New Mexico Federal Lands News
By Mike Casabonne
Congress has passed an extension to the current Farm Bill to allow more time for the House to come to agreement with the Administration on ag spending levels. Inaction on farm bill legislation is usually cause for great consternation in Midwestern farm states because commodity support programs for corn, wheat and soybeans are extremely important to their states’ economies. This year there is not as much concern because these three commodities are at record high prices. Agricultural publications all talk about record farm income, the improved financial health of the ag sector of the economy and what great times these are for farmers.
The livestock industry has had a pretty long run of good prices too but not like feed grains. Anyone who has had to buy feed this winter knows what grain prices have done to the cost of production of range livestock. Feed and fuel costs have skyrocketed over the last several months adding to increased operating expenses. These cost increases will also take a toll on feeder livestock prices and soak up a big part of the financial gains ranchers hoped to make from this period of good prices.
A major reason for this is the increased political influence of the global warming nuts even as they lose ground in the scientific community. Congress passed an energy bill that has dramatically increased the amount of feed grains that go to biofuel production especially corn for ethanol. Legislators could point to global warming and reducing greenhouse gas emissions as reasons for their misguided votes.
Eventually the global warming hoax will be debunked. Many scientists see evidence that the warming cycle is already over and we are entering a period of global cooling. This winter has been the coldest since 2001. Many if not most climate scientists never believed global temperature changes are significantly influenced by human activity anyway.
Even the environmentalist whacko’s now realize that turning the world’s feedgrains into ethanol is not good for anyone except Midwestern farmers and their congressional delegations. Some say there is a worldwide food crisis coming that will make the energy crisis seem insignificant. But the political and bureaucratic inertia behind the movement may take awhile to slow down. Meanwhile Al Gore admires his Nobel Prize on the mantle in his lavish home that uses 20 times more energy than yours or mine.
Northern wolves were slated for delisting the end of March. The states involved have wolf management plans in place. They mostly treat wolves as predator big game species and will allow hunting as with bears and cougars. The wolf lovers have promised to sue to keep the states from managing wolves. Meanwhile, livestock predations are on the rise. Hunters and outfitters complain that the increasing wolves are decimating moose, deer and elk populations.
Mexican wolves continue causing problems for western NM ranchers. A new documentary film has been released that chronicles the damage done to rural residents by the wolf program. DVD copies of “Undue Burden” may be purchased through a link on the Wolf Crossing website http://wolfcrossing.org/.
The New Mexico Department of Game and Fish has been a big part of the problem with the wolf program. The Game Department has opposed dealing with problem wolves and has been responsible for some of the conflict between the program and local residents. Game Department Director Bruce Thompson was recently convicted of killing a deer on private land without permission and fined $500 and placed on 182 days of probation. Although anyone can make a mistake, which is what Director Thompson says happened, this is another example of the kind of leadership the Department has.
The National Landscape Conservation Act, HR 2016, has been introduced in the House by Representative Grijalva from Arizona. This piece of legislation would add special protection status to many places across the west. Areas to be included in the system include National Monuments, National Conservation Areas, Wilderness Study Areas, National Scenic Trails, National Wild and Scenic Rivers, and any part of the National Wilderness Preservation System. New Mexico has several places that fit in these categories totaling almost 1.5 million acres.
This concept was proposed by the administration. Senator Bingaman is the original sponsor for the Senate version. Tom Udall and Heather Wilson are both cosponsors of the House bill. In Committee mark-up Steve Pearce offered amendments to protect grazing rights and other private property rights held by individuals in these areas. His amendments were voted down. This legislation will give the BLM the regulatory tools it needs to take a Wilderness Study Area for example and make its use as restrictive as a National Park. No more multiple use for these areas. If you don’t believe the BLM needs this kind of authority, let your legislators know.
One of the results of the mismanagement of forest lands has been increasingly severe fire seasons across the west. The effects have also been magnified by drought and the increased number of homes and other structures in and around forested land. Fire fighting costs are out of control and now take almost half the FS budget. Congressional Democrats want to establish a new fund outside the FS budget to handle catastrophic fire costs. Last year the FS and BLM overspent their fire budgets by almost $1 billion.
Montana fire officials want the FS to pay even more. They say that FS has refused to fight some fires because of cost or danger and left local departments to protect homes and other structures on some fires. They want the FS to pay for fires that are the result of its mismanagement. Mark Rey, USDA Undersecretary thinks that the states supporting roadless areas that make it harder to fight fires should pay the increased cost of firefighting in roadless forests. It would be so much easier and more cost-effective to manage forests so we don’t have so many of these catastrophic fires.
Frank Dubois has started a blog for the New Mexico Federal Lands Council. The blog has links to articles and information of interest to federal land ranchers. There are links to Forest Service and BLM manuals and handbooks that can be valuable to ranchers who need to know their rights and the limits on the authority of federal land managers in grazing decisions. The website is a great resource for federal land ranchers with a wealth of information that will make them better able to deal with federal land agencies as well as keep up with news that affects their business. The web address is http://nmflc.blogspot.com/. Frank also maintains The Westerner blog that tracks a wider range of issues that is also a great source of information. That address is http://thewesterner.blogspot.com/.
New Mexico’s weather has been split north to south this year. Northern NM has had heavier than normal snowpack but Southern NM is slipping back into drought. The current La Nina event is predicted to last through the summer and into the fall. Even during abnormally dry periods there can be occasional good rains. We can pray that will be the case. Until next time may God bless us all.
Friday, April 4, 2008
Authorities ask for help in finding those responsible for shooting windmills
April 4, 2008
Authorities are asking for help in finding the people responsible for $14,000 worth of damage to two windmills in Pawnee National Grassland.
The vandalism occurred when "irresponsible" shooters hit the two windmills that are used to power water tanks that aid cattle that graze on the land, according to a release. The incident, which occurred earlier this week, can carry a felony charge.
Those with information about the vandalism are encouraged to call (970) 498-2507.
Authorities with the Forest Service also are asking that residents adhere to the rules when shooting on public land.
The rules for this legal activity include the provisions that residents cannot cause property damage or shoot within 150 yards of a building, residence, campsite, recreation site or occupied area and cannot shoot across or on a Forest Development road or body of water. Those not following these rules can receive up to a $5,000 fine and/or up to six years in jail.
April 4, 2008
Authorities are asking for help in finding the people responsible for $14,000 worth of damage to two windmills in Pawnee National Grassland.
The vandalism occurred when "irresponsible" shooters hit the two windmills that are used to power water tanks that aid cattle that graze on the land, according to a release. The incident, which occurred earlier this week, can carry a felony charge.
Those with information about the vandalism are encouraged to call (970) 498-2507.
Authorities with the Forest Service also are asking that residents adhere to the rules when shooting on public land.
The rules for this legal activity include the provisions that residents cannot cause property damage or shoot within 150 yards of a building, residence, campsite, recreation site or occupied area and cannot shoot across or on a Forest Development road or body of water. Those not following these rules can receive up to a $5,000 fine and/or up to six years in jail.
Rare mouse could affect grazing on Lincoln land
By Karl Anderson, Staff Writer
Alamogordo Daily News
Legislative protection for a species of mouse that prefers living in livestock enclosures or beaver habitat could have a significant impact on ranchers who graze their cattle on Lincoln National Forest lands.
The WildEarth Guardians, an environmental group, sent a letter to the Forest Service March 19, demanding that immediate steps be taken to prevent the
New Mexico meadow jumping mouse's extinction.
But the Forest Service said ranchers shouldn't get too worried just yet.
"We have been looking at this species for some time now, and it is on our sensitive species list," said Sacramento Ranger District Biologist Rene Guaderrama. "I don't feel it is going to affect any new grazing activity at this time."
The group alleges that cattle grazing, climate change, drought and beaver removal are the leading threats to the mouse.
Given the recent designation of the jumping mouse as a formal candidate for Endangered Species Act protection, WildEarth is calling on the Forest Service to review all of its current and future plans for potential impacts, particularly cattle grazing permits.
"This rare mouse is barely hanging on," said Dr. Nicole Rosmarino, wildlife program director for the group.
"The Forest Service needs to step up and protect the New Mexico meadow jumping mouse from cattle grazing on our public lands."
Rosmarino alleges the Forest Service is allowing streamside habitats to be grazed to the bone.
"This is pushing the jumping mouse to the brink of extinction," she said. "It is also harming the majority of Western wildlife, as 75 percent of the region's wildlife depend on streamside areas to survive."
This past December, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service designated the New Mexico meadow jumping mouse (Zapus hudsonius luteus) as a candidate for listing under the Endangered Species Act. It also listed threats to the species, which include habitat destruction due to grazing pressure, water use and management, highway reconstruction, development and recreation.
Fish and Wildlife said it believes the mouse is facing high-magnitude, imminent threats to its survival and therefore placed it in the highest priority category for Endangered Species Act protection.
Rosmarino said grazing must be adjusted on the Carson, Santa Fe and Lincoln national forests in order to prevent the jumping mouse's further decline.
The Guardians allege that grasses, the jumping mouse's principal food source and hiding cover, are currently managed for a target height that is eight times shorter than what the mouse needs.
"Plants average 33 inches in height where jumping mice have been found, while the Forest Service often allows cattle to graze plants down to a mere 4 inches," Rosmarino said.
But the Forest Service said that is not an accurate statement.
"Four inches is a range standard," Guaderrama said. "But that applies to uplands and key areas, which are typically located in meadows at least a quarter mile away from any water source. Those are not inclusive of riparian areas where the mouse prefers to live."
Where the mouse has been captured recently, Forest Service biologists have found the mean vertical cover to be 24.4 inches tall.
