LAST EDITED ON Apr-19-14 AT 12:00PM (MST)[p]Be good news for the guys who want to ramp up the selling of state lands and the politicians they are associated with. Lots of western states are currently selling some their state-held lands. Link below.
In about five minutes, I found links to ones I was previously aware of.
Utah -
https://secure.utah.gov/trustlands-sales/landSales-past.html
AK Land and Mining agency sales -
http://dnr.alaska.gov/mlw/landsale/otc/
AK Mental Health land sales -
http://www.mhtrustland.org/documents/TLO 2013 Winter Land Sale Apparent High Bidders.pdf
AK University fund land sales -
http://www.ualand.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=LandSales.Home
Arizona -
http://www.azland.gov/programs/realestate/auctions/scheduled.htm
Colorado -
http://trustlands.state.co.us/Sections/RealEstate/Pages/REProjects.aspx
Montana has employees assigned for just that purpose -
http://dnrc.mt.gov/Trust/LandBanking/Default.asp
And here is how MT sells other state lands not owned by DNRC -
http://dnrc.mt.gov/Trust/LandBanking/NonTrustLandForSale.asp
Nevada was given a ton of land as settlement for their statehood agreement. They sold every acre by 1987. And they sold it at discounted rates to those who had the best deal for the politicians.
Wyoming's original grant was 4.2 millions acres. They have 3.5 million remaining and are currently selling properties that are nominated as candidates for selling -
http://www.statetrustlands.org/state-by-state/wyoming.html
Plenty more than these.
Imagine the windfall selling these lands would be to states. Some may think the temptation to ramp up selling of newly acquired lands, to go on a state-funded spending spree, is something state politicians would resist. If you do think that temptation will not get heads spinning in state legislatures and public land sales cranked up, then you have a lot more respect of the integrity level, or lack thereof, that exists in state politicians than I do.
When they sell, you can forget hunting access. And, I suspect when they sell, some would buy the acreage that holds access to the bigger chunks, therefore complicating the problem of inaccessible lands that already exists, just converting it from inaccessible Federal lands to inaccessible state lands.
In Colorado, you cannot hunt state lands, unless the CO Parks and Wildlife has leased the hunting rights, something they don't have budget to do and thus very little state land is open to hunting in Colorado. There are 23 million acres of accessible Federal land in Colorado. Under laws such as this, you can kiss good bye to hunting access on those 23 million acres.
And, when other states see the Colorado model of not allowing hunting access on state lands, how long you think it will be until the well-funded interests convince other state legislatures to follow the Colorado model and not allow hunting access on state lands. My guess would be that in the first legislative sessions upon gaining control over Federal lands, many bills would be introduced in western state legislatures to disallow hunting access on state lands.
Not saying the Federal laws governing land management are a model, but if you are a hunter, you can expect a lot of the good hunting lands, or at least the parcels that control access to the good hunting lands, to be sold to the highest bidder.
"Hunt when you can - You're gonna' run out of health before you run out of money!"