{"id":525050,"date":"2010-04-12T07:56:14","date_gmt":"2010-04-12T11:56:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.earthportal.org\/news\/?p=3279"},"modified":"2010-04-12T07:56:14","modified_gmt":"2010-04-12T11:56:14","slug":"big-bend-mountains-won%e2%80%99t-go-to-park-service-%e2%80%94-texas-official","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/525050","title":{"rendered":"Big Bend mountains won\u2019t go to Park Service \u2014 Texas official"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.dallasnews.com\/sharedcontent\/dws\/news\/texassouthwest\/stories\/DN-xmasmountains_09tex.ART.State.Edition1.4cb9883.html\" ><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.dallasnews.com\/sharedcontent\/dws\/img\/v3\/04-09-2010.tsw_09_Christmas_Mountains.GQO2Q1EO7.1.jpg\" width=\"320\" align=\"left\" height=\"179\" \/><\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/eenews.net\/Greenwire\/2010\/04\/09\/24\/\" >Greenwire<\/a>: The Christmas Mountains in Big Bend area of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.eoearth.org\/article\/Ecoregions_of_Texas_%28EPA%29\">Texas<\/a> won&#8217;t be  transferred to the National Park Service, the state&#8217;s land boss said  yesterday.<\/p>\n<p>Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson has long resisted giving the land  to the Park Service, in part because they would ban guns and hunting on  the property. Instead, Patterson said he will sell to a private bidder  or lease the land for hunting.<\/p>\n<p>In February, Congress removed the ban on guns in national parks, but  the commissioner is still leaning toward a private owner. Selling the  land has been a controversial proposal because of concerns the public  could be shut out of the mountains or the area would be developed for  commercial use.<\/p>\n<p>The wilderness was donated to Texas in 1991 and debate over what to  do with it has been going on ever since. Texas businessman John  Poindexter bid on the land three years ago and may still be interested,  although he said the land has no economic value. He estimates it would  cost nearly $1 million to clear invasive plants, fence it and restore  the roads to make it fully accessible and added he might repopulate the  area with elk and buffalo.<\/p>\n<p>Big Bend National Park superintendent, William Wellman, also has a  management proposal for the mountains and said he did not know the Park  Service was out of the running for the land (Ramit Plushnick-Masti, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.dallasnews.com\/sharedcontent\/dws\/news\/texassouthwest\/stories\/DN-xmasmountains_09tex.ART.State.Edition1.4cb9883.html\" ><em>Dallas  Morning News<\/em><\/a>, April 9). <strong>&#8211; JP<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"akst_link\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.earthportal.org\/news\/?p=3279&amp;akst_action=share-this\"  title=\"E-mail this, post to del.icio.us, etc.\" id=\"akst_link_3279\" class=\"akst_share_link\" rel=\"nofollow\">Share This<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Greenwire: The Christmas Mountains in Big Bend area of Texas won&#8217;t be transferred to the National Park Service, the state&#8217;s land boss said yesterday. Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson has long resisted giving the land to the Park Service, in part because they would ban guns and hunting on the property. Instead, Patterson said he will [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4055,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-525050","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/525050","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4055"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=525050"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/525050\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=525050"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=525050"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=525050"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}