The average Utah hunter may have to become as adept at identifying wheat and barley fields as spotting deer or wild turkey.

No, wheat and barley have not been redefined as wildlife.

But there will be a redefinition of trespassing if HB41, which passed the Senate on a 15-12 vote Wednesday, is signed into law.

The bill, sponsored by Rep. Craig Buttars, R-Lewiston, stipulates that hunters, birdwatchers and others in wildlife-related activities stay off all "cultivated property" unless they have permission from the property owner.

It removes the landowner's burden of posting "no trespassing" signs and places the responsibility for recognizing private, agricultural land squarely on the shoulders of the hunter.

Cultivated property is defined by the bill as land whose soil is "loosened or broken up for the raising of crops . . . used for the raising of crops" or is artificially irrigated.

Those definitions left a number of senators wondering if the bill would create confusion in the fields, causing hunters to pause and scratch their heads and at every flat area of land they come across.

"This would be so difficult for our county sheriff in my county, and I'm certain in all of your counties, to enforce this," Sen. John Valentine, R- Orem, said during a lengthy debate on the Senate floor.

The bill was approved in the House by a 59-14 margin.

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But Valentine got his fellow senators thinking. And Sen. Beverly Evans, R-Altamont, the Senate sponsor of the measure, tried her best to dissuade any fears.

"We know when we are in cultivated land. We know when we are in private property. I think we need to go back and take the burden off the landowner," she said, adding that a similar law has worked well in Idaho for the past decade.

The Senate passed another bill Wednesday dealing with hunters and private property. It voted unanimously to pass HB40, allowing the state to recover protected wildlife taken by a trespasser.

HB40 is designed to close a loophole in state law that allows trophy hunters to purposely trespass and pay a small fine but still take home the trophy animal they downed while committing the illegal act.

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