Other actions that WildEarth urged the Forest Service to take include limiting off-road vehicles.
In early April, the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish released a draft recovery plan for the mouse, which specifies the need to protect jumping mouse habitat, including the use of fencing to exclude cattle from mouse habitat.
In addition, the state plan discusses how beavers can create suitable jumping mouse habitat, and how beaver removal poses a threat to the mouse.
Rosmarino said WildEarth Guardians encourages state involvement in efforts to save the mouse, but maintains that federal protection is the ultimate key.
"Federal protection is required, given the mouse's extreme imperilment and to ensure habitat protection and funding for mouse recovery," she said.
Guaderrama said there are areas in the Lincoln National Forest already closed off for riparian habitat enhancement that benefits the mouse.
"Most of these are areas that were previously used for grazing cattle," he said. "But that is not something new. I do not believe ranchers need to worry about any further areas affecting grazing any time in the near future."
Guaderrama said habitat requirements of the New Mexico meadow jumping mouse shows it is found in riparian areas with permanent running water and moist to wet soils, adjacent to tall and dense vegetation.
"The drought we have been in for the past 10 to 15 years has taken a toll on running water, which appears to have declined on the district here since 1988," he said.
The jumping mouse is a species the Forest Service analyzes for all projects.
"It has been on the Regional Foresters Region 3 Sensitive Species List for quite some time," Guaderrama said. "It was on the sensitive species list since 1999 and was also included on the 2007 sensitive species list."
By Karl Anderson, Staff Writer
Alamogordo Daily News
Legislative protection for a species of mouse that prefers living in livestock enclosures or beaver habitat could have a significant impact on ranchers who graze their cattle on Lincoln National Forest lands.
The WildEarth Guardians, an environmental group, sent a letter to the Forest Service March 19, demanding that immediate steps be taken to prevent the
New Mexico meadow jumping mouse's extinction.
But the Forest Service said ranchers shouldn't get too worried just yet.
"We have been looking at this species for some time now, and it is on our sensitive species list," said Sacramento Ranger District Biologist Rene Guaderrama. "I don't feel it is going to affect any new grazing activity at this time."
The group alleges that cattle grazing, climate change, drought and beaver removal are the leading threats to the mouse.
Given the recent designation of the jumping mouse as a formal candidate for Endangered Species Act protection, WildEarth is calling on the Forest Service to review all of its current and future plans for potential impacts, particularly cattle grazing permits.
"This rare mouse is barely hanging on," said Dr. Nicole Rosmarino, wildlife program director for the group.
"The Forest Service needs to step up and protect the New Mexico meadow jumping mouse from cattle grazing on our public lands."
Rosmarino alleges the Forest Service is allowing streamside habitats to be grazed to the bone.
"This is pushing the jumping mouse to the brink of extinction," she said. "It is also harming the majority of Western wildlife, as 75 percent of the region's wildlife depend on streamside areas to survive."
This past December, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service designated the New Mexico meadow jumping mouse (Zapus hudsonius luteus) as a candidate for listing under the Endangered Species Act. It also listed threats to the species, which include habitat destruction due to grazing pressure, water use and management, highway reconstruction, development and recreation.
Fish and Wildlife said it believes the mouse is facing high-magnitude, imminent threats to its survival and therefore placed it in the highest priority category for Endangered Species Act protection.
Rosmarino said grazing must be adjusted on the Carson, Santa Fe and Lincoln national forests in order to prevent the jumping mouse's further decline.
The Guardians allege that grasses, the jumping mouse's principal food source and hiding cover, are currently managed for a target height that is eight times shorter than what the mouse needs.
"Plants average 33 inches in height where jumping mice have been found, while the Forest Service often allows cattle to graze plants down to a mere 4 inches," Rosmarino said.
But the Forest Service said that is not an accurate statement.
"Four inches is a range standard," Guaderrama said. "But that applies to uplands and key areas, which are typically located in meadows at least a quarter mile away from any water source. Those are not inclusive of riparian areas where the mouse prefers to live."
Where the mouse has been captured recently, Forest Service biologists have found the mean vertical cover to be 24.4 inches tall.
Other actions that WildEarth urged the Forest Service to take include limiting off-road vehicles.
In early April, the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish released a draft recovery plan for the mouse, which specifies the need to protect jumping mouse habitat, including the use of fencing to exclude cattle from mouse habitat.
In addition, the state plan discusses how beavers can create suitable jumping mouse habitat, and how beaver removal poses a threat to the mouse.
Rosmarino said WildEarth Guardians encourages state involvement in efforts to save the mouse, but maintains that federal protection is the ultimate key.
"Federal protection is required, given the mouse's extreme imperilment and to ensure habitat protection and funding for mouse recovery," she said.
Guaderrama said there are areas in the Lincoln National Forest already closed off for riparian habitat enhancement that benefits the mouse.
"Most of these are areas that were previously used for grazing cattle," he said. "But that is not something new. I do not believe ranchers need to worry about any further areas affecting grazing any time in the near future."
Guaderrama said habitat requirements of the New Mexico meadow jumping mouse shows it is found in riparian areas with permanent running water and moist to wet soils, adjacent to tall and dense vegetation.
"The drought we have been in for the past 10 to 15 years has taken a toll on running water, which appears to have declined on the district here since 1988," he said.
The jumping mouse is a species the Forest Service analyzes for all projects.
"It has been on the Regional Foresters Region 3 Sensitive Species List for quite some time," Guaderrama said. "It was on the sensitive species list since 1999 and was also included on the 2007 sensitive species list."
Thursday, April 3, 2008
Group offers rancher compensation in Wyoming
A conservation group is hoping to entice more Wyoming stockgrowers to participate in its compensation program for livestock killed by wolves if stockgrowers undertake measures to help prevent conflicts between the two animals.
"Not all ranchers just want to kill a bunch of wolves," Suzanne Stone, regional representative of Defenders of Wildlife, said. "A lot of ranchers are working hard to make sure they can coexist with wolves. We want to help support those ranchers."
The compensation program will be similar to the one the Defenders of Wildlife administered before wolves in the Northern Rockies were removed from the federal endangered species list.
Since last week's delisting, Wyoming has taken over management of the wolves living within its borders.
Gray wolves in the extreme northwest of the state are now classified as trophy game animals, and they can be lawfully killed only with state approval. Wolves in the rest of the state can be shot on sight.
Under state law, ranchers inside the trophy game zone can now seek compensation for losses to wolves from the state Game and Fish Department. But no government compensation program is in place for ranchers outside the trophy area.
To be eligible for compensation under the post-delisting Defenders program, stockgrowers must try to employ nonlethal methods of avoiding conflicts with the canines, Stone said. Those include removing dead or dying animals from grazing areas in a timely manner, doing more range riding when possible and corralling the livestock at night when practical.
Jim Magagna, rancher and executive vice president of the Wyoming Stock Growers Association, said even with the compensation program, many ranchers will still have more incentive to remove wolves that are attacking their livestock than to try to coexist with them.
But Truman Julian, a Kemmerer-area rancher and chairman of the Lincoln County predator management board, said he believes most ranchers outside the wolf trophy game zone will be interested in trying to work with compensation program.
"I think some ranchers will take Defenders up on this offer," Julian said. "I know I will."
As a general practice, he already employs all of the conflict-minimization actions that the Defenders of Wildlife organization asks ranchers to do.
"The problem is confirmation," Julian said. "You have to have them confirmed. Sometimes it's very hard, and then you only get a fraction of what you actually lose."
Julian said he believes Defenders of Wildlife is sincere in its desire to compensate wolf kills, but it is often impossible to get to the dead animals quickly enough to make the confirmations.
Since 1987, Defenders of Wildlife has paid out more than $1 million in livestock compensation to ranchers throughout the West. Wyoming stockgrowers have received more money over the years _ $331,642 _ than stockgrowers in any other state.
A conservation group is hoping to entice more Wyoming stockgrowers to participate in its compensation program for livestock killed by wolves if stockgrowers undertake measures to help prevent conflicts between the two animals.
"Not all ranchers just want to kill a bunch of wolves," Suzanne Stone, regional representative of Defenders of Wildlife, said. "A lot of ranchers are working hard to make sure they can coexist with wolves. We want to help support those ranchers."
The compensation program will be similar to the one the Defenders of Wildlife administered before wolves in the Northern Rockies were removed from the federal endangered species list.
Since last week's delisting, Wyoming has taken over management of the wolves living within its borders.
Gray wolves in the extreme northwest of the state are now classified as trophy game animals, and they can be lawfully killed only with state approval. Wolves in the rest of the state can be shot on sight.
Under state law, ranchers inside the trophy game zone can now seek compensation for losses to wolves from the state Game and Fish Department. But no government compensation program is in place for ranchers outside the trophy area.
To be eligible for compensation under the post-delisting Defenders program, stockgrowers must try to employ nonlethal methods of avoiding conflicts with the canines, Stone said. Those include removing dead or dying animals from grazing areas in a timely manner, doing more range riding when possible and corralling the livestock at night when practical.
Jim Magagna, rancher and executive vice president of the Wyoming Stock Growers Association, said even with the compensation program, many ranchers will still have more incentive to remove wolves that are attacking their livestock than to try to coexist with them.
But Truman Julian, a Kemmerer-area rancher and chairman of the Lincoln County predator management board, said he believes most ranchers outside the wolf trophy game zone will be interested in trying to work with compensation program.
"I think some ranchers will take Defenders up on this offer," Julian said. "I know I will."
As a general practice, he already employs all of the conflict-minimization actions that the Defenders of Wildlife organization asks ranchers to do.
"The problem is confirmation," Julian said. "You have to have them confirmed. Sometimes it's very hard, and then you only get a fraction of what you actually lose."
