good for aravaipe hunters

[TAM]

Just curious if anyone here knows exactly where the locked gate was? I've hunted that area in the past and hope to get back there again someday. It would be good info to know. Thanks.

[Diamondbackaz]

Does anyone know if Game and Fish was involved in the lawsuit, and why it wasn't if it wasn't?

 

Bill Quimby

 

Let me know if wanted to get the details and I'll bug a few of the guys that was involved and see if I can get a write up.

 

cmc

 

Thanks, I'm happy we can go back there. I used to use that road a lot in the past.

 

It bothers me that Game and Fish, BLM, State Land, Forest Service, and Fish and Wildlife have historically been reluctant to take the lead on access issues.

 

It especially bothers me whenever Game and Fish, for example, comes up with compromises that force us to sign a logbook to cross private land to reach state and federal land. It truly is obnoxious when a compromise allows the lessee to lock all other routes to our land.

 

Bill Quimby

 

 

 

 

The land managment agencies are well aware of the access issues. When I worked at the Forest Service, it was considered big brotherish to go through eminent domain and it was avoided. The second part of it was that there is little or no money allocated for right of way issues. When I was there in the early nineties, the forest acquired many right of ways by not maintaining any roads that the Forest didn't have a right of way. Many landowners came forward and granted right of way. The county could have done that in this case here also by stop blading the road untill all right of ways are acquired.

[curmudgen]

Does anyone know if Game and Fish was involved in the lawsuit, and why it wasn't if it wasn't?

 

Bill Quimby

Bill: Matt Walton, who works access issues for AZGFD, did the research in the Graham County Courthouse which proved that the road was a public road dating back to the late 1800's or early 1900s, facts which the Graham County Attorney and the Board of Supervisors chose not to act upon, making it necssary for private citizens to file and win the lawsuit.

Unfortunately, Ms. Tapia did not have an attorney and the case will likely not be appealed to a higher court, which means the case is precedent only in Graham County and not state wide.

Matt, and others in Game and Fish, are doing a good job at identifying access issues and old roads that should not be locked up, but get little cooperation from local boards of supervisors and little funding or support from the legislature to acquire access to public lands. Whitetail hunters are most seriously affected by road closures as we hunt the edges of the "sky islands" which are the areas most easily locked up by owners of ranches and developers who adjoin the public lands where the deer live. The problem is most severe in Southeastern Arizona, which is one reason the legislature doesn't take an interest in it.

If anyone has time and an inclination to get involved in access issues they may contact Matt at the Tucson office of AZGFD. I believe he can put them in touch with various groups trying to protect our right to access our public lands. Jack Wms, former Graham Cty Atty.

[.270]

it was just a couple miles upstream from where the road pulls out of aravaipa and heads up turkey creek. Lark.

[Diamondbackaz]

Does anyone know if Game and Fish was involved in the lawsuit, and why it wasn't if it wasn't?

 

Bill Quimby

I believe he can put them in touch with various groups trying to protect our right to access our public lands. Jack Wms, former Graham Cty Atty.

 

Is there a right to acess public lands that trumps a private property owner on who can trespass on his land? Does he actually deny aceess to public lands when there may be another way in but you may have to walk in?

[curmudgen]

Does anyone know if Game and Fish was involved in the lawsuit, and why it wasn't if it wasn't?

 

Bill Quimby

I believe he can put them in touch with various groups trying to protect our right to access our public lands. Jack Wms, former Graham Cty Atty.

 

Is there a right to acess public lands that trumps a private property owner on who can trespass on his land? Does he actually deny aceess to public lands when there may be another way in but you may have to walk in?

If there is a strip of private land a foot, or less, wide in front of or around public land, the private land owner can generally block access to the public land. In the situation with Ms. Tapia at Aravaipa there was a road that had been used by the public for over one hundred years and because of various circumstances the court found that the land owner could not block it. That's not the case, however with most roads that traverse private land. As to the second question, if you can walk around the private land, more power to you, but being able to walk in is not a practical solution for most hunters and doesn't result in providing the kind of access to our public lands we would like to have. Jack