LARAMIE -- Whoever is elected president next week, America's hunters and fishermen will have greater influence in Washington than in the past, a national environmental journalist predicted Tuesday.

"As a group, hunters and anglers are more likely to be Republican than Democratic," said Elizabeth Shogren, environmental correspondent for the Los Angeles Times.

Nevertheless, Shogren told the 10th annual Stroock Forum on Wyoming Lands and People, many sportsmen felt that environmental policies of the Bush administration were "going too far, and threatened lands that they hold dear."

Delivering the keynote address at the forum, the Washington-based reporter said that as a result of sportsmen's efforts, the administration backed off from a proposed relaxation of protections for wetlands and streams.

Subsequently, she said, environmentalists, sometimes at odds with the sportsmen in the past, had begun to actively seek their support.

If Bush is re-elected, Shogren said, Washington's role in the West "likely would remain on the course set during his first term, and he likely would continue to ease regulations on Wyoming gas and oil."

However, she said, if Democratic challenger John Kerry wins, "things could change; for instance, he has said he would not drill in environmentally sensitive areas, although he hasn't said exactly what that means."

"And I imagine the questions of snowmobiles in Yellowstone and the roadless policy for national forests likely would be revisited" in a Kerry administration, Shogren said. "Surely environmentalists, who were ignored by the Bush administration, would have a greater say in policy making.

"But no matter who wins, I suggest that the hook and bullet crowd will continue to wield its new authority," the speaker said.

Earlier, at a panel on property rights and environmental quality, Sublette County rancher J.J. Healy said the prospect facing surface owners of split-estate land, on which somebody else owns the mineral rights, is "somewhat frightening."

"Surface owners have very little in the way of rights as to what really happens to their property," Healy said, because there is no law assuring them of compensation for damage to their land from mineral exploration.

"We should be ahead of the curve in protecting our interests and property rights" in the face of Bureau of Land Management projections of 74,000 oil and gas wells in the next 10 years, he said.

Linda Baker of Pinedale, executive director of the Upper Green River Valley Coalition, said, "I think it's a travesty of this part of the country to march across private land like that without notification and without just compensation. It really breaks my heart."

Republican State Rep. Monte Olsen of Daniel predicted that "with the high price of natural gas right now, and with the permitting process the way it is with the present government, you will see more and more split estates."

Olsen noted a bill being considered by the Legislature's Joint Interim Committee on the Judiciary, providing in its present draft for 30 days notice and for compensation, and said he believes the lawmakers will come forth with a workable measure.

Alan Rabinoff, deputy state director for minerals and lands in the Wyoming state BLM office, said a question that will need to be answered is whether a state law can overcome the mineral rights that were established by Congress in the Homestead Act of 1916.

Steve Hollis, chief executive officer of the Double Eagle Petroleum Company, said his company's dealings with surface landowners were seldom contentious, but many surface owners do not know who owns the mineral rights, and they should be told.

Star-Tribune correspondent Dale Nelson can be reached at wdnelson@bresnan.net.