Julian said he believes Defenders of Wildlife is sincere in its desire to compensate wolf kills, but it is often impossible to get to the dead animals quickly enough to make the confirmations.
Since 1987, Defenders of Wildlife has paid out more than $1 million in livestock compensation to ranchers throughout the West. Wyoming stockgrowers have received more money over the years _ $331,642 _ than stockgrowers in any other state.
Cody rancher receives first ‘kill' permit
The Game and Fish Department has issued a wolf kill permit to a landowner near Cody inside the new wolf trophy game zone.
The agency will issue a similar permit to a rancher near Dubois.
“We have issued a lethal take permit to a landowner to take four wolves on the South Fork of the Shoshone River,” spokesman Eric Keszler said. “He's having trouble with wolves harassing his cattle.”
The second permit will be issued to a rancher near Dubois for two wolves in response to cattle depredation, Keszler said.
The state took control of management of the wolves on March 28 when the animal was removed from protection under the Endangered Species Act.
Inside the trophy game zone - with its borders running through Cody and Meeteetse and outside Dubois, Jackson and Pinedale - ranchers aren't allowed to kill a wolf on sight, but instead must enlist G&F's help or obtain take permits.
Outside that zone, wolves may be shot on sight by anyone with no limits.
The Game and Fish Department has issued a wolf kill permit to a landowner near Cody inside the new wolf trophy game zone.
The agency will issue a similar permit to a rancher near Dubois.
“We have issued a lethal take permit to a landowner to take four wolves on the South Fork of the Shoshone River,” spokesman Eric Keszler said. “He's having trouble with wolves harassing his cattle.”
The second permit will be issued to a rancher near Dubois for two wolves in response to cattle depredation, Keszler said.
The state took control of management of the wolves on March 28 when the animal was removed from protection under the Endangered Species Act.
Inside the trophy game zone - with its borders running through Cody and Meeteetse and outside Dubois, Jackson and Pinedale - ranchers aren't allowed to kill a wolf on sight, but instead must enlist G&F's help or obtain take permits.
Outside that zone, wolves may be shot on sight by anyone with no limits.
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
New Mexico faces possibility of new wilderness designation
March 31, 2008
It is the first day of spring 2008 and New Mexico rancher Tom Mobley has yet to push a blade of sediment from the dry earthen stock pond on his Dona Ana County ranch.
“I started the request to clean this tank in October 2007 and I still don’t have the approval to do a thing,” he said, as he thumbed through a 16-page document he had received from the Las Cruces, NM, Bureau of Land Management (BLM) office detailing the procedure he would have to follow upon receiving final approval for the work.
The tank that Mobley is worried about happens to be located in one of a number of Wilderness Study Areas (WSAs) scattered across part of the 2,400,000 acres of Dona Ana County. Because the location is in the WSA, the allowance to clean it does not follow normal BLM procedures for maintenance of such structures. Mobley must wait for the process, which includes interested party comments, to conclude.
“This is one reason why ranching under wilderness designation in this country won’t work!” he concluded as he throws his hands up and heads out the door.
Miles south of Mobley’s ranch in the Potrillo Mountains, rancher Dudley Williams is out early checking windmills before the wind comes up.
“Can you imagine our dilemma trying to maintain these mills without having unrestricted access to them?” Dudley shakes his head. The Williams Ranch spreads over some 345 sections of country that runs nearly to the Mexican border on its southern extension. The ranch has over 95 miles of pipelines, 200 miles of fence, and 175 miles of roads. It also has a 150,000-acre WSA footprint overlaying it.
“It’d pretty much put me out of business,” Dudley had related several months earlier in a video produced by the New Mexico Farm and Livestock Bureau that related the story that has the local community so up in arms and divided.
William’s comments refer to the proposed creation of over 300,000 acres of wilderness in this southern New Mexico county. Part of the proposal spans lands that were included in a record of decision signed by then Secretary of Interior Manuel Lujan in 1991 that recommended 181,110 acres within the county be studied for wilderness designation. A lot has changed since 1991.
Dona Ana County lies just north of El Paso, TX, in the southern end of New Mexico. It shares borders with Texas and the Mexican state of Chihuahua. It is characterized by Chihuahuan grasslands with rainfall averaging just less than nine inches annually. Las Cruces, NM, the county seat and second largest city in New Mexico, is the center of commerce and government. It has become a regional medical center. It is the site of New Mexico State University (NMSU). The largest collective employer is the federal government through the many and varied activities of the Department of Defense, NASA and many contractors and support businesses. It has also become much less affected by agriculture and the heritage of nearly 400 years of written history. Although there remain 65 BLM ranching permits and over 90,000 acres of farm land within the county, it is a town that has fewer and fewer ties to the land and its stewards. Like so many towns across the West, it has found itself in a trend of parallel universes of those who have pragmatic issues of continuing their existence in a natural competitive setting and those who live in a world of academia, of the environment, and of progressive politics. In short, it could be viewed as being ripe for a wilderness assault, and, in fact, it has become ground zero in the first strike of such an attempt on New Mexico’s southern border.
A group of Dona Ana County ranchers and loyal allies mobilized and formed a group they call People for Preserving Our Western Heritage (PFPOWH). Their effort is aimed at countering the efforts of the New Mexico Wilderness Alliance (NMWA), which had positioned three paid staffers within the community, along with an extended organization that is tied to major environmental entities, for the purposes of securing their ideas of wilderness within the county. Initially, PFPOWH viewed its efforts as simple self preservation. Dona Ana County is within a two-hour drive from the Gila Wilderness, America’s first designated wilderness, and the wilderness model ranchers and others have grown to fear from first hand knowledge and experience.
In 1960, there were 24 active grazing allotments in the Gila Wilderness proper or directly adjacent to that wilderness core. By the late 1990s, the 12 core allotments had been fully destocked and the adjacent allotments had recorded cattle numbers reduced by a whopping 87 percent. There has not been a cow legally in the wilderness itself since the 1970s. An NMSU study had demonstrated that the reductions could not be tied to any drought or market indicator. Wilderness and the restrictive management thereof was the factor in the reduction of those cattle numbers. PFPOWH has reason to fear wilderness, as do many other groups and individuals who care about access and beneficial use of these areas and their resources.
By the time PFPOWH began to counter the onslaught, NMWA had made compelling and passionate pleas to all of the local governing bodies of the county and had met with Sens. Jeff Bingaman, D-NM, and Pete Domenici, R-NM. They gained support and resolutions supporting wilderness from local governing bodies including the Village of Hatch Board of Trustees, the Las Cruces City Council, the Town of Mesilla Board of Trustees, the Sunland Park City Council, and the Dona Ana County Board of County Commissioners. Thinking that their efforts were truly an effort to minimize their losses, PFPOWH drafted a plan to deal with the most important aspect of the proposal, the Organ Mountains, with the hope that the remaining areas would be allowed to continue under multiple use management. They presented the plan to Congressman Steve Pearce, R-NM, and the first crack in the wilderness onslaught was at hand. Pearce rejected the plan and told them that he expected his constituents to fight for what they believed in, not what they thought they would have to accept! From that point, the attack broadened. The approach became more objective with the realization that the creation of wilderness in Dona Ana County could not stand on a passionate plea from either side for simply saving the land. It was an issue that had much broader ramifications that affect the well being of all the people in the community.
Several key letters came into the hands of the congressional delegations including a letter from Richard Hays, chief of Air Operations, United States Border Patrol (retired). Hays called attention to the difficulty of Border Patrol activities in designated wilderness areas already established on the Arizona border with Mexico. He also warned against the actions of the environmental groups following wilderness designation by suing the Marine Corps, the Air Force and the Border Patrol for overflight in those areas. Another letter came from William L. Rice, deputy chief, United States Forest Service (USFS) (retired). Rice’s letter described what a nightmare wilderness administration had become for USFS, how it had altered the USFS budget in litigation and legal costs, and how it has driven a wedge between USFS and stakeholders. Two letters came from respected, retired NMSU administrators, Dr. Gerald Thomas and Dr. Bobby Rankin, who warned against the creation of wilderness in arid Dona Ana County lands from the standpoint of stewardship limitations. These letters collectively had impact that made it very clear to Domenici and Pearce that the rush to create wilderness needed additional input.
The National Association of Former Border Patrol Officers stepped into the fight in September 2007 and took the debate to a national level. In a guest column in the Las Cruces Sun News, the chairman of that organization, Ken Lundgren, made it known that the creation of wilderness along the Mexican border is not just a local issue. It is a national security issue.
“Our southern border is today more vulnerable to terrorist activities than at any other time in our national history. This is not the time to consider addiadditional designations as wilderness,” he wrote in a cover letter introducing his column. He also broke the silence on who was really pushing the effort from the environmental side of the issue in both Arizona and New Mexico.
“This effort to create a wilderness designation for a large portion of our southern border did not originate from citizens of New Mexico and Arizona. It originated from the NMWA and Sky Island Alliance,” he wrote in the column.
These points had impact within the community and leaders started reconsidering their actions. The village of Hatch, NM, and its mayoral and trustee leadership reconsidered its previous action and rescinded the resolution supporting wilderness creation. They replaced it with a strongly worded resolution calling for congressional leadership to support the concept of protecting lands, but within a different framework. That body very much recognized the homeland security pitfalls that border wilderness designation would create within their county.
Elephant Butte Irrigation District stepped up and created a similar resolution to consider their need and that of the community to access watershed areas that would be within the wilderness boundaries. Their point was that they intended to extend water and flood control structures and monitoring measures to extend their ability to manage their scarce water resources.
