Need hunters at Forest roads meeting tomorrow

[audsley]

Do like being able to drive 4WD roads around Ramanote and Peck Canyons in 36B? Or Rock Corrals or the Summit Motorway? How about the 2-tracks we've been using for years to reach good deer hunting spots in the Santa Ritas and Galiuros? If so, you should attend a meeting in Tucson tomorrow morning (Saturday.)

 

Access to the Coronado National Forest is extremely important to Coues hunters. If forest officials close many of our roads, as some would like them to do, future Coues hunting will be under crowded conditions along the few roads that are left open.

 

Tomorrow the forest service is holding an open house to hear public input on travel management planning for the forest. One of the things expected to come out of it is a reduction to the number of roads open to motorized travel as well as much stricter rules governing ATVs.

Time and place of the meeting is 16 December 2006, Inn Suites City Center, 475 N. Granada Ave. 9am-Noon . This is a motel that is actually at Sixth Street and Main on the south side of the street.

If you attend, expect to hear a lot of speeches from enviros about off-road driving and damage from vehicles. Many of us will agree that ATV use has gotten out of hand in many areas and that steps need to be taken to curb abuses. However, we don't want those steps to consist of locking up large portions of the forest so no one can access it for hunting and other legitimate purposes.

 

The new rules will be strongly influenced by those who show up. Tomorrow's session will be saturated with environmentalists, some of whom have an anti-hunting agenda. Unless you're willing to live with whatever forest access the environmentalists and forest service decide to give you, you should strongly consider attending this meeting.

 

Spending a Saturday morning with forest service bureaucrats and enviros isn't my idea of fun either, but we need to do these things once in a while. Don't take for granted that other agencies and organizations are protecting our access, because I've got news for you: it ain't happening. The forest service needs to see some hunters' faces at these meetings so they know that someone out there really wants to see these key roads kept open and even maintained to some extent. Otherwise, the forest service will take the path of least resistance which is to appease the enviros and simply close a lot roads that hunters need to get to the places we like to hunt.