FWP director reiterates corner crossing is illegal in Montana

Micah Drew

(Daily Montanan) Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks Director Christy Clark wants Montanans to know that corner crossing remains illegal in Montana.

Corner crossing — the act of moving from one parcel of public land diagonally to another parcel, ostensibly without setting foot in bordering private land — has long been a contentious issue in western states where public and private land is often checkerboarded.

At a meeting of the Environmental Quality Council last week, Clark reiterated that corner crossing has always been unlawful in Montana, and remains so despite a high-profile federal court ruling in a Wyoming case last year that opened access to land-locked public parcels in six western states.

That ruling, in the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals, doesn’t apply in Montana, Clark said, which falls under the jurisdiction of the Ninth Circuit Court. The U.S. Supreme Court declined to take up an appeal of the circuit court’s decision, which, if they had agreed with the judge’s ruling, would have then applied to the rest of the country.

“We won’t recognize that,” Clark said. “Corner crossings have always been unlawful in Montana, and there’s a lot of confusion around corner crossings because of that 10th Circuit Court decision.”

Clark said she had fielded calls from landowners during the last hunting season about hunters confused about whether the court ruling applied here.

“They think they can corner cross now, but they’re not going from corner to corner,” she said, adding that landowners had reported hunters crossing swaths of private land to bridge between public parcels — clearly unlawful.

State Rep. Josh Seckinger, D-Bozeman, raised questions about the legality of corner crossing during the meeting on March 25, and whether FWP had initiated a new policy for reporting or citing individuals for corner crossing.

Clark said that game wardens have discretion whether to write tickets for individuals, for example if a private landowner doesn’t want to press charges, but that it is ultimately up to a county attorney whether to prosecute an offense.

“What we’ve said is, if you have a situation and it is truly an unlawful corner crossing, then write the ticket,” Clark said. “Whether or not the county attorney prosecutes, it doesn’t have any bearing on what we do.”

A spokesperson for FWP did not respond to questions from the Daily Montanan about how many citations were issued for corner crossing last year or how many individuals were given warnings and educated on the rules by game wardens.

There are roughly 871,000 acres of corner-locked public land according to a 2022 analysis by OnX — a vast swath of land that Montanans seem to be in favor of allowing access to.

According to a poll conducted by Montana Free Press-Eagleton, 59% of Montanans think corner crossing should be legal, while just 7% think it should be illegal.

Previous attempts to legalize corner crossing in Montana have failed.

In 2013, a bill carried by Missoula Democratic Rep. Ellie Boldman drew support from sportsmen but failed to pass a key House vote.

But Boldman, now a state senator, plans to bring the bill back next session, joined by Seckinger.

In an opinion piece in that ran in Montana media outlets last month, the lawmakers wrote that “ownership without access is hollow. When large blocks of public land become functionally unreachable, they might as well be behind locked gates.”

The legislation they intend to introduce in 2027 — assuming they are re-elected to their positions — would “not diminish” private property rights and not permit crossing private land, but would clarify that moving from public land to public land at a shared corner is allowed.

“It’s going to be very basic,” Seckinger told the Daily Montanan in a phone call. He said it would be similar to a Wyoming bill that failed to pass that state’s Legislature this year, combined with a landowner liability section of a similar Oregon bill, which also failed to pass this year.

Asked whether he thought Montana’s Legislature would have the appetite to approve its own corner crossing legislation, Seckinger said he’s “not sure, but we’ll see next year.”

“Montanans showed up in 2013. They are still here. And they are ready for clarity,” Seckinger and Boldman wrote in their opinion piece. “Let’s finish what we started.”