The board of the 800-member Greater Las Cruces Chamber of Commerce debated the issues and came forth with the decision to not support the efforts of the wilderness movement, but the pragmatic needs of the community. They endorsed the efforts of PFPOWH.
But what about the greater, unifying issues of this debate? From the perspective of PFPOWH, the preservation of open space is a common theme both sides should agree upon. Wilderness itself is something both sides of the debate might also agree upon if the criteria were met for its designation and adherence to the original intent of the law. But, something else has occurred, too. The need for special protective measures for certain lands may not be best served by that designation. The federal wilderness designation has become much like the only tool a craftsman has in his pouch. He keeps carrying it around trying to find something that it fits. In Dona Ana County, it simply doesn’t fit by the standards set forth by the Wilderness Act of 1964. Dona Ana County and the West need a new tool that is more adaptive, considers heritage and local conditions, and elevates rather than diminishes the role of human stewardship and conservation.
In draft legislation presented to the New Mexico congressional delegations in December 2007, PFPOWH introduced the concept of Rangeland Preservation Area(s) (RPA). This designation would elevate similar protective measures as wilderness, but also allow local conditions to be honored and considered. For example, if open space is the only issue of the debate, the land can simply be withdrawn from disposal. As such, it can never be sold or traded. If local conditions make it necessary to protect against mining or mineral leasing activities, the lands can be withdrawn from the mining and mineral leasing laws. If, however, view shed is the primary issue and mining or mineral leasing remain vital to the economy of the area, RPA legislation can be written to accommodate those circumstances.
The RPA also recognizes that federal lands do have impact on the local economy. In Dona Ana County, the limited private lands against a backdrop of federal lands has contributed to spiraling land values. This has created conditions of high attrition of farming operations due to the sale of farm lands for development. A method to help mitigate that trend was factored into the discussion and included in the greater concept for issues specific to Dona Ana County.
For too long, there has been a need to realistically assess and pursue opportunities for enhancement of wildlife and rangeland health. The Dona Ana County RPA proposal was constructed so that this was included in the draft legislation. The opportunity to make substantive improvements in water, vegetation management, brush control, and other conditions that affect rangeland and wildlife health and which would not be possible in wilderness, are critical concerns.
Those who would argue that RPAs would not provide adequate protection need only to consider the measures taken to protect the Valle Vidal in northern New Mexico. It was hailed as a major achievement by environmental groups when the land gifted to the U.S. was subsequently withdrawn from disposal. U.S. Reps. Tom Udall, D-NM, Heather Wilson, R-NM, and Pearce, and Sens. Bingaman and Domenici supported the legislation and share that success. New Mexico’s delegation should recognize and embrace the protection that RPAs can similarly bring to Dona Ana County lands and lands across the West. The West needs a measure that recognizes the past as well as the future in land protective measures without isolating or putting any stakeholder at risk.
Sara Cox Hopkins ranches on what has become the focal point of the Dona Ana debate, the Organ Mountains. Perhaps it would be most simple to remove her, designate the Organs wilderness, and everybody go happily away. She represents, however, the heart of why this whole debate needs to be rerouted and modified. Hopkin’s grandparents came to New Mexico before 1900 and ranched in the Tularosa Basin. Like the other ranchers in that area, they were removed for the war effort during the 1940s with the establishment of what is now White Sands Missile Range. They had no alternative, and the voices of her family and others were simply lost in time and space. They were victims of a government that forgot that this country, which individuals finance and defend, is predicated on the rights of those same individuals. The Cox family has earned a right to be present on those mountains. They have perfected methods and an approach to stewardship of the lands that needs to be emulated and passed along. Their understanding of cattle and wildlife patterns and needs is as important as any archived university study.
The chairperson of PFPOWH, Tom Cooper, is on record saying that this group has no intention of pursuing any action that would threaten the existence or take anything from anybody. That fundamental attitude and logic has prompted nearly 700 businesses and organizations to step forward to join a coalition in support of this effort in Dona Ana County. What is even more important, though, is that this effort will not end in Dona Ana County. It is simply a stage that is being set that will determine the future management of similar lands across the West.
Open space, realistic needs for economic and population growth, prevention of unlawful use of off-highway vehicles, access to law enforcement and all segments of the public, perpetuation of historical ranching operations, allowances for water projects and flood control, rangeland health improvements, and a true fidelity to historical wilderness concepts and law have been cornerstones of the draft PFPOWH legislation, the Dona Ana County Planned Growth, Open Space and Rangeland Preservation Act.
In the case of Dona Ana County, though, the argument for border security probably trumps all other issues. It is a huge factor and the presence of large areas of land with only conditional access for Border Patrol should give pause to any sensible leader advocating border wilderness designation. Americans will obey the laws, but few expect drug runners and illegal traffickers to adhere to the same philosophical underpinnings. As Zack Taylor, National Association of Former Border Patrol Officers, asked recently on a national radio program, “Is any senator or congressman really willing to put his name on the line guaranteeing that wilderness on the border does not run the risk of increasing crime and violence and national security risks to the United States of America and the American people?” The Dona Ana County debate will eventually answer that question. For more information about the Dona Ana County Planned Growth, Open Space and Rangeland Preservation Act or PFPOWH, please visit the group’s Web site at www.peopleforwesternheritage.com. — Steve Wilmeth, People for Preserving Our Western Heritage
March 31, 2008
It is the first day of spring 2008 and New Mexico rancher Tom Mobley has yet to push a blade of sediment from the dry earthen stock pond on his Dona Ana County ranch.
“I started the request to clean this tank in October 2007 and I still don’t have the approval to do a thing,” he said, as he thumbed through a 16-page document he had received from the Las Cruces, NM, Bureau of Land Management (BLM) office detailing the procedure he would have to follow upon receiving final approval for the work.
The tank that Mobley is worried about happens to be located in one of a number of Wilderness Study Areas (WSAs) scattered across part of the 2,400,000 acres of Dona Ana County. Because the location is in the WSA, the allowance to clean it does not follow normal BLM procedures for maintenance of such structures. Mobley must wait for the process, which includes interested party comments, to conclude.
“This is one reason why ranching under wilderness designation in this country won’t work!” he concluded as he throws his hands up and heads out the door.
Miles south of Mobley’s ranch in the Potrillo Mountains, rancher Dudley Williams is out early checking windmills before the wind comes up.
“Can you imagine our dilemma trying to maintain these mills without having unrestricted access to them?” Dudley shakes his head. The Williams Ranch spreads over some 345 sections of country that runs nearly to the Mexican border on its southern extension. The ranch has over 95 miles of pipelines, 200 miles of fence, and 175 miles of roads. It also has a 150,000-acre WSA footprint overlaying it.
“It’d pretty much put me out of business,” Dudley had related several months earlier in a video produced by the New Mexico Farm and Livestock Bureau that related the story that has the local community so up in arms and divided.
William’s comments refer to the proposed creation of over 300,000 acres of wilderness in this southern New Mexico county. Part of the proposal spans lands that were included in a record of decision signed by then Secretary of Interior Manuel Lujan in 1991 that recommended 181,110 acres within the county be studied for wilderness designation. A lot has changed since 1991.
Dona Ana County lies just north of El Paso, TX, in the southern end of New Mexico. It shares borders with Texas and the Mexican state of Chihuahua. It is characterized by Chihuahuan grasslands with rainfall averaging just less than nine inches annually. Las Cruces, NM, the county seat and second largest city in New Mexico, is the center of commerce and government. It has become a regional medical center. It is the site of New Mexico State University (NMSU). The largest collective employer is the federal government through the many and varied activities of the Department of Defense, NASA and many contractors and support businesses. It has also become much less affected by agriculture and the heritage of nearly 400 years of written history. Although there remain 65 BLM ranching permits and over 90,000 acres of farm land within the county, it is a town that has fewer and fewer ties to the land and its stewards. Like so many towns across the West, it has found itself in a trend of parallel universes of those who have pragmatic issues of continuing their existence in a natural competitive setting and those who live in a world of academia, of the environment, and of progressive politics. In short, it could be viewed as being ripe for a wilderness assault, and, in fact, it has become ground zero in the first strike of such an attempt on New Mexico’s southern border.
A group of Dona Ana County ranchers and loyal allies mobilized and formed a group they call People for Preserving Our Western Heritage (PFPOWH). Their effort is aimed at countering the efforts of the New Mexico Wilderness Alliance (NMWA), which had positioned three paid staffers within the community, along with an extended organization that is tied to major environmental entities, for the purposes of securing their ideas of wilderness within the county. Initially, PFPOWH viewed its efforts as simple self preservation. Dona Ana County is within a two-hour drive from the Gila Wilderness, America’s first designated wilderness, and the wilderness model ranchers and others have grown to fear from first hand knowledge and experience.
In 1960, there were 24 active grazing allotments in the Gila Wilderness proper or directly adjacent to that wilderness core. By the late 1990s, the 12 core allotments had been fully destocked and the adjacent allotments had recorded cattle numbers reduced by a whopping 87 percent. There has not been a cow legally in the wilderness itself since the 1970s. An NMSU study had demonstrated that the reductions could not be tied to any drought or market indicator. Wilderness and the restrictive management thereof was the factor in the reduction of those cattle numbers. PFPOWH has reason to fear wilderness, as do many other groups and individuals who care about access and beneficial use of these areas and their resources.
