Ducks unlimited land no access...
 

So I found a few places to hunt on ducks unlimited land and it's on the Alberta Conservation site as accessible but the owner came and told me he is leasing the land to ducks unlimited and will call F&W and the RCMP for trespassing...

How is this even possible? On the county maps it shows ducks unlimited and on the grazing lease site there is no mention of it.

Anyone ever have this happen?

Where was this?

Have you tried contacting the DU office? They're very responsive to these types of questions.

I haven't bumped into your situation, but I have been out for gophers on a DU site where I'd checked the DU and ACA pages, neither of which indicated contact was necessary. I top a hill on the property & the backside is crawling with cows. Go to candidate site #2 a few miles away, cattle there too. Candidate site #3 a bit further on, a guy's on the property with a tractor placing implents. I shrug, head home. Contacted the DU office to see what I was missing. Got forwarded to the DU officer local to these sites, who says often times in the background there are arrangements for land use and you just need to contact the local office for the details. He forwarded me the contact information for the people who had arrangements for those properties in spring/summer.

Point of the story is that, somewhat disconcertingly, the story is sometimes deeper than it appears on the DU and ACA pages.

one of my neighbors has same problem
 

he owns the land surrounding weed lake. leased the flooded portion to make the lake to DU but is not required to allow access. Argued with too many hunters that felt entitled to access merely because it was a DU site so now nobody gets in. ACA has a foot access area near a parking lot only that will get you to the water but surrounding land you are not permitted to cross to get to the lake.

sounds odd that DU would lease land from a landowner.
I'm close to a conservation site, and the land owners (DU, pheasants forever, F&G ) lease some of that land to a rancher for summer pasture.
permission is not required, walk in only. Haven't heard of any problems, the wildlife conservation land has, i think, 6-8 quarters. i have seen cattle there in summer only.
these guys have really raised the land values!

Nothing odd about it.

Ducks unlimited is a nonprofit organization. They have rather limited resources. Plus there is a lot of wetlands on privately held land.

Any effort to enhance Duck habitat has to at least consider such wetlands.

Around here all of the Ducks unlimited land that I know of is on private property and a fair amount of it is not accessible to the public, without first obtaining permission from the land owner.

Those guys have done nothing towards raising land prices, it's the city guys wanting private hunting reserves and the speculators that are doing that.

Ducks Unlimited does indeed enter into various arrangements with private landowners where the landowner retains ownership of the property. However in these cases, Ducks Unlimited is not the registered owner and shouldn't show up as the owner on a county map.

They have leased some of their properties out for agricultural purposes,,, in which case, the leasee may have the right to restrict access. One of my neighbours has done an acre swap arrangement with DU where he farmed the adjacent DU owned qtr in exchange for the wetland on his property which has been enhanced and protected.

They have also started selling some of their properties with conservation easements to protect the habitat and raise funds for future projects. In this case, it could be the possible that Landowner maps and ACA listings have not updated yet.

As already mentioned , it would be best to check with DU as to the actual current status of the property in question.

lots of ducks unlimited land is privately owned
ducks unlimited has a forever easement lease on them
the land owner actually has the right to allow or disallow entry on the land
and many ducks unlimited lands are on the map title as ducks unlimited but it is owned by a farmer or other property owner
two of my friends and I bought a section of land with one of these easement leases
we can not build a house or permeant building on this land we can not drain the water off of it
we can only graze cattle after the said nesting period , we use it only for our own recreational purposes
on the county land map it is marked as ducks unlimited owners but this is not so it is our land we bought it on an on line ducks unlimited auction for dirt cheap, our cost of purchasing this land was $23,000, pretty cheap land for recreational land , eg, hunting camping quading but it has to stay in its oh dee natural state
it will cost us $45,000 to get the ducks unlimited easement lifted
the land isn't any good for farm land as its mostly treed and under water any ways
so we are happy with it as it is
this may explain why the owner has that right to allow you access or did allow you access
if you look up ducks unlimited land auctions you may find land in your area for sale with the same easements on it
here is one of the land sale sites
prairie.ducks.org/index.cfm?&page=/cld/listings.html

if it says DU on the map then it is DU, end of story. If you do indeed own it you best be looking into having the map updated. I know i would because as long as the map is up to date and still says DU, there isnt a damn thing you can do to keep people off the land.

Where do you come up with this stuff? A frickin' name on a map does not and never has trumped the name on the deed. Lots of county maps are years out of date.

