How many acres does your state have?

duckhunt · Aug 20, 2016

Ive seen a lot of talk about transfer of public lands. Here in Iowa we do not have federal, blm, or forest service lands. All we have is state and county land. So I was thinking how many acres of public land are there in other states. I researched Iowa and it looks like we have about 266 thousand acres of state land. I couldn't find acres of county land but I can say there is not much. How many acres are in your state?

Camdu7 · Aug 20, 2016

Like 12 million acres here is MN between state and feds. Over a million acres in my home county!

duckhunt · Aug 20, 2016

Ive been past Duluth. Awsome country up there. About ten years ago a group of us went to the canoe boundry waters on Brule lake. Absolutely loved that trip.

quarterhorse · Aug 20, 2016

Keep in mind that the state lands in the western US are controlled by state land boards and ARE NOT public land. They are completely different that the state lands in the east.

duckhunt · Aug 20, 2016

I did not realize that. That's good to know when I plan a western hunt.

cedahm · Aug 20, 2016

quarterhorse said:
Keep in mind that the state lands in the western US are controlled by state land boards and ARE NOT public land. They are completely different that the state lands in the east.

Very important. It differs by state (watch Randy's youtube series on the land transfer examples by state for more), but for example - here in CO, by default State Trust Lands are NOT open to hunting/fishing/camping. There are some that are (these are listed on the CPW website and in an annual guide), but the CPW needs to lease them from the state explicitly for that purpose. E.g. - my BIL's family sold some land around their ranch to the state many years ago and the CPW leases it for hunting access. It is one of (relatively) few in the state.

shoots-straight · Aug 20, 2016

Here's the page you need to see. It has every states numbers on it. http://www.backcountrychronicles.com/public-hunting-land/

Montana has over 30 million acres to access for hunting, hiking, running around naked on. Whatever! We stand to lose big here.

duckhunt · Aug 20, 2016

Thanks for the link

Gellar · Aug 20, 2016

duckhunt said:
Ive seen a lot of talk about transfer of public lands. Here in Iowa we do not have federal, blm, or forest service lands. All we have is state and county land. So I was thinking how many acres of public land are there in other states. I researched Iowa and it looks like we have about 266 thousand acres of state land. I couldn't find acres of county land but I can say there is not much. How many acres are in your state?

Iowa counties average around 1500 acres of public land, not all of it is open to hunting though. Iowa also has u.s fish and wildlife, nature conservancy, and a growing amount of private land open to public hunting.

brymoore · Aug 20, 2016

34.5 million federal acres in Idaho.

1_pointer · Aug 22, 2016

500+K acres listed on the website for the state of Indiana. They do not have a category listed for National Wildlife Refuges or Army Corp of Engineers, so I don't know if those were included or not. I'm guessing they may have been rolled in with USFS or State, but not positive, as some of those are "leased" to the state for public access. It also does not include recent acquisitions by the state that are open.

Bambistew · Aug 22, 2016

More than all other states combined at about 105,000,000 ac. In addition, about 220,000,000 ac are federal (~37% of all federal land).

State land ownership has its pluses as well. Lots more freedom on state owned/managed lands here than federal lands. We are in no imediate threat of sale, as most land in Alaska is quite remote, and/or basically worthless for anything other than leaving as is.

duckhunt · Aug 22, 2016

Bambistew said:
More than all other states combined at about 105,000,000 ac. In addition, about 220,000,000 ac are federal (~37% of all federal land).

State land ownership has its pluses as well. Lots more freedom on state owned/managed lands here than federal lands. We are in no imediate threat of sale, as most land in Alaska is quite remote, and/or basically worthless for anything other than leaving as is.

WOW thats alot of public land. Planning on making a trip up there with the wife within the next couple years.

JDH · Aug 22, 2016

Very cool to see the numbers in one big chart... Indiana still has the same amount of acres per hunter as New Jersey at 0.1 even though New Jersey has 15.7% open to hunting and Indiana only has 2.2%.

Eric Albus · Aug 23, 2016

i have not read most of the previous posts...due to a lack of time.... but Mt has about 96 million acres total, and there is about 36 million acres of public lands(if memory serves correct)..... and we are in no danger of losing them, even if Trump is elected.... the fear mongering is unreal....

I am personally more afraid of a public that will vote Hillary....who ever said, "do not fear one man(Obama), one person can ruin the United States, rather fear the public that elected him the 2nd time"......

How many acres does your state have?

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