By the time PFPOWH began to counter the onslaught, NMWA had made compelling and passionate pleas to all of the local governing bodies of the county and had met with Sens. Jeff Bingaman, D-NM, and Pete Domenici, R-NM. They gained support and resolutions supporting wilderness from local governing bodies including the Village of Hatch Board of Trustees, the Las Cruces City Council, the Town of Mesilla Board of Trustees, the Sunland Park City Council, and the Dona Ana County Board of County Commissioners. Thinking that their efforts were truly an effort to minimize their losses, PFPOWH drafted a plan to deal with the most important aspect of the proposal, the Organ Mountains, with the hope that the remaining areas would be allowed to continue under multiple use management. They presented the plan to Congressman Steve Pearce, R-NM, and the first crack in the wilderness onslaught was at hand. Pearce rejected the plan and told them that he expected his constituents to fight for what they believed in, not what they thought they would have to accept! From that point, the attack broadened. The approach became more objective with the realization that the creation of wilderness in Dona Ana County could not stand on a passionate plea from either side for simply saving the land. It was an issue that had much broader ramifications that affect the well being of all the people in the community.
Several key letters came into the hands of the congressional delegations including a letter from Richard Hays, chief of Air Operations, United States Border Patrol (retired). Hays called attention to the difficulty of Border Patrol activities in designated wilderness areas already established on the Arizona border with Mexico. He also warned against the actions of the environmental groups following wilderness designation by suing the Marine Corps, the Air Force and the Border Patrol for overflight in those areas. Another letter came from William L. Rice, deputy chief, United States Forest Service (USFS) (retired). Rice’s letter described what a nightmare wilderness administration had become for USFS, how it had altered the USFS budget in litigation and legal costs, and how it has driven a wedge between USFS and stakeholders. Two letters came from respected, retired NMSU administrators, Dr. Gerald Thomas and Dr. Bobby Rankin, who warned against the creation of wilderness in arid Dona Ana County lands from the standpoint of stewardship limitations. These letters collectively had impact that made it very clear to Domenici and Pearce that the rush to create wilderness needed additional input.
The National Association of Former Border Patrol Officers stepped into the fight in September 2007 and took the debate to a national level. In a guest column in the Las Cruces Sun News, the chairman of that organization, Ken Lundgren, made it known that the creation of wilderness along the Mexican border is not just a local issue. It is a national security issue.
“Our southern border is today more vulnerable to terrorist activities than at any other time in our national history. This is not the time to consider addiadditional designations as wilderness,” he wrote in a cover letter introducing his column. He also broke the silence on who was really pushing the effort from the environmental side of the issue in both Arizona and New Mexico.
“This effort to create a wilderness designation for a large portion of our southern border did not originate from citizens of New Mexico and Arizona. It originated from the NMWA and Sky Island Alliance,” he wrote in the column.
These points had impact within the community and leaders started reconsidering their actions. The village of Hatch, NM, and its mayoral and trustee leadership reconsidered its previous action and rescinded the resolution supporting wilderness creation. They replaced it with a strongly worded resolution calling for congressional leadership to support the concept of protecting lands, but within a different framework. That body very much recognized the homeland security pitfalls that border wilderness designation would create within their county.
Elephant Butte Irrigation District stepped up and created a similar resolution to consider their need and that of the community to access watershed areas that would be within the wilderness boundaries. Their point was that they intended to extend water and flood control structures and monitoring measures to extend their ability to manage their scarce water resources.
The board of the 800-member Greater Las Cruces Chamber of Commerce debated the issues and came forth with the decision to not support the efforts of the wilderness movement, but the pragmatic needs of the community. They endorsed the efforts of PFPOWH.
But what about the greater, unifying issues of this debate? From the perspective of PFPOWH, the preservation of open space is a common theme both sides should agree upon. Wilderness itself is something both sides of the debate might also agree upon if the criteria were met for its designation and adherence to the original intent of the law. But, something else has occurred, too. The need for special protective measures for certain lands may not be best served by that designation. The federal wilderness designation has become much like the only tool a craftsman has in his pouch. He keeps carrying it around trying to find something that it fits. In Dona Ana County, it simply doesn’t fit by the standards set forth by the Wilderness Act of 1964. Dona Ana County and the West need a new tool that is more adaptive, considers heritage and local conditions, and elevates rather than diminishes the role of human stewardship and conservation.
In draft legislation presented to the New Mexico congressional delegations in December 2007, PFPOWH introduced the concept of Rangeland Preservation Area(s) (RPA). This designation would elevate similar protective measures as wilderness, but also allow local conditions to be honored and considered. For example, if open space is the only issue of the debate, the land can simply be withdrawn from disposal. As such, it can never be sold or traded. If local conditions make it necessary to protect against mining or mineral leasing activities, the lands can be withdrawn from the mining and mineral leasing laws. If, however, view shed is the primary issue and mining or mineral leasing remain vital to the economy of the area, RPA legislation can be written to accommodate those circumstances.
The RPA also recognizes that federal lands do have impact on the local economy. In Dona Ana County, the limited private lands against a backdrop of federal lands has contributed to spiraling land values. This has created conditions of high attrition of farming operations due to the sale of farm lands for development. A method to help mitigate that trend was factored into the discussion and included in the greater concept for issues specific to Dona Ana County.
For too long, there has been a need to realistically assess and pursue opportunities for enhancement of wildlife and rangeland health. The Dona Ana County RPA proposal was constructed so that this was included in the draft legislation. The opportunity to make substantive improvements in water, vegetation management, brush control, and other conditions that affect rangeland and wildlife health and which would not be possible in wilderness, are critical concerns.
Those who would argue that RPAs would not provide adequate protection need only to consider the measures taken to protect the Valle Vidal in northern New Mexico. It was hailed as a major achievement by environmental groups when the land gifted to the U.S. was subsequently withdrawn from disposal. U.S. Reps. Tom Udall, D-NM, Heather Wilson, R-NM, and Pearce, and Sens. Bingaman and Domenici supported the legislation and share that success. New Mexico’s delegation should recognize and embrace the protection that RPAs can similarly bring to Dona Ana County lands and lands across the West. The West needs a measure that recognizes the past as well as the future in land protective measures without isolating or putting any stakeholder at risk.
Sara Cox Hopkins ranches on what has become the focal point of the Dona Ana debate, the Organ Mountains. Perhaps it would be most simple to remove her, designate the Organs wilderness, and everybody go happily away. She represents, however, the heart of why this whole debate needs to be rerouted and modified. Hopkin’s grandparents came to New Mexico before 1900 and ranched in the Tularosa Basin. Like the other ranchers in that area, they were removed for the war effort during the 1940s with the establishment of what is now White Sands Missile Range. They had no alternative, and the voices of her family and others were simply lost in time and space. They were victims of a government that forgot that this country, which individuals finance and defend, is predicated on the rights of those same individuals. The Cox family has earned a right to be present on those mountains. They have perfected methods and an approach to stewardship of the lands that needs to be emulated and passed along. Their understanding of cattle and wildlife patterns and needs is as important as any archived university study.
The chairperson of PFPOWH, Tom Cooper, is on record saying that this group has no intention of pursuing any action that would threaten the existence or take anything from anybody. That fundamental attitude and logic has prompted nearly 700 businesses and organizations to step forward to join a coalition in support of this effort in Dona Ana County. What is even more important, though, is that this effort will not end in Dona Ana County. It is simply a stage that is being set that will determine the future management of similar lands across the West.
Open space, realistic needs for economic and population growth, prevention of unlawful use of off-highway vehicles, access to law enforcement and all segments of the public, perpetuation of historical ranching operations, allowances for water projects and flood control, rangeland health improvements, and a true fidelity to historical wilderness concepts and law have been cornerstones of the draft PFPOWH legislation, the Dona Ana County Planned Growth, Open Space and Rangeland Preservation Act.
In the case of Dona Ana County, though, the argument for border security probably trumps all other issues. It is a huge factor and the presence of large areas of land with only conditional access for Border Patrol should give pause to any sensible leader advocating border wilderness designation. Americans will obey the laws, but few expect drug runners and illegal traffickers to adhere to the same philosophical underpinnings. As Zack Taylor, National Association of Former Border Patrol Officers, asked recently on a national radio program, “Is any senator or congressman really willing to put his name on the line guaranteeing that wilderness on the border does not run the risk of increasing crime and violence and national security risks to the United States of America and the American people?” The Dona Ana County debate will eventually answer that question. For more information about the Dona Ana County Planned Growth, Open Space and Rangeland Preservation Act or PFPOWH, please visit the group’s Web site at www.peopleforwesternheritage.com. — Steve Wilmeth, People for Preserving Our Western Heritage
Monday, March 31, 2008
What's next for Wolves? State pins hopes on public acceptance, program to compensate ranchers
By KARL PUCKETT
Tribune Staff Writer
George Edwards doesn't work for Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks, the agency now in charge of managing wolves in the state.
But his work will play a large role in maintaining a viable wolf population in Montana by building public acceptance of the wolf, particularly in the ranching community, state officials said.
Edwards, who works for the Department of Livestock, is the state's first livestock loss mitigation coordinator. Beginning next month, livestock producers will submit their financial claims to Edwards for animals hunted and killed by the state's now thriving wolf population.
Wolves, which number more than 400 in Montana and 1,500 in the Northern Rockies, came off the federal endangered species list Friday, turning management over to the states.
The price tag for reimbursing ranchers, as well as funding guard dogs and other conflict prevention efforts, is expected to cost more than $200,000 annually. The money won't just come from the state, as federal funding also will be sought. One of Edwards' main jobs will be fundraising. Edwards noted that some of the state's most prominent residents, such as cable TV mogul Ted Turner, will be asked to contribute.
Both those who argue that federal protections should have been removed from the wolf long ago, and those who say lifting them was premature, agree on one thing: For the wolf to survive under state management, it's critical for the state to pay the bills of ranchers who pay the price for its return.
"This piece, needs to work for the overall wolf management plan to work," Edwards said of the state's new compensation program.
