Published: October 14, 2006 10:24 am      

Hunters lodge complaint about no-firearms zone on Savage River State Forest

SAVAGE RIVER LODGE — Calling it an act of desperation to keep the peace, the Maryland Forest Service has created a no-hunting/no-weapons zone on state forest land around Savage River Lodge, an upscale private resort tucked into the ridges and hollows of eastern Garrett County.

“We were becoming afraid that something serious might happen,” said Larry Maxim, superintendent of the 54,000-acre Savage River State Forest, speaking of conflicts between the lodge owners and hunters.

Lodge owner Mike Dreisbach, who wanted the restricted zone, and nearby hunters, who do not, agree on one thing, that the Maryland Natural Resources Police were called to the scene numerous times over the years to deal with confrontations.

Both sides say they were threatened by the other. Both sides, as well, deny threatening anybody.

“Natural Resources Police were going there all the time, at all hours of the day and night,” Maxim said. “There were bad words, bad feelings. We believe that this is a legitimate compromise.”

The compromise of which Maxim speaks is a 150-yard zone that restricts hunting and weapons around what is called the Green Trail, an amoeba-shaped footpath that can be accessed from the cabins in which guests stay at the lodge managed by Dreisbach and his wife, Jan Russell.

The lodge and cabins are in a 45-acre private holding surrounded by what is called Compartment 40, or the Mount Aetna Compartment, of the state forest. Furthermore, the 640 acres of Compartment 40 are separated from the remainder of the sprawling and beautiful public property in Maryland’s high country.

“The people who are complaining are the ones who live on the properties around the public land,” Dreisbach said. “For years this was their own little hunting playground. There was no public access into it. The only way to get to it was across their lands.”

Monday, 75 people showed up at Olin McKenzie’s farm, which abuts the state ground. Their moods varied from concerned to angry. They want to be able to hunt in the woods that the restricted zone has now made off limits. The recipient of their displeasure was state Delegate George Edwards, who represents them at the General Assembly in Annapolis. In early November, Edwards will run for a state Senate seat.

“I’m here to gather information,” Edwards said Monday in McKenzie’s barnyard. “I’ll be asking for an audience with the secretary of natural resources. One thing I’ll be asking him is why a public meeting wasn’t held about all this.”

Dreisbach contends it was Edwards who set up another meeting, one between the lodge owners and highly placed DNR officials that led to the establishment of the restricted zone.

Maxim said hunters were drunk and unruly and trespassed, thus precipitating what has come to pass. Maxim said he did not witness any such incidents, but got his information from Dreisbach and Natural Resources Police officers.

A determined effort by the Times-News could not find any documentation of such claims of intimidation, drunkeness and disorder.

Hunters, such as Jason Smith, Jeff McKenzie and Sid Turner, said they were hunting legally when they would be approached by Dreisbach, who would order them off the public property.

Dreisbach categorically denies such claims.

The hunters said that Dreisbach would leave and then a Natural Resources Police officer would show up, check their hunting license and leave with no further action.

Smith said he was in a group of hunters that got checked three times in one day.

NRP Sgt. Ken Turner said this week that the agency has records of seven responses by officers to the lodge, and two of those were all-terrain vehicle complaints that came after the restricted zone was posted this past spring.

Of the five that came before the signs went up, two were complaints about ATVs being operated in restricted areas. Officers listed the disposition of those as “gone on arrival.”

The other three took place in December 2005. One was a complaint about a deer hunter trespassing. That one, too, was a GOA.

The remaining two were calls about deer hunters shooting in a safety zone. Officers checked both hunters and found no violations.

Dreisbach said he can explain the difference between Maxim’s claim that law enforcement officers were called to the lodge at all hours of the day and night and the fact that only seven such incidents were on record.

“I am friends with and hunt with a lot of the Natural Resources Police officers and I had their cell phone numbers so I called them directly,” he said, adding that many of the calls were responded to by Officer Dennis Cease, now retired.

Sgt. Turner said such a scenario is certainly possible, especially in Garrett County where radio contact is less than perfect.

State Forester Steve Koehn, who authorized creation of the new no-hunting/no-weapons zone, said it is the only one of its kind on state forests in Maryland.

“We have user conflicts all over the state, but this seemed to be the nastiest of them,” Koehn said. “In making the decision, we believed it to be most equitable and reasonable given the level of emotion circling around this whole issue. Sort of a let’s-check-our-hardware-at-the-door approach.

“The fact that we have established this zone doesn’t mean it can’t be revisited. We know there are always two sides to every story.”

The newly established zone is more restrictive than a safety zone. A safety zone, according to Koehn, allows possession of an unloaded weapon. The zone at the lodge does not.

Approval of the restricted zone was also given by the 11-member Savage River State Forest Citizen Advisory Board, of which Dreisbach is a member. Maxim said Dreisbach was not present at the meeting during which the restricted zone was voted upon. In addition to the restricted zone around the Green Trail, a similar, 150-yard buffer exists on both sides of the entrance road to the complex.

Until Dreisbach and Russell bought the land on which the lodge now sits in the early 1990s, there was no public access into Compartment 40. Dreisbach said he has paid thousands of dollars for a right of way for the public on the portion of Mount Aetna Road between Frostburg Road and Compartment 40. The lodge and the Forest Service have also built a parking lot so that the public can access the Mount Aetna Loop Trail (or Red Trail), legally toting firearms and hunting for deer and other forest wildlife.

In places where the Red Trail comes closer than 150 yards to the Green Trail, Dreisbach has even pulled the restricted signs closer so that hunters will not be in violation.

Via an agreement with the Forest Service, the lodge maintains and grooms the trails, all of which are available for public use. Dreisbach said he has charted 45,000 hiker-days during the past five years by guests and public hoofers.

Overnight guests at the lodge are predominantly from the urban/suburban complexes in Maryland and northern Virginia, according to Dreisbach.

If guests who have stayed overnight in a double-occupancy cabin for $220 decide they want to hike after a $38 meal of Bison Wellington and it is hunting season, lodge workers hand them blaze-orange vests and caution them to stay on the marked trails, Dreisbach said. “Some of them have big dogs that are the size of some of our deer around here so we tell them to make sure they keep their animals on a leash.”

The lodge has 25 to 30 employees.

“Many of these guests have never been in situations where hunting takes place. We try to explain it to them,” said Dreisbach, an avid hunter and a life member of many conservation organizations such as the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation. “A very popular time here is Thanksgiving weekend, which is also the Saturday that the Maryland firearms season for deer opens.”

Dreisbach said he often is approached by his guests who are frightened at the sight of hunters. “They will come and say ‘Why is that man in orange with a rifle staring at me like I’m a deer?’ ”

Smith, on the other hand, said that while he is hunting he often encounters guests hiking through the woods and has found them to be cordial and interested in what he is doing.

“They usually wish me luck with my hunt,” Smith said. “I’ve never had a problem with the hikers, but I always have problems with the lodge owner.”

“We just wish everybody could get along,” Maxim said. Dreisbach agreed. “I’ve tried to reason with these people, but it didn’t work. From now on I’m leaving it up to law enforcement personnel.”

Maryland’s early muzzleloader season opens Oct. 19. Smith said he and others plan to hunt for deer on Compartment 40 as they always have.

“I’ve hunted there since I was 14,” added Sid Turner.

McKenzie said he would like to have another meeting, one that would be formal, organized and polite, one that would potentially attract more people than the 75 that milled around his farm this past week. He wonders aloud why the Forest Service didn’t conduct such a meeting in the first place.

Michael A. Sawyers can be reached at msawyers@times-news.com.