Private landowners withdraw hunting land

Finding a place to hunt in Washington will be more difficult this year because of a rural reaction to the pillars of modern convenience – the cell phone and the Internet.

The high-tech revolution is contributing to a rebellion among some farmers and ranchers who are withdrawing from state programs that assist sportsmen in getting permission to hunt on private lands.

This year, as of June, at least 100 Eastern Washington landowners had withdrawn more than 175,000 acres from state-sponsored feel-free-to-hunt, register-to-hunt and hunting-by-written-permission programs, according to Mick Cope, Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife upland game program manager.

The total acreage lost to the program appears to have soared higher during summer, according to reports from field staff.

A few years ago, about 750 landowners had enrolled a total of about 1.2 million acres into hunter access programs, mostly in Eastern Washington.

This fall, those numbers are likely to be reduced by at least 40 percent, department officials indicated.

Many of the landowners are withdrawing after hearing about the department’s new Internet feature that marks on a map the location of lands enrolled in any of the hunter access programs.

By logging onto the agency’s Web site and clicking the “Go Hunt” online mapping program, sportsmen can get a wide range of maps and information for planning a hunting trip anywhere in the state.

The new feature, which debuted last week, adds to a state map a layer that shows icons pin-pointing lands enrolled in the hunter access program.

“Because landowners withdraw from this program doesn’t necessarily mean they won’t give you permission to hunt if you ask, but it means that some of them are taking down the signs that we’ve posted to help hunters identify the program cooperators,” said Don Larson of the department’s landowner relations and habitat program in Spokane.

The most common of the signs is made of yellow plastic and mounted on fences. It announces that hunters must obtain written permission before hunting on the land.

“Basically, that’s the way it is on all private lands in Washington,” said Larson. “The law requires you to get landowner permission before hunting on their land.”

But the hunter access program made it easier to identify landowners willing to give permission by conveniently listing the landowner’s name and phone number on the sign.

That has lead to instances of a different problem as cellular phone coverage improved in rural areas.

“In recent years, we’ve seen a growing problem with hunters coming out at the last minute and using their cell phones,” Larson said. “We’ve had a few cases of hunters calling farmers before sunrise on opening day saying they see a deer in a field behind one of their signs and they want to get permission to hunt.”

That’s a big difference from just several years ago, when most hunters would take note of the phone numbers posted on a likely looking hunting area, drive home and call the landowner at a more appropriate time of day, he said.

The state landowner access program has been operating for decades. Activity peaked in the 1990s when the Fish and Wildlife Department was able to tap federal funds and hire 18 staffers to work with farmers and ranchers.

Many landowners appreciated the assistance the agency offered in helping them enroll in the federal Conservation Reserve Program, which paid them by the acre to leave some crop lands idle.

The farmers earned points and a better chance of qualifying for CRP benefits by agreeing to improve fish and wildlife habitat and enrolling in the state’s hunter access program. The Fish and Wildlife Department sweetened the deal by posting their lands and giving them more patrolling emphasis. The landowners also got some liability protection.

However, with the loss of about $1 million in federal funding a few years ago, the field staff has been cut from 18 to 11, Cope said.

The number of acres involved in the program has been declining since then, but the Internet mapping issue has spurred an alarming bail out.

“We used to have 103 landowner contracts in Asotin and Garfield counties and currently I have 44,” said Jason Earl, Fish and Wildlife Department landowner habitat program staffer based in Clarkston.

“So far we’ve lost 34,000 acres out of 58,000 enrolled in Garfield County and we’ve lost 8,600 out of the 43,000 acres we had in Asotin County,” he said. “Some of this land will still be accessible to hunters who ask permission, but most of the landowners say they get enough pressure as it is and they don’t want the state to advertise them any more than they already do.”

Lincoln County has lost roughly 30,000 of nearly 100,000 acres that were in the access program two years ago. Very few cooperators are listed in the Go Hunt Web site for Walla Walla County, indicating a big decline in areas that have had some of the largest participation in the hunter access program.

Other Western states, including Idaho and Montana, are posting detailed hunter access information on the Internet, including landowner addresses and phone numbers.

Washington’s new Go Hunt feature simply shows the general area of the land, the number of acres involved, and the species that can be hunted.

“The difference is that the other states have programs that pay landowners to participate but we don’t have any money to pay them directly,” Cope said.

The Washington legislature this year turned down a proposal for a program that would pay farmers for hunter access.

Todd Baarstad, a department habitat specialist who lives in Davenport, said factors other than finances and changing technology are a factor. “Land is changing hands out here,” he said. “The generation that’s been out here for decades is getting older and they’re getting out of farming. People’s attitudes about how the land is used are changing.”

“We realize there’s a downside to putting a dot on a map showing these lands,” Cope said, “but we’ve also come under intense scrutiny by people who point out this is a public program and the information should be public.”

“Some people who didn’t want to drive all over the country side to find the signs marking these lands and they’ve gone through the Freedom of Information Act process to get the cooperators’ names. We didn’t feel that was the way to manage the program.”

Going into the hunting seasons, Cope estimated about 400 landowners with about 700,000 acres were still in the program.

When their federal CRP contracts expire starting in 2007, other farmers have indicated they might drop out of the program, said Dave Ware, department wildlife manager in Olympia. “We hope that by then the landowners will see how innocuous this is and stay with it.”

“Meanwhile, we hope to work closely with the landowners and see what’s working and what isn’t,” Cope said.

“There’s a lot of work going on trying to find other programs and funding sources to help farmers when CRP goes away,” Larson said. “But when you get down to the bottom line, the future of hunter access still hinges on sportsmen being responsible, asking permission, being respectful and not littering or driving in fields.”