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Hunting By Using A Four Wheeler Or UTV - Responsibility Or Maybe Restrictions?
The use of utility vehicles (UTVs) and four wheelers during hunting season has really increased in the past few years. ATVs offer several advantages -- they are an alternative to walking, they cause less impact than nearly all other vehicles, they can access terrain that would turn back various other vehicles, and transporting an elk out on the back of an ATV is much easier than carrying it out on foot.
You can also find disadvantages to the use of ATVs. Since they are more convenient than walking, more and more people are hunting from their Quad rather than on foot. The sounds and smell of a four wheeler can alert game animals from a long way off so your chance of spotting an elk or deer from a four wheeler is much smaller. And that same noise and smell that is running deer and elk away from you is also chasing them away from any other hunters in the nearby area as well -- this can create very hard feelings among hunters who used stealth and stalking skills to get into good habitat only to have the deer scared off by ATVs!
Because Four wheelers can go into terrain that other vehicles cannot, some individuals are making improper use of that advantage and creating a substantial network of brand new roads and trails in places that were previously roadless. This causes higher impacts to vegetation and soils. It also generates a path to tempt other recreationists to follow until those barely visible tracks through the forest become a full-blown road. The elk in that certain area are then subject to year-round disruption. Big-game hunters should be aware that a half dozen studies have definitely shown that elk avoid vehicle activity associated with a road or 4 wheeler trail. Other interesting tidbits from these studies indicate that:
Elk use declines in areas right next to roads for distances ranging from a quarter of a mile to almost 2 miles, according to the quantity of traffic, the quality of the road and the density of the ground cover and topographic cover alongside the road. In general, greater traffic flow on higher quality unpaved roads generates a more substantial area of big game avoidance.
Slow moving vehicles on primitive roads and trails are more disturbing to elk than fast moving vehicles on a state highway.
As road and ATV trail denseness increases in an area, the quality and size of the elk habitat will decline considerably, which eventually affects the quality and size of the elk population.
When motorized vehicle use during hunting season actually reaches a certain threshold, Elk will abandon that region completely and turn to unreachable areas such as private land or wilderness areas. The result is that road and trail propagation and persistent use of ATVs during hunting season is cutting down all hunters' chances of bagging that elk and it is having an effect on the ecosystem of the very animal they are hunting.
So what does this mean for the frequent hunter with an ATV? It's easy - it means responsibility versus regulation. If, as a group, ATV operators are careless with the use of their machines, then there will probably be increasing demands on land management agencies to restrict ATV use during hunting season. Presently you will find groups, most notably other hunters, that are requesting a total ban on ATV use during hunting season. In other regions, regulations have already been developed that confine ATV use to specific times of the day and then only to retrieve a harvested animal.
Nobody likes restrictions, but if heavy ATV use continues to cause unsatisfactory outcomes then regulations may become necessary to ensure the protection of the public lands. A more desirable alternative is for ATV users to recognize the effects their activity causes and consciously take steps to reduce those impacts. ATV users are not distinctive in this respect -- as more and more individuals use public lands for recreation, the potential impacts of these activities are increasing quickly. Practically all recreation users -- jeepers, horse enthusiasts, rafters, snowmobilers, rock climbers, campers, motorcyclists, fishermen, and mountain bikers -- have been asked to reduce the impact of their activities so the public lands can be experienced by both today's citizens as well as by generations to come.
Hunting By Using A Four Wheeler Or UTV - Responsibility Or Maybe Restrictions?
The use of four wheelers and utility vehicles during hunting season has skyrocketed in recent years. ATVs offer several advantages -- they are easier than walking,
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