The Palisades Wilderness Study Area in Wyoming

"When they call the roll in the Senate, the Senators do no know whether to answer ‘Present’ or ‘Not Guilty.’” —Theodore Roosevelt

The tally of bad bills emanating from Capitol Hill seems to be growing every day. Not surprisingly, Congress has launched yet another multi-pronged, broadside attack on our environment and this latest one has dire consequences for what remains of the wild West.

The question is, now that we citizens are fully informed of this fact, what are we willing to do about it

In the cross-hairs this time is something foundational to our relationship with the public lands of Greater Yellowstone and the larger Rockies—the 1964 Wilderness Act. It’s among an unprecedented assault, via front room and backroom deals being struck, aimed at rolling back more than a century’s worth of our heritage.

Wallace Stegner referred to the creation of the National Park System as America’s best and most original idea, worthy of emulation around the world.

If attacking America’s second best idea–our system of Wilderness areas—isn't offensive enough, this assault also aims to take the public out of the public land management decision-making process. If successful, this one-two punch will devastate a landmark conservation law like no other effort in recent history.

The centerpiece of this radical attempt is contained within a bill fallaciously labeled the SHARE Act. Its full title is the: “ Sportsmen’s Heritage and Recreational Enhancement Act ” (HR 3668).

Introduced into the House last fall by U.S. Rep. Jeff Duncan, Republican from South Carolina, it purports “to provide for the preservation of sportsmen’s heritage and enhance recreation opportunities on Federal land, and for other purposes."

Who could argue with that, except that it’s loaded with poison bills so distasteful that a few sportsmen's groups have sounded the alarm telling their members not to be duped.

The SHARE Act, if it passes, will reverse decades of federal authority by setting up a flawed system whereby the most critical Wilderness management decisions, now made by agencies with involvement from the public, are instead turned over to state wildlife agencies.

Make no mistake: the SHARE Act is an environmental disaster in the making. It guts a premier component of the Wilderness Act that has been crucial to our country’s cultural heritage and the very best of our few wild landscapes that remain.

Specifically targeted are the “Wilderness Areas, Wilderness Study Areas, and lands administratively classified as wilderness eligible or suitable and primitive or semi-primitive areas” administered by the U.S. Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service via our National Wildlife Refuge System. (Omitted are National Park Service designated Wilderness areas.)

Sadly, this attack on our Wilderness lands is being promoted as an alleged benefit to America’s sportsmen and women. It is not. Not if you are a hunter or angler who really cares about habitat. I apologize for maligning Canis lupus by metaphor, but the SHARE Act is nothing more than a “wolf in sheep’s clothing”.

Sadly, this attack on our Wilderness lands is being promoted as an alleged benefit to America’s sportsmen and women. It is not. Not if you are a hunter or angler who really cares about habitat. I apologize for maligning Canis lupus by metaphor, but the SHARE Act is nothing more than a “wolf in sheep’s clothing”.

Will citizens and conservation groups in our region be docile or will they stand up and make their voices heard? In this case, silence is not golden.

Tucked away in the SHARE Act’s original 29 pages is Title IV, the “Recreational Fishing and Hunting Heritage Opportunities Act” which mandates that wilderness managers support and facilitate state wildlife agencies with access to, and use of federal public lands for purposes of protecting and enhancing public fishing, hunting and general recreation.

Again, who could argue with that, except that, once again, the title belies the truth. Under this provision, if a state wildlife agency wants to, say, claim it is enhancing fishing opportunities within designated Wilderness areas or wilderness-qualified lands, they can dam streams, construct ponds, and plant fish favored by anglers- whether a native species or not.

In order to “increase forage production” for their most popular and lucrative big game animals to generate more revenue, state agencies can direct landscape-scale habitat manipulation projects.

They can construct cabins to comfortably accommodate hunters and anglers. They can also attempt to increase big game populations through extensive predator control programs aimed at removing wolves, mountain lions, coyotes, and even, ostensibly, grizzly bears. It will be the states’ prerogative and given how our states have managed predators, you can predict the outcome.

To accommodate these objectives, access roads can be carved into our wild lands and used indefinitely for “program maintenance”. States could do most anything as long as they claimed it preserved or enhanced hunting, fishing and other recreation opportunities.

And, it would be the states acting alone, lead by only a handful of politically appointed wildlife commissioners, that will decide what constitutes enhancement and protection. If a commission, for example, is dominated by representatives from ranching and big game hunting interests, you again know what will happen.

Most noteworthy, the SHARE Act subverts democratic management of public lands that has been a hallmark. It conveniently cuts the public out of these decisions by waiving requirements for transparency as mandated by another law, the National Environmental Policy Act.

It would force federal agencies to arbitrarily declare that none of the actions proposed by the state wildlife agencies constitute a major action and are therefore exempt from further analysis or public scrutiny and comment. Citizen voices would be stilled and there’s nothing we could do about it.