Tucson hunters needed at forest plan meeting 9/27

[audsley]

Wednesday night in Tucson the Coronado National Forest will be wrapping up the public input on the Forest Management Plan. Environmentalists, 4-wheel enthusiasts, ranchers and sportsmen will weigh in with opposing views on how the Coronado Forest should be managed during the next 15 years. The winners will be the ones who show up.

 

Tonight I attended the last forest-specific meeting which was for the Catalinas and Rincons. Fortunately there were several Game & Fish people attending and providing the input that ought to be provided by hunters. The anti-hunting, anti-access crowd was not that big tonight, but I expect a bigger turnout of greens at Wednesday's meeting.

 

If you want continued access for hunting and wildlife activities, you'll want to show up and fight for it. There will be others there who want to close more roads and discourage "habitat manipulation" for sheep, deer and turkeys.

 

The priorities that have emerged so far are: reasonable and adequate access, stronger enforcement especially regarding ATVs, public education especially with respect to OHV activity, retention of the multiple use concept and protection of resources. I'm having a hard time forcing wildlife restoration to the top of of the priority list. There just aren't enough sportsmen attending.

 

The meeting is at the Sheraton Hotel in the 5100 East block of Grant Road from 6 to 8:30 p.m. Be there or be prepared to live with the forest rules the environmentalists and forest service decide to hand you.