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How placement of private land makes public areas in the West inaccessible

By Steve Goldstein
Published: Wednesday, April 27, 2022 - 1:56pm
Updated: Wednesday, April 27, 2022 - 2:20pm

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Dating back to the earliest days of western expansion in the Untied States is a collection of checkerboard patterns that divide public lands from private lands.

As a challenge to what they considered to be archaic policies, a group of hunters from Missouri decided to cut some of those checkerboards in Wyoming — and they found themselves facing federal trespassing charges.

To learn more about Western land policies and what the Missouri hunters may have been trying to accomplish, The Show spoke with Aaron Weiss, deputy director for the Center for Western Priorities.

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