Throughout history, people have had a love-hate attitude toward wolves, said Carolyn Sime, the state's wolf program coordinator.
It's the goal of the state, she said, to prevent a pendulum swing in the other direction by keeping the wolf population from getting too large and compensating landowners who are making sacrifices to have wolves back.
"If people are not willing to live with wolves, they kill them," she said.
Wolves sometimes are mistaken for coyotes or domestic dogs. But their striking physical characteristics — long legs, large feet, blocky heads and weight (males can weigh up to 130 pounds) — set them apart.
There's no mistaking the historic attitudes toward them, either. As Europeans began settling the U.S., they poisoned, trapped and shot wolves, causing a once widespread species to be eradicated from most of its range in the Lower 48. They were gone from Montana, Idaho and Wyoming, as well as adjacent southwestern Canada, by the 1930s.
"People hated them," said Helena-based Ed Bangs, the wolf recovery coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, when the government announced in February that wolves were being delisted. "We came from areas from Europe that hated wolves."
Values changed, and the wolf was given federal protection in 1974. At that time, only a few hundred wolves remained in Minnesota. Those animals were delisted as "threatened" last year.
Bangs came to Montana from Alaska in 1988, to lead the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's effort to restore the "endangered" gray wolves in the West.
Recovery efforts first began in Canada in the 1960s. Wolves there began dispersing into Montana, with the first two packs denning in Glacier National Park and on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation in the late 1980s.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service reintroduced wolves from Canada into Yellowstone National Park and central Idaho in 1995.
With federal protection limiting human-caused mortalities, wolves flourished. Nobody was surprised. If mortality is kept in check, the number of wolves can more than double in just two years, officials said.
"Wolves are just pretty incredible animals," Bangs said.
The cost of the wolf recovery effort in the Northern Rockies was $27 million. Bangs said he believes too much was spent, but says the public demanded it.
With the gray wolf delisted, five state field biologists in Helena, Bozeman, Kalispell and Missoula, including Sime, are now in charge of wolf management. A hunting season is planned for the fall, and ranchers can now kill wolves that are caught killing livestock.
Managing wolves will cost the state about $1 million a year, said Sime, who added that the state is hoping the federal government will help fund management efforts. Montana, she notes, is one of the few places in the country where Americans who called for restoring the wolf can see the animals.
"We'd like the American public to help," she said.
Montana has been managing wolves, using federal guidelines, since 2004, so the transition between state and federal rules that began Friday will be "seamless," Sime said.
What is new in the state's wolf management effort are a seven-member Livestock Loss Reduction and Mitigation Board, and the role of Edwards, who will work closely with that board.
The price the state will pay for livestock animals killed by wolves kill be determined by how much they would have likely sold for at the Billings auction.
Under state management, USDA Wildlife Services will continue to verify whether wolves were responsible for losses. The size of the prey, tracks, and canine teeth marks are part of the forensic science conducted at a depredation scene.
Ranchers will get 100 percent compensation for both confirmed and probable losses. Under the old compensation program, which was privately run by the conservation group Defenders of Wildlife, ranchers received 100 percent for confirmed kills and 50 percent for "probable" losses to wolves.
"There's always losses that can't be verified, and this program is supposed to help with that also," said Elaine Allestad, chairwoman of the Livestock Loss Reduction and Mitigation Board.
Allestad, a Big Timber stock grower who has lost sheep and cattle to wolves and grizzlies, said the federal government should pay for the livestock losses.
"If they want (wolves) here, they should pay for the losses," she said.
The state Legislature allocated $30,000 to fund reimbursements and created a $5 million trust fund.
But to date, that trust account is empty. The eventual goal is to build it up through private donations and use the interest to fund operations.
The basis behind the state's program is the same idea Defenders of Wildlife had when it launched its compensation campaign in 1987: Sharing the responsibility for restoring wolves to the landscape while fostering greater tolerance for wolves in the ranching community.
"Compensation was a critical component of the program of wolf restoration," said Suzanne Asha Stone, a Boise, Idaho-based wolf conservation specialist for Defenders of Wildlife. "It helped people overcome their fears and certainly overcome the financial risk of having wolves back."
Over the last 21 years, Defenders of Wildlife doles out approximately $1 million to ranchers in Montana, Idaho and Wyoming. Defenders, which is discontinuing its compensation program in Montana but continuing it in other states, has pledged to contribute $100,000 to help Montana begin its program.
As the Montana program evolves, property damage losses as a result of wolves, such as broken fences and veterinarian bills for injured livestock, will be funded.
Money also will be made available for livestock producers to purchase guard dogs, hire range riders and install electric flags called fladry, which have shown promise in keeping wolves away from vulnerable livestock in pastures.
"If you just rely on lethal control, more wolves die, more livestock die," said Stone, noting that Defenders of Wildlife spent $81,000 on conflict prevention efforts last year in Idaho, Wyoming and Montana.
Lane Adamson, the director of the Madison Valley Ranchlands Group, said range riders have been effective in monitoring summer grazing operations threatened by wolves. The riders spend four to five months in the area. Last year, the riders discovered a wolf den in the middle of a grazing allotment, but because of the riders' presence, there were no depredations or wolves killed, Adamson said.
He said prevention efforts such as range riders are critical if wolves and ranchers are to share the same landscape.
"As wolf numbers increase, conflict will increase," he said. "That's a reality. Wolves kill livestock."
Statewide, wolves killed 75 cattle in 2007, up from 32 in 2006, while confirmed sheep losses rose from four to 27, according to FWP.
Wolves account for a fraction of total livestock deaths, according to the National Agricultural Statistics Service.
Montana cattle producers reported losing 66,000 cattle and calves to all causes in a 2005 survey, with 3,000, or 4.5 percent, lost to predators. Coyotes were responsible for 54 percent of the 1,300 calves lost to predation, while all predators, including an unknown number of wolves, were responsible for the rest.
The state's 2007 wolf-activity report points out that the restored wolf population represents a new source of livestock mortality, and the state's wolf population increased 34 percent in 2007.
Wolves also can lead to indirect losses through missing livestock or poor livestock performance because of the stress of having wolves in the area, the report states.
"What we're always hoping to do is decrease the risk that livestock producers have now that wolves are back on the landscape," Sime said.
Of the 102 known wolf mortalities in Montana in 2007, 73 were killed for killing or chasing livestock. Seven of the wolves were illegally killed, according to FWP.
For now, Edwards is working in obscurity from an office in a tiny pink and white house at 1225 8th Ave. in Helena, which he shares with the Milk Control Board.
His profile will rise April 15, when the state officially begins accepting loss claims from Montana producers. The Livestock Loss Reduction and Mitigation Board, which has met one time so far, will meet a couple of times each year.
"If the livestock owner does not like my decision, at that point we would put it on the (board's) agenda for appeal," Edwards said.
The state Legislature initially estimated the program would cost $200,000 annually, but Edwards believes the price tag will be higher because the number of wolves and depredations are increasing.
To help fund the program, Edwards and the state will seek grants and private donations from the likes of Turner, who owns the Flying D ranch in southwestern Montana, and entrepreneur Roger Lang, the owner of the Sun Ranch on the Madison Range.
"We have some very high profile people who are residents of our state who may look at this as a viable cause," Edwards said.
By KARL PUCKETT
Tribune Staff Writer
George Edwards doesn't work for Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks, the agency now in charge of managing wolves in the state.
But his work will play a large role in maintaining a viable wolf population in Montana by building public acceptance of the wolf, particularly in the ranching community, state officials said.
Edwards, who works for the Department of Livestock, is the state's first livestock loss mitigation coordinator. Beginning next month, livestock producers will submit their financial claims to Edwards for animals hunted and killed by the state's now thriving wolf population.
Wolves, which number more than 400 in Montana and 1,500 in the Northern Rockies, came off the federal endangered species list Friday, turning management over to the states.
The price tag for reimbursing ranchers, as well as funding guard dogs and other conflict prevention efforts, is expected to cost more than $200,000 annually. The money won't just come from the state, as federal funding also will be sought. One of Edwards' main jobs will be fundraising. Edwards noted that some of the state's most prominent residents, such as cable TV mogul Ted Turner, will be asked to contribute.
Both those who argue that federal protections should have been removed from the wolf long ago, and those who say lifting them was premature, agree on one thing: For the wolf to survive under state management, it's critical for the state to pay the bills of ranchers who pay the price for its return.
"This piece, needs to work for the overall wolf management plan to work," Edwards said of the state's new compensation program.
Throughout history, people have had a love-hate attitude toward wolves, said Carolyn Sime, the state's wolf program coordinator.
It's the goal of the state, she said, to prevent a pendulum swing in the other direction by keeping the wolf population from getting too large and compensating landowners who are making sacrifices to have wolves back.
"If people are not willing to live with wolves, they kill them," she said.
Wolves sometimes are mistaken for coyotes or domestic dogs. But their striking physical characteristics — long legs, large feet, blocky heads and weight (males can weigh up to 130 pounds) — set them apart.
There's no mistaking the historic attitudes toward them, either. As Europeans began settling the U.S., they poisoned, trapped and shot wolves, causing a once widespread species to be eradicated from most of its range in the Lower 48. They were gone from Montana, Idaho and Wyoming, as well as adjacent southwestern Canada, by the 1930s.
"People hated them," said Helena-based Ed Bangs, the wolf recovery coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, when the government announced in February that wolves were being delisted. "We came from areas from Europe that hated wolves."
Values changed, and the wolf was given federal protection in 1974. At that time, only a few hundred wolves remained in Minnesota. Those animals were delisted as "threatened" last year.
Bangs came to Montana from Alaska in 1988, to lead the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's effort to restore the "endangered" gray wolves in the West.
