hunting community here in Wyoming and elsewhere. “Almost everyone - at least in the public land arena - in Wyoming is aware of this case,” said Sam Kalen, a professor at the University of Wyoming College of Law. Wyoming is the state with the most landlocked public tracts, with 2.44 million acres trapped by private property, according to the report. By its count, there are 8.3 million acres of federal land in 11 Western states that are effectively cordoned off to the public that owns it.
#Kingdom new lands elk software#
OnX, a mapping software used by recreationists, published a report in 2022 highlighting the magnitude of the problem. For that reason, millions of acres of public land in the western United States are effectively landlocked, with no method of access to the tracts other than through private property. Unfortunately for both parties, there is little legal precedent on the matter. The hunters’ defense is simple: If it’s a common corner, then that airspace is open to the public, meaning the landowner does not have exclusive rights to it. The ranch is seeking $7.75 million in damages, citing diminished property value due to the trespass. That corner near Rattlesnake Pass Road is the only access point to a public land parcel at the lower northwest slope of Elk Mountain, a remote refuge for big game that is surrounded by private ranchland.īut landowner Iron Bar Holdings LLC, a limited liability company based in North Carolina that owns Elk Mountain Ranch in Carbon County, Wyo., claims that the crossing of the hunters’ bodies through the airspace above the intersection of the private land parcels amounts to trespass.
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