New house bill for Idaho

Idahomnts

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Idaho house agriculture committee passed h536 today
http://legislature.idaho.gov/wp-content/uploads/sessioninfo/2018/legislation/H0536.pdf
and sent it to the floor for a vote.
This bill would remove all posting requirements for private lands and make hunters criminally liable for trespass, even if the land in question is unfenced, uncultivated, and not even marked with orange-painted fence posts every 660 feet (which is a pretty minimal posting requirement to begin with.)
Furthermore, the bill would change the penalties for first-time offenders to jail times of 6 months and fines between $500 and $1,000. It increase the penalty for third time offenses to a FELONY.
This is a direct attack on Idaho sportsmen and the culture of public lands and public access that makes Idaho the place we all love. I’m a property owner too, and I’m not advocating for trespassing. I’d support increasing the penalties for willful trespassers, though not to a felony. I believe that removing even the basic requirement of posting with orange posts every 660 feet is a bad policy that will hurt hunters.
Imagine hunting a BLM piece and coming to a private inholding that is not fenced and not posted. Under this new bill, you could be prosecuted for walking across a boundary you didn’t even know was there.
This is a bad bill and it passed committee 14 to 1, so it is going to move unless we stop it. Call your reps. Call your buddies. Otherwise, you better go buy a GPS and a landowner chip and pray that it’s accurate.

Facts
1. It is currently ILLEGAL to hunt fenced property without permission.
2. It is currently ILLEGAL to hunt cultivated property without permission.
3. It is already ILLEGAL to hunt uncultivated, unfenced property that is posted by use of an orange fence post every 660 feet.
4. Litter, vandalism and other issues being cited as reason for this bill are already ILLEGAL.
5. Map software is not perfect. I have found lots of places where GPS mapping software was out of date, or simply incorrect.
 
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Idahomnts

Idahomnts

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Just seen this thought maybe there would be some interest in it ,
 

Dunndm

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Seems to me if they increase the charges to people they should at least maintain or make the outline of private property a little more visible


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tttoadman

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I have mixed opinions on this. I assume they need to make these adjustments because there is abuse that that landowners are dealing with. I also know that the use of old traditional fence lines as implied boundaries can be problematic. The fences do not always travel along the perfect line, nor should they be expected to. At first glance I don't see anything wrong with it as long as a judge can make discretionary judgments on fines if a person has shown best effort.
 

541hunter

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It's already like that in Oregon. With modern technology it's not hard to find ownership and property boundaries.

I guess I don't understand why the burden of marking property line should be on the land owner. It is their property and our responsibility as hunters to respect that.

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I see both sides of this. It can be difficult as a landowner to keep the land posted. This is especially true if somebody removes the posted signs. As a landowner I have taken trespassers to court and the judge gave them a warning because I hadn't posted my land well enough.

There is no easy answer to this but I largely agree that there should be some amount of posting required, especially for private inholdings in public lands.
 

5MilesBack

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Colorado is already like that. The burden of identifying private property is on the hunter, not the landowner. In 35+ years of hunting I've only run into an issue once, and that was 1983 I think. With today's GPS mapping it's pretty easy to see where you are.

And even then.......back in 1983, we were absolutely trespassing. But without a GPS it was impossible to tell within any reasonable distance, as we had been hunting BLM and ended up crossing into private without knowing it. However, a quick polite conversation with the landowner ended in him letting it go. And we just happened to be carrying my deer out at the time, following the path of least resistance to the road. These days, who knows how that would go, but with GPS's it shouldn't even become an issue.
 
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I've been in a situation that dealt with this in Utah. The property wasn't marked in a very remote area. The land owner let us off but the DWR decided to exercise their right to piracy and write us a ticket three weeks later. The officer claimed that we didn't do our duty because I didn't have OnX at the time. In my mind, it should go both ways. If a land owner is too stupid and lazy to mark their property every ~660 ft, they ought to expect issues.

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If that is introduced, there should be fines for landowners who incorrectly post public land as private as well.
 

dotman

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Well all the more reason to have a gps with private property boundaries. Truthfully I’m not completely against this.
 

JWP58

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Piracy? Gee wiz, did the pirate use his e.s.p. to know you trespassed or did he get a report from the land owner?
 

dotman

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I've been in a situation that dealt with this in Utah. The property wasn't marked in a very remote area. The land owner let us off but the DWR decided to exercise their right to piracy and write us a ticket three weeks later. The officer claimed that we didn't do our duty because I didn't have OnX at the time. In my mind, it should go both ways. If a land owner is too stupid and lazy to mark their property every ~660 ft, they ought to expect issues.

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And if the trespasser is too stupid and lazy to know the property lines between public and private they should be fined.
 

Gobbler36

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None your business
Should absolutely fall on the landowner to mark his property if he doesnt want anyone on it, this bill is bs. If they are having issues than I feel like the fair thing to do is have heavier consequences at the same time add more requirements if youre going to do something.
 
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Piracy? Gee wiz, did the pirate use his e.s.p. to know you trespassed or did he get a report from the land owner?
The land owner calls in every single vehicle that parks at that trailhead. He called the DWR office while we were there talking to him and said he understood our mistake and was letting us off. I actually used a map of the property that I got from the DWR website to know the boundaries (it was a CWMU). That map was completely incorrect, and the part of the property that we went on wasn't physically marked.
Electronic mapping devices aren't infallible. Crap happens to them. I can't always download more imagery in the field. The only failsafe solution is for land owners to mark their property.
I always research the area I'm headed to, including the time I made a mistake. I spent a lot of time figuring out how to get around the private and completely avoid it, but the combination of lack of physical marking and a crap DWR map got me. It needs to work both ways.

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kicker338

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See if I can play the devil's advocate here for those who want to put all responsibility on the hunter. Would you leave you vehicle unlocked with the keys in it, leave your house unlocked doors open, etc with all responsibility left to who ever violated them????
 
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Idahomnts

Idahomnts

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I don’t understand what is so difficult about marking your ground if you absolutely don’t want anybody on your land,
 
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See if I can play the devil's advocate here for those who want to put all responsibility on the hunter. Would you leave you vehicle unlocked with the keys in it, leave your house unlocked doors open, etc with all responsibility left to who ever violated them????

Apples and oranges.
 

Ryan Avery

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Anyone that thinks this bill is OK is Neive to hunting several places in Idaho, especially if you hunt tribal land. They seem to sell and change there property lines at will.

Even digital maps can't keep up with land deals. This would defiantly make me stop hunting some places with a checkerboard of public and private.
 

Broomd

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I'm anything but naive....and I suspect this could be a good bill. And the 'three strikes/felony' provision is already in place in Idaho to my knowledge.
Some of us loathe the thought of plastering signs and painting orange squares on trees to keep trespassers off of our property.
Much of our place is fenced, but that doesn't mean hunters don't scale the fence and trespass.

Guys don't bat an eye at spending $800 on rain gear or a dyneema pack; they can carry a GPS with updated map--it ain't rocket science.. It's the cost of hunting near, and honoring private property.
 

Broomd

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Those of us who grew up around "No Trespassing" signs EVERYWHERE like I did in the Midwest hate to see that in places like north Idaho. But if that is what it takes, so be it.
 
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