Scouting Around Using An ATV Or UTV - Accountability Or Regulation?

Using utility vehicles or ATVs during elk hunting season has skyrocketed in recent years. Four wheelers and UTVs offer several advantages -- they are easier than walking, they cause less impact than nearly all other vehicles, they can get into areas that would turn back various other vehicles, and carrying big game out on the back of an ATV is easier than carrying it out on foot.

You can also find down sides to the use of 4 wheelers. Since they are more convenient than walking, more people are hunting from their All terrain vehicle rather than on foot. The noise and smell of a four wheeler can signal game animals from a good distance off so your chance of spotting an elk or deer from an All terrain vehicle is very small. And that same sound and smell that is chasing deer and elk away from you is also chasing them away from any other hunters in the nearby area as well -- this can develop very hard feelings among hunters who used camouflage and stalking skills to get into good habitat only to have the deer scared off by UTVs or ATVs!

Because Four wheelers can get into terrain that various other vehicles cannot, some individuals are making unacceptable use of that benefit and creating a substantial network of completely new roads and trails in areas that were once roadless. This causes increased impacts to vegetation and soils. It also generates a pathway to entice other recreationists to follow until those light tracks through the meadow become a full-blown access road. The elk in that area are then subject to year-round disruption. Elk and deer hunters should realize that a half dozen studies have definitely shown that elk steer clear of vehicle activity associated with a road or ATV trail. Other interesting tidbits from these studies indicate that:

Big game use drops in areas right next to roads for distances ranging from a quarter of a mile to almost 2 miles, according to the amount of traffic, the grade of the road and the density of the vegetation and topographic cover alongside the road. Usually, significantly greater traffic flow on higher quality unpaved roads generates a more substantial area of elk avoidance.

Slow moving vehicles on rough roads and trails are more disturbing to elk than fast moving vehicles on a highway.

As road and ATV trail denseness grows in a certain location, the quality and size of the elk habitat is reduced significantly, which sooner or later affects the quality and size of the elk population.

When vehicle use in hunting season actually reaches a particular threshold, Elk will turn away from that region completely and turn to inaccessible areas such as privately owned land or wilderness areas. The result is that road and trail proliferation and continual use of ATVs during hunting season is lowering all hunters' likelihood of bagging that elk and it is impacting the habitat of the very animal they are hunting.

So what will this mean for the typical hunter with an ATV? It's easy - it means be accountable while using your ATV. If, as a specific group, ATV owners are irresponsible with the operation of their machines, then there will be increasing demands on land control agencies to control ATV use during hunting season. Currently there are groups, especially other hunters, that are asking for a total ban on ATV use during hunting season. In other regions, restrictions already are developed that confine ATV use to certain times of the day and then only to get a harvested animal.

Nobody likes regulations, but when heavy ATV use persists to produce unsatisfactory effects then regulations will become vital to ensure the protection of the public lands. A better option is for All terrain vehicle users to acknowledge the effects their activity causes and voluntarily take actions to reduce those impacts. ATV users are not unique in this respect -- as increasingly more individuals use public lands for leisure, the prospective impacts of these activities are increasing quickly. Virtually all recreation users -- jeepers, horse owners, rafters, snowmobilers, hikers, campers, motorcyclists, fishermen, and mountain bikers -- have been asked to help reduce the impact of their activities so that the lands for public use can be experienced by both today's citizens as well as by future generations.

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