During an Oval Office ceremony this afternoon, President Trump signed an Executive Order that could significantly shrink two National Monuments in southern Utah. The monuments, Grand Staircase Escalante (GSE) and Bears Ears, protect roughly 3.2 million acres of federally managed public land in the Beehive State from mining, drilling, and commercial-scale timber harvest. Both monuments allow hunting and fishing and are popular destinations for public-land hunters and anglers.
Today’s EO comes after repeated, long-running attempts to undo Monument protections for Bears Ears and Grand Staircase. Most recently, Utah Senator Mike Lee and Utah House Rep. Celeste Malloy failed to scrap Monument protections for Grand Staircase using the controversial Congressional Review Act. Lee and Malloy were also behind highly unpopular attempts to sell off public lands during federal budget negotiations last summer. They were both present at the signing today alongside Utah Governor Spencer Cox.
The EO closely mirrors a similar effort during President Trump’s first term (spearheaded by then Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke) that would have shrunk the boundaries of Bears Ears and Grand Staircase by 85 and 46 percent respectively. That move got stalled in federal courts during Trump’s first term before the Biden Administration completely reversed in 2021.
“We’re actually giving more than we did the first time back to the people of Utah,” Trump said during the closed-door Oval Office signing. According the Salt Lake Tribune, “the two orders collectively cut nearly three million acres out of monument protection.” The exact number of acres for each monument and the new boundaries that the EO could draw aren’t clear yet.
What Are National Monuments?
President Theodore Roosevelt created the National Monument system when he signed the Antiquities Act into law in 1906. During his tenure, he designated 18 National Monuments that protected some 1.5 million acres of federal land from industrial development—including 800,000 acres near the Grand Canyon. Until Trump’s 2017 challenge to the boundaries of Bears Ears and Grand Staircase, no president had ever attempted to undo previous National Monument designations.
Today, there are 138 National Monuments throughout the U.S. Other National Monuments popular with hunters and anglers for the high-quality fish-and-game habitat they provide include the Missouri River Breaks National Monument in Montana, Browns Canyon National Monument in Colorado, and the Rio Grande-Del Norte and Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks National Monuments—both in New Mexico. Public land advocates warn that today’s actions set a precedent that could erode other monument protections in the future.
Local Impacts
Nate Waggoner is the owner of Escalante Outfitters in the remote town of Escalante, Utah, on the edge of the monument. In addition to his food and lodging business, Waggoner takes clients into Grand Staircase in pursuit of brown and cutthroat trout. “It’s an incredible fishery,” Wagonner tells F&S. “We fish slot-canyon type spring creeks with slick-rock bottoms for far-southern strains of Colorado cutthroat.”
Waggoner is deeply concerned about attempts to scrap the area’s hard-won National Monument designation. The entire monument is open to hunting and fishing, he says, and 90 percent of it is open to public grazing. The monument designation does set boundaries around cattle grazing near stream banks, and it strictly prohibits all forms of commercial mineral and energy extraction.
When it comes to hunting, Waggoner says Grand Staircase’s management plan provides crucial habitat protections for elk, mule deer, big horn sheep, and pronghorn antelope. “There is a critical migration corridor for mule deer running through the monument,” he adds. “It’s used by the Paunsaugent herd which is one of the best mule deer herds in the West.”
Bears Ears is also known for good hunting for big game, as well as over-the-counter opportunities for wild turkeys. Most notably, it protects a coveted area for trophy elk and mule deer commonly called the Elk Ridge Unit.
It’s not clear yet how today’s EO will impact the management plans that currently govern multiple-use activities on the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase Escalante National Monuments—or how it could be challenged in federal courts. The land within Grand Staircase is primarily managed by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), while Bears Ears contains both BLM and US Forest Service lands. President Bill Clinton designated Grand Staircase in 1996, and Preseident Obama set aside Bears Ears in 2016.
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