“Hunting has become big business,” said Mr. Herring. “And people who have leased land to hunt don’t want there to be people who don’t pay. As a result, the trespassing issue has gotten hotter every year.
Resentment from landowners and commercial hunting is also heated.
“If you go back a few decades, it was a lot easier for the public to knock on the door and access private land,” says Mr. Webster of the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, which has worked with OnX on public lands. initiatives. “In general, the people who owned the land had roots in that community — they went to church together, they went to school together, they grew up together. And if you want access to my house, that’s fine, let me just know – stuff like that.
That trust has been eroded, in part due to a generational shift away from family farming and ranching. “The owners and their children don’t want to carry on that tradition,” Mr. Webster said, “so they end up selling to a new landowner who may not be from the area and who may not have the same feelings about the public on their land.”
The result – bitter confrontations infused with class undertones and hints at greater grievances – is now a staple of the West.
Lawmakers have stepped in to resolve the conflicts, largely in favor of landowners and business interests seeking to limit public access, while judges have gravitated toward easing restrictions. For out-of-home advocates, the issue can be a public relations nightmare, as the big-pocketed lenders they seek for financial backing are often landowners.
As a corner-crosser, OnX has found himself navigating a closely contested space. In 2018, Mr. Siegfried stepped down as CEO to focus on public lands advocacy. At the same time, the company began publishing a stream of “access initiatives” trumpeting the issues of landlocked and cornered land.
Laura Orvidas, who succeeded Mr. Siegfried as CEO of OnX, does not believe the app will facilitate intrusion.
