The public should look with a wary eye at Bureau of Land Management plans that would allow limits to be placed on off-road vehicle use on its western lands. Think about it. Most other vehicles were unable to navigate the trails and rudimentary roads then in existence. The horse could, and served as a pack animal throughout the West. The horse was the vehicle of choice in the mountainous BLM lands, and did its share of damage off road and to the trails and skid roads that marred the steep slopes in many of the western states.
Hooves can easily do as much damage to the land as rubber tires, perhaps more so.
This fact points to the unfairness of giving forest managers carte blanche to, in the future, ban virtually all vehicles from public lands, even those like mountain bikes that if kept on roads and trails have no more impact on soils than a horse. If you re going to one day ban mountain bikes, be prepared to one day ban that non-native interloper, the horse, from trampling the federal forests. It s only fair. That s not what the founders of this nation had in mind when they constitutionally designed the parameters that determined the boundaries and ownerships, public and private, that eventually drew the map that became the United States. What this issue needs is some aggressive discussion between BLM officials and the public and ORV users groups, culminating in fair guidelines that federal managers can use to determine restrictions in the future.