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Letter: Hunters and outdoor recreationists should be natural allies in fighting Utah’s land grab attempts

I would like to add some additional comments to Kate Groetzinger’s excellent opinion piece concerning the fight to keep public lands in public hands.

Like Groetzinger, I grew up in Texas. My parents moved to the Texas hill country after I left for college and enrolled at Utah State University. I got used to exploring all the marvelous public land that Utah has to offer.

Occasionally, I would visit my parents in the Texas hill country and found that all the surrounding countryside was fenced and privately owned. Crossing a fence was to commit a felony trespass. There was no place to hike. It was claustrophobic.

As Groetzinger points out, Texas is a cautionary tale for what would happen to Utah’s public lands if the state takes control. The state can’t afford to maintain the land so they would sell it off to the highest bidder and the public would be locked out.

And it’s not just the hikers, climbers and bikers that would be locked out. The hunters and fishers would also be locked out — unless they pay huge funds to a hunting lease. Hunting leases in the Texas hill country can average $4,000 a year to hunt on just 80 acres for white tails the size of dogs. Tell a Utah hunter they can only hunt on just 80 acres and they would laugh at you.

The hunting community and the outdoor recreationists should be natural allies in fighting the state’s attempts at grabbing our public lands.

Michael W. Loring, Cottonwood Heights

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