Recovery efforts first began in Canada in the 1960s. Wolves there began dispersing into Montana, with the first two packs denning in Glacier National Park and on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation in the late 1980s.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service reintroduced wolves from Canada into Yellowstone National Park and central Idaho in 1995.
With federal protection limiting human-caused mortalities, wolves flourished. Nobody was surprised. If mortality is kept in check, the number of wolves can more than double in just two years, officials said.
"Wolves are just pretty incredible animals," Bangs said.
The cost of the wolf recovery effort in the Northern Rockies was $27 million. Bangs said he believes too much was spent, but says the public demanded it.
With the gray wolf delisted, five state field biologists in Helena, Bozeman, Kalispell and Missoula, including Sime, are now in charge of wolf management. A hunting season is planned for the fall, and ranchers can now kill wolves that are caught killing livestock.
Managing wolves will cost the state about $1 million a year, said Sime, who added that the state is hoping the federal government will help fund management efforts. Montana, she notes, is one of the few places in the country where Americans who called for restoring the wolf can see the animals.
"We'd like the American public to help," she said.
Montana has been managing wolves, using federal guidelines, since 2004, so the transition between state and federal rules that began Friday will be "seamless," Sime said.
What is new in the state's wolf management effort are a seven-member Livestock Loss Reduction and Mitigation Board, and the role of Edwards, who will work closely with that board.
The price the state will pay for livestock animals killed by wolves kill be determined by how much they would have likely sold for at the Billings auction.
Under state management, USDA Wildlife Services will continue to verify whether wolves were responsible for losses. The size of the prey, tracks, and canine teeth marks are part of the forensic science conducted at a depredation scene.
Ranchers will get 100 percent compensation for both confirmed and probable losses. Under the old compensation program, which was privately run by the conservation group Defenders of Wildlife, ranchers received 100 percent for confirmed kills and 50 percent for "probable" losses to wolves.
"There's always losses that can't be verified, and this program is supposed to help with that also," said Elaine Allestad, chairwoman of the Livestock Loss Reduction and Mitigation Board.
Allestad, a Big Timber stock grower who has lost sheep and cattle to wolves and grizzlies, said the federal government should pay for the livestock losses.
"If they want (wolves) here, they should pay for the losses," she said.
The state Legislature allocated $30,000 to fund reimbursements and created a $5 million trust fund.
But to date, that trust account is empty. The eventual goal is to build it up through private donations and use the interest to fund operations.
The basis behind the state's program is the same idea Defenders of Wildlife had when it launched its compensation campaign in 1987: Sharing the responsibility for restoring wolves to the landscape while fostering greater tolerance for wolves in the ranching community.
"Compensation was a critical component of the program of wolf restoration," said Suzanne Asha Stone, a Boise, Idaho-based wolf conservation specialist for Defenders of Wildlife. "It helped people overcome their fears and certainly overcome the financial risk of having wolves back."
Over the last 21 years, Defenders of Wildlife doles out approximately $1 million to ranchers in Montana, Idaho and Wyoming. Defenders, which is discontinuing its compensation program in Montana but continuing it in other states, has pledged to contribute $100,000 to help Montana begin its program.
As the Montana program evolves, property damage losses as a result of wolves, such as broken fences and veterinarian bills for injured livestock, will be funded.
Money also will be made available for livestock producers to purchase guard dogs, hire range riders and install electric flags called fladry, which have shown promise in keeping wolves away from vulnerable livestock in pastures.
"If you just rely on lethal control, more wolves die, more livestock die," said Stone, noting that Defenders of Wildlife spent $81,000 on conflict prevention efforts last year in Idaho, Wyoming and Montana.
Lane Adamson, the director of the Madison Valley Ranchlands Group, said range riders have been effective in monitoring summer grazing operations threatened by wolves. The riders spend four to five months in the area. Last year, the riders discovered a wolf den in the middle of a grazing allotment, but because of the riders' presence, there were no depredations or wolves killed, Adamson said.
He said prevention efforts such as range riders are critical if wolves and ranchers are to share the same landscape.
"As wolf numbers increase, conflict will increase," he said. "That's a reality. Wolves kill livestock."
Statewide, wolves killed 75 cattle in 2007, up from 32 in 2006, while confirmed sheep losses rose from four to 27, according to FWP.
Wolves account for a fraction of total livestock deaths, according to the National Agricultural Statistics Service.
Montana cattle producers reported losing 66,000 cattle and calves to all causes in a 2005 survey, with 3,000, or 4.5 percent, lost to predators. Coyotes were responsible for 54 percent of the 1,300 calves lost to predation, while all predators, including an unknown number of wolves, were responsible for the rest.
The state's 2007 wolf-activity report points out that the restored wolf population represents a new source of livestock mortality, and the state's wolf population increased 34 percent in 2007.
Wolves also can lead to indirect losses through missing livestock or poor livestock performance because of the stress of having wolves in the area, the report states.
"What we're always hoping to do is decrease the risk that livestock producers have now that wolves are back on the landscape," Sime said.
Of the 102 known wolf mortalities in Montana in 2007, 73 were killed for killing or chasing livestock. Seven of the wolves were illegally killed, according to FWP.
For now, Edwards is working in obscurity from an office in a tiny pink and white house at 1225 8th Ave. in Helena, which he shares with the Milk Control Board.
His profile will rise April 15, when the state officially begins accepting loss claims from Montana producers. The Livestock Loss Reduction and Mitigation Board, which has met one time so far, will meet a couple of times each year.
"If the livestock owner does not like my decision, at that point we would put it on the (board's) agenda for appeal," Edwards said.
The state Legislature initially estimated the program would cost $200,000 annually, but Edwards believes the price tag will be higher because the number of wolves and depredations are increasing.
To help fund the program, Edwards and the state will seek grants and private donations from the likes of Turner, who owns the Flying D ranch in southwestern Montana, and entrepreneur Roger Lang, the owner of the Sun Ranch on the Madison Range.
"We have some very high profile people who are residents of our state who may look at this as a viable cause," Edwards said.
Revolution on the Range: The Rise of a New Ranch in the American West Courtney White. Island, $25.99 (218p) ISBN 978-1-59726-174-6
In a time when environmental reporting has become justifiably gloomy, this book is a refreshing breath of pragmatic optimism. Environmentalist White highlights quirky, visionary individuals and their innovative methods to improve the quality of the ranges and mountains of the West, such as biologist Bill Zeedyk, who restores riparian areas and water tables using sticks and rocks to simply and cheaply mimic a creek’s natural meandering, and activist Dan Dagget, who has been able to unite environmentalists and ranchers by focusing on common goals (open space, wildlife, restored streams). White promotes implementation of the “New Ranch,” operating “on the principle that the natural processes that sustain wildlife habitat, biological diversity and functioning watersheds are the same processes that make land productive for livestock... where erosion has diminished, where streams and springs, once dry, now flow, where wildlife is more abundant, and where landowners are more profitable as a result.” White’s vision of stewardship, openness to new ideas, giving as well as taking, and flexibility will inspire anyone who loves humanity or the great outdoors. (June)
In a time when environmental reporting has become justifiably gloomy, this book is a refreshing breath of pragmatic optimism. Environmentalist White highlights quirky, visionary individuals and their innovative methods to improve the quality of the ranges and mountains of the West, such as biologist Bill Zeedyk, who restores riparian areas and water tables using sticks and rocks to simply and cheaply mimic a creek’s natural meandering, and activist Dan Dagget, who has been able to unite environmentalists and ranchers by focusing on common goals (open space, wildlife, restored streams). White promotes implementation of the “New Ranch,” operating “on the principle that the natural processes that sustain wildlife habitat, biological diversity and functioning watersheds are the same processes that make land productive for livestock... where erosion has diminished, where streams and springs, once dry, now flow, where wildlife is more abundant, and where landowners are more profitable as a result.” White’s vision of stewardship, openness to new ideas, giving as well as taking, and flexibility will inspire anyone who loves humanity or the great outdoors. (June)
State, wildlife advocates spar over cattle grazing issue
Scott Sandsberry
Yakima Herald-Republic
He's just a Kittitas County cattleman trying to make a living, but controversy swirls all around Russ Stingley.
On one side are the state Department of Fish and Wildlife and the Washington Cattlemen's Association, brought together by the governor's office to allow grazing on large swaths of state wildlife land.
On the other side are critics who oppose letting cattle graze on land specifically purchased for wildlife and question its benefits. One Idaho-based conservation group has even sued, saying the state took shortcuts in order to fast-track cattle grazing.
In the middle stands Stingley, awaiting state approval to put his cattle out on 18,500 acres over six pastures of rolling shrub-steppe land known as the Skookumchuck, located east of Ellensburg and home to thousands of elk.
The state Fish and Wildlife Commission is expected to sign off on the grazing permit in the next two or three weeks.
But every day he waits costs money.
Like many Eastern Washington cattlemen, Stingley has more cattle than land and relies on lease permits to graze his livestock on state, federal and private land.
"April 1 was supposed to be the turnout day (on the Skookumchuck), and that's not going to happen," said Stingley. "So we'll be feeding hay for another three weeks or four weeks.
"We're feeding probably seven tons a day to close to 500 head (of cattle). This year, there's such a shortage of hay -- we normally pay $60 to $70 for a ton of hay, and this year we had some brought in last week for $150 -- and that's only if you can find it. I had a (cattleman) calling to see if I knew where he could find some for $200.
"With the price of wheat now, everything's so high, and corn -- with the ethanol deal -- growers are planting corn and taking hay out. It's probably costing us about $25,000 more this year just to feed the calves.