Exactly
Maps have to be updated regularly .
If that was the case if the map being the the final say , according to the county map I wouldn't own the land that was deeded to me 6 years ago!:budo:
Cat

Pretty sure all the guy meant was that if people see Ducks Unlimited on the map, they will keep coming thinking that is where they are going. Don't think he meant that the map is any sort of official document or anything else other than a reference. But that is just what I understood.

If that is what he really meant, then he worded his post very poorly, as multiple people, myself included, interpreted his post differently.

Have you been smoking cat tails?
DU doesn't have the authority to let people on land that they do not own.

Well the word of the law will fall to who's name is on the deed, but I can't see a judge upholding a trespass charge if they were on what appeared to be publicly accessible land on a recent (current year map).

The map provides no authority to enter. Charges have been upheld where land has changed ownership in many instances.

Read the disclaimer on a county map.
A map is outdated as soon as it is printed.
A lack of knowledge on a trespassers part is no defence in court.

agreed. for all these others spewing nonsense please provide links and or specific court cases where the map was the most up to date, stated DU on said quarter, and where a landowner won a trespass case on said land. Thanks in advance. I wont hold my breath though because you would have a better shot at finding a unicorn in your back yard.
Its pretty simple really, if buddy actually does own the land he needs to make sure his name is on the map. If he owns it why wouldnt he? otherwise john doe sees DU on the updated map and will access it as such and be well within his or her right to do so.

six years and you havnt been able to get the map updated correctly? i dunno cat, but it seems at times you have a fancy for chewing on the fat no? i think some of your yarns should start of " once upon a time in a far away land"

How exactly does a guy "make sure his name is on the map"?...

No it's not within your right to access private land just because the land is labeled DU on a map. Yes a judge may not find you guilty of trespassing if there are no signs posted, and you have not been notified of the mistake, but the mistake on a map does not give you the legal right to access private land, just because of that mistake. And if there are signs posted, or if the landowner asks you to leave the land and you refuse, a mistake on a map is not likely going to keep a judge from finding you guilty.

seriously??

It is NOT up to me to ask to get maps updated.
As far as any insinuations gossiping here I would suggest you be careful where you tread and who you insult.
Cat

Have you ever tried to get a name correction? The Landowner maps are full of mistakes, often past owners from years ago somehow never get taken off.

Getting the correction is not as simple as you think when you are dealing with different layers of govt bureaucracy.

arguing with landowners is very productive
 

See my post #4. Arguments in his field with hunters that he cant deny access to DU projects is exactly why he no longer allows hunters. Weed Lake is identified as a DU project and nowhere does it say that all the lands of or surrounding the project are accessible to the public.
20 or more years ago the Taylor family allowed DU to improve what was known as Taylor Marsh in this area. Within 2 year due to trespassing Holt and Taylor families both had it posted because people assumed they could hunt there. Edwin used to call me to bring my canoe and tear down the blinds on the islands from time to time.
Like this thread we just have more entitled people arguing "their rights".
I actually gave my neighbor an ACA map about 4 years ago where land around Weed Lake was shown as DU property, what it didnt show was Jim had leased it for 99 years for free since they flooded some of his land to create the lake. Map reading is good but DU land is not automatically "public".

Yah, seriously, looking forward to your response .....

Many areas posted and used by DU is for building habitat for waterfowl and the like ...... Not hunting .

It is building habitat for DU and the Waterfowl it supports, rather then blasting them. Yes they are usually nice spots, but that's what is allowing us to have success and us to shoot in many other places.
DU posted land isn't merely a spot for ....... There are UNLIMITED AMMOUNT OF Ducks here ...... Come blast away.

My 2 cents

I agree. Normally I don't think that would be the case. However, I can see DU trying to protect some wetlands just for breeding purposes and it might be possible that hunters would not have access. Hunters and waterfowl would still benefit overall.

Duc
 

Once upon a time DUC would purchase the land and as such could and would grant permission to hunt. Now due to the cost of land DUC is leaning more to creating partnerships with current landowners for habitat development. Almost always these partnerships are a lease situation that maintains the ownership of the land with that of the landowner and not DUC. Benefit to the landowner is a tax break. After all the land that DUC is interested in is marginal farm land at best and of little value to the landowner other than that of a tax break. So permission to hunt that land is still required from the landowner, some are agreeable and some not. The permission issue is separate from that of DUC unless of course the DUC flat out owns the land. Same goes for the AFGA and other Conservation groups. That's why in another thread from another time I was making the point that it's important for those of us who donate funds to conservation to be aware that not all conservation is favourable to the hunter.

At one time, Ducks Unlimited was turning into an anti hunting group, still true?

Grizz