They were eventually charged with criminal trespass by a neighboring private land owner when the hunters built a makeshift ladder to cross from one corner point of public land to another.
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The best way to understand the controversy around "corner crossing" is to drive around on a county road through southern Wyoming. In the small town of Elk Mountain, passers-by can see pronghorn, elk, herds of cattle and very few vehicles.
Here, like in other parts of the West with a lot of federal public land, fence lines can mark where private land ends and public land begins, forming a grid irrespective of physical geography. That’s a relic of the 1800s when railroad companies were granted plots in a checkerboard pattern as they traversed the region.
-Robert
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A GoFundMe account has been set up to combat legal fees. If you'd like to donate, you can find it HERE
Private landowner sounds like a real little bitch.
ReplyDeleteThe GoFundMe is important. They will need to still pay for legal documents, lawyer travel and expenses fees. And when going to 10th circuit that will be at least another $10k. The goal of the gofundme moves as legal expenses grow.
ReplyDeleteThe landowner lost the case at trial and has been pushing appeals, so yeah, little bitch for sure.
ReplyDeleteIs this about private owners seeking to uphold laws and rights of private owners.
ReplyDeleteVs
Hunters, hikers, etc sometimes trespassing unto private lands to gain access to public lands.
My ruling is the government has been deficient in creating, and maintaining access to abscribed public lands. The ownership of private lands shall not bare the encumbrance created by, our exaggerated by the government.
Good way to get fed to the pigs.
DeleteIn my opinion, the "whiney little bitches" are the free loaders who suck on the government teat demanding higher property taxes be paid by land owners in order to redistribute wealth like whiney little bitch communists! Doesn't sound like many landowners here. If you had to put up with the shit the public causes with treaspassing, poaching, dumping trash, setting fires, dumping their pets, and more........you would have a MUCH different take on these douche bags bulding a ladder of the corner of the property owner. It IS the governments duty and responsibility to ensure AND provide adequate assess to public lands. NOT private land owners! Hope the land owner, in this case Fred Eshelman sues these douche bags into economic oblivion. If it's NOT your land, it's someone elses. Stay the hell off of it or ask permission FIRST.
ReplyDeleteYou, sir, don't have a friggin clue what you're talking about.
DeleteAnon @ 5:48
DeleteYou, Sir, obviously don't own private property adjacent to 'public lands'. I do. Anon @ 2:22 nailed it.
If you want to access someone's private property, even if it means climbing over a fence, why not get the property owner's permission? It's easy to ask about and if permission is not given find another way to get where you want to go.
Many property owners might grant permission. All they want to know is who is on their property so if anything goes wrong they know who is responsible.
Imagine this scenario: 4 hunters from Missouri are 'Corner Crossing' over a fence in Wyoming and one of them slips and receives a compound fracture. He has a first class lawyer on retainer. Who does he sue, a private property owner or FedGuv?
The answer to that question should be obvious.
I live in Wyoming. The laws up here are vague at best when it comes to access to public lands and rights of way.
ReplyDeleteWealthy landowners usually get their way. We've seen several National Forest and BLM two track access roads shut off by "new" landowners just in the last few years, even though we supposedly have a personal right of way over these lands if we've been accessing public lands by them for more than 5 years.
Most of us simply don't have the financial means to protest in court so we just suck it up, and it just keeps on getting more and more restrictive.
We have that in Montana too-lately, Californians have been buying up parcels and not understanding that the Forest Service road is not something they can block...
DeleteEven worse than this is on the NM/CO state line, in the mountains. Ranchers on the CO side, and energy companies in NM, completely shut off through travel on public roads. Forest roads and county roads alike, all are dirt and some 4wd only. Locked gates across the road. In the case of ranchers with private property the roads pass through, I have zero problem with gates. But locked gates? I made a half dozen attempts before giving up and going way east to the interstate. And the energy companies don't just shut off public roads, but Nat'l Forest land itself, again with locked gates. I finally gave up for the evening and set up for the night, on public land, and some ashore in a company truck tried to run me off. Those two days I was as angry as I've been in years. I learned why overlanders who plot routes just avoid that whole region.
ReplyDeleteJust another instantiation of who your god said should pick your cotton.
ReplyDeleteSome people's gods insist they deserve whatever nobody stops them from taking. And they can try as often as they can. It's gods' will.
Other people's gods tell them to pick their own cotton.