MORE ATV TRAIL CHANGES
Friday, September 18th, 2009 -- 3:22 PM
Hunters will no longer be allowed to take their ATVs off-trail to recover deer under an ordinance change recommended by the Forestry and Parks committee yesterday.Currently, hunters are allowed to operate their ATVs off trail to recover deer during the 9-day gun-deer season.
Trails Coordinator Brian Duell says officials have noticed a lot of off-trail damage caused by hunters in recent years. When the ordinance was written, ATVs were much smaller than they are today.
Under the change approved yesterday, hunters will be allowed on the closed trail system from Nov. 1 to Dec. 15th from the end of hunting hours to 11 p.m., but they?ll not be allowed to drive off-trail to recover game.
The change will not go into effect this year, and will be presented to the full county board with a number of other ordinance changes sometime next year.
One clarification, yesterday, we reported the committee decided to close the ATV trails from November 1st through December 15th. We said that required full county board approval, but that is not correct. The change will go into effect next year.
Feel free to contact us with questions and/or comments.