Column: Some hunters like predators, dislike ATVs

Tom Wharton

Park City big-game hunter John Pollard’s environmental stands might cause sportsmen who use ATVs, dislike wilderness and hate big predators to cringe.

He is a member of the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, which is fighting hard to reduce wolf numbers, and is a national board member for Backcountry Hunters and Anglers, which supports a balance between predator and prey. The 66-year-old retired airline pilot has also joined the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance.

Pollard, Jay Banta of Torrey and William Eckerle of Salt Lake City invited me to breakfast for an interesting conversation about hunting, roadless areas, the need to limit ATV use in the backcountry and the relationship of predators and big game.

I first heard about the group from Banta, who recently retired as the superintendent of Fish Springs National Wildlife Refuge, when the organization asked permission to reprint one of my columns about ATVs and hunting in its magazine. The group has members in 40 states and Canada, including about 60 in Utah.

Pollard said Backcountry Hunters and Anglers’ core value is to keep as many of the remaining 80 million acres of roadless lands in the National Forest system as possible from being developed.

The group rejects the idea that there are “good” and “bad” wildlife, and instead supports the concept that predator and prey are part of the same web of life. It calls for an appropriate balance of predator and prey in natural systems based on sound science that includes hunting.

“I like the experience of being in a place where I am not at the top of the food chain,” said Eckerle. “You have a different outdoor experience in grizzly country. You look over your shoulder to see what’s near you. It’s the same with wolves. … It’s really not wilderness when there are no other predators as part of the system.”

Pollard said that nature is seldom in balance, often going from one state of imbalance to another.

That means there will be times when there are more of a species such as elk than habitat can support, as was the case in Yellowstone National Park before wolves were brought back, or the current situation where wolves are causing alarming big-game reductions in a few specific areas.

Off-highway vehicles, especially ATVs, are a particular concern to the backcountry hunters. The group supports hike-in and horseback access as a way for public lands to grow more and bigger bucks and bulls, and to provide for longer hunting seasons, more liberal regulations and greater solitude.

The group does not support a complete ban on ATV use on public lands.

“There is a ton of open country where you can drive ATVs,” said Banta. “There are people like our members who find it to be a spiritual experience to leave the road. I am not a big-game hunter. I am a bird hunter. I like to start at the end of the road and go back in. Not everybody can do that, but there are lots of open areas where people can drive to.”

Pollard said ATV groups and owners need to do a better job of policing their ranks to make sure rules are followed. He favors, for example, the use of large license plates on ATVs so scofflaws can be turned in, just as hunters do when they encounter game violations in the field.

Some hunters claim they might no longer participate if they can’t access hunting areas with a vehicle, but Pollard said he talked to a 65-year-old archer who hunts the Oquirrh Mountains on the west side of the Salt Lake Valley. After a road closure, he walked in 1 mile from where he parked his car and found elk. When motorized vehicles were allowed, the elk moved out of the area.

The group takes many reasonable stands. It is for management of off-highway vehicles and predators, not bans on vehicles everywhere or not hunting predators. Much of its mission is to preserve wild places and good habitat, and that’s not a bad place to be at a time of increasing exploitation of public lands.

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Source: http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/outdoors/50349834-117/atvs-hunters-predators-wharton.html.csp

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