"If things don't change, there will be a lot less cattle around."
Grazing and its foes
Fewer cattle on state land, though, is precisely what opponents want, and they don't like the direction the grazing numbers are going.
Stingley's permit last year to graze the Whisky Dick Wildlife Area -- held up because of environmental requirements -- called for 160 animal-unit months (AUMs) over 8,400 acres. His Skookumchuck permit this year calls for 720 AUMs over 18,500 acres, between early- to mid-April and the end of June.
One AUM means one cow and one calf grazing for one month; 100 cows and 100 calves grazing in a pasture for 30 days, for example, would constitute 100 AUMs. During the two months of Stingley's permit, the state would allow 360 cows and 360 calves to roam about 18,500 acres.
That's significantly fewer livestock than traditional practice.
For years, the Skookumchuck was grazed by sheep, horses and many more cattle. That area "probably used to run 10 times more (livestock) than what we'll be running," Stingley said.
The Skookumchuck grazing is part of a coordinated plan involving numerous parties interested in the shrub-steppe hills of eastern Kittitas County, from private recreation groups to the cattle industry and public agencies such as the departments of Wildlife and Natural Resources.
It isn't part of the state's pilot grazing program in southwestern Washington, but opponents tend to view both in the same light -- as an inappropriate use of lands purchased to manage wildlife, and in many cases to save those lands from being so overgrazed that they're useless for wildlife forage.
Those same opponents say the only reason Wildlife officials want to allow Stingley's cattle on the Skookumchuck this spring is that they failed to meet State Environmental Policy Act standards in time to open the adjacent Whisky Dick area, where a grazing permit was to go to Stingley.
"They're doing this for one reason only, and that is to take care of one rancher," said Bob Tuck of Selah, a former state Fish and Wildlife commissioner who opposes grazing on state land.
"It's a perversion of the whole system...," Tuck said. "I'm sure he's a fine fellow, but the needs of one rancher should not drive where and what you graze."
Dueling science
While the Skookumchuck was for years subject to what one former state wildlife lands manager called "a lot of very, very bad grazing practices," it had long been coveted by the agency.
Its acquisition last fall connected the Whisky Dick and Quilomene wildlife areas, creating a broad landscape of publicly owned shrub-steppe, critical habitat for threatened sage grouse and other species.
The Skookumchuck had been called "the No. 1 critical habitat project" in a state fund to support wildlife and recreation.
"Suddenly (the state Wildlife Department) is giving the cattle industry what they want on lands that are supposed to be managed for fish and wildlife," said Katie Fite of Western Watersheds Project, the Idaho-based group suing the state. "It's just shocked me how the (department) and the governor, who has really been promoting this and is behind what's going on, have been ignoring current ecological science."
There's plenty of dueling science on the issue, with both sides quick to show research supporting their contentions about grazing's benefits or detriments to wildlife.
Cattlemen, for example, say cattle will eat cheat grass that would otherwise grow thicker and present a larger fire hazard to the open range.
Perry Harvester, who oversees the Wildlife Department's regional habitat division, said grazing is essential for managing wildlife across a large landscape -- with grazing as just one tool of many -- rather than on a per-site basis. Wildlife officials also say the cattle industry's support was a key factor in recent state acquisitions of large blocks of land that allow that kind of wide-scale management.
"That's what we're working towards in a cooperative-type grazing plan, to be able to manage it on a landscape scale," Harvester said. "The problem is, we rarely have opportunities where we have the ability to monitor, or the funds to monitor on the level we will out there.
"There's going to be much more intense scrutiny" under the state's management program, he said.
What about the elk?
That scrutiny will involve ensuring Stingley's cattle remove no more than 35 percent of the available forage in any of the six pastures that make up the 18,500-acre block (about 29 square miles). The rest is to be left as cover for nesting birds, like sage grouse, and forage for deer and elk.
In one 5,988-acre pasture of the Skookumchuck where Stingley's cattle will graze, state biologists doing aerial surveys earlier this month counted 979 elk. That's the most they've ever recorded there at that time of year. Typically, they count fewer than 80 elk in the pasture.
Biologists attribute the dramatic increase to a nearby winter road closure two years ago, which reduced human disturbance of the Colockum elk herd.
But what about the disturbance caused by the cattle moving in?
"That's the big question, isn't it?" said state wildlife biologist Jeff Bernatowicz. "Where are (the elk) going to go, and what are they going to find there to eat? And are they going to be running through people's fences
"One of the reasons behind all this (managed grazing), in theory, is to create good elk habitat to keep them on state lands longer. The reality is, if you put out cattle on April 1, the elk are most likely going to leave."
The elk will probably move into the higher-elevation pastures, above the flatter fields preferred by the cattle. They're accustomed to doing just that, since the Skookumchuck has been heavily grazed for years.
"Historically, the elk were probably being pushed out of there by April anyway," Bernatowicz said. "But we've never had that many elk there, either."
Keeping ranches around
For Stingley, getting state approval to have more cattle graze on the Skookumchuck than he would have been allowed on the Whisky Dick comes up short of what he was accustomed to. He's long leased on the Skookumchuck under both the state Department of Natural Resources and private land owners before the area's 2007 acquisition by the Wildlife Department.
And he'll have to do a lot more work. He'll have to keep rotating his cattle between the assigned pastures to keep the cattle from devouring more than the prescribed 35 percent of the vegetation.
"It's quite a bit more time-consuming now," Stingley said. "This is probably the biggest (managed grazing project) they've got going in the state -- and the most looked-at. After it goes through, the rest won't be quite as bad. A lot of this is just going to be to show that it does work, to show the (Wildlife) Department that it can be done."
If it doesn't work -- and the grazing worsens forage and ground cover for wildlife, as opponents anticipate -- wildlife won't be the only ones to suffer. So will small cattlemen like Stingley.
If he and other cattle ranchers can't find ways to remain profitable -- with monitored grazing on public lands -- the alternative might be much worse.
Some, said Jack Field, executive vice president of the Washington Cattlemen's Association, may simply opt to sell their private land to developers.
"The value of that land," Field said, "to keep it as a pasture or rangeland when you're looking at development plans in the $7,000, $8,000, even $10,000 per acre range, there's absolutely no way a farmer or rancher, or anybody in agriculture, can compete with the type of dollars coming from developers.
"When done right, grazing is an absolute benefit for both the ranchers and the wildlife, by maintaining those landscapes that surround the public lands. That's a buffer between the developers and our scenic areas. People would rather have one or two large landowners there than 250 ranchettes.
"And that's better for the wildlife, too."
Scott Sandsberry
Yakima Herald-Republic
He's just a Kittitas County cattleman trying to make a living, but controversy swirls all around Russ Stingley.
On one side are the state Department of Fish and Wildlife and the Washington Cattlemen's Association, brought together by the governor's office to allow grazing on large swaths of state wildlife land.
On the other side are critics who oppose letting cattle graze on land specifically purchased for wildlife and question its benefits. One Idaho-based conservation group has even sued, saying the state took shortcuts in order to fast-track cattle grazing.
In the middle stands Stingley, awaiting state approval to put his cattle out on 18,500 acres over six pastures of rolling shrub-steppe land known as the Skookumchuck, located east of Ellensburg and home to thousands of elk.
The state Fish and Wildlife Commission is expected to sign off on the grazing permit in the next two or three weeks.
But every day he waits costs money.
Like many Eastern Washington cattlemen, Stingley has more cattle than land and relies on lease permits to graze his livestock on state, federal and private land.
"April 1 was supposed to be the turnout day (on the Skookumchuck), and that's not going to happen," said Stingley. "So we'll be feeding hay for another three weeks or four weeks.
"We're feeding probably seven tons a day to close to 500 head (of cattle). This year, there's such a shortage of hay -- we normally pay $60 to $70 for a ton of hay, and this year we had some brought in last week for $150 -- and that's only if you can find it. I had a (cattleman) calling to see if I knew where he could find some for $200.
"With the price of wheat now, everything's so high, and corn -- with the ethanol deal -- growers are planting corn and taking hay out. It's probably costing us about $25,000 more this year just to feed the calves.
"If things don't change, there will be a lot less cattle around."
Grazing and its foes
Fewer cattle on state land, though, is precisely what opponents want, and they don't like the direction the grazing numbers are going.
Stingley's permit last year to graze the Whisky Dick Wildlife Area -- held up because of environmental requirements -- called for 160 animal-unit months (AUMs) over 8,400 acres. His Skookumchuck permit this year calls for 720 AUMs over 18,500 acres, between early- to mid-April and the end of June.
One AUM means one cow and one calf grazing for one month; 100 cows and 100 calves grazing in a pasture for 30 days, for example, would constitute 100 AUMs. During the two months of Stingley's permit, the state would allow 360 cows and 360 calves to roam about 18,500 acres.
That's significantly fewer livestock than traditional practice.
For years, the Skookumchuck was grazed by sheep, horses and many more cattle. That area "probably used to run 10 times more (livestock) than what we'll be running," Stingley said.
The Skookumchuck grazing is part of a coordinated plan involving numerous parties interested in the shrub-steppe hills of eastern Kittitas County, from private recreation groups to the cattle industry and public agencies such as the departments of Wildlife and Natural Resources.
It isn't part of the state's pilot grazing program in southwestern Washington, but opponents tend to view both in the same light -- as an inappropriate use of lands purchased to manage wildlife, and in many cases to save those lands from being so overgrazed that they're useless for wildlife forage.
Those same opponents say the only reason Wildlife officials want to allow Stingley's cattle on the Skookumchuck this spring is that they failed to meet State Environmental Policy Act standards in time to open the adjacent Whisky Dick area, where a grazing permit was to go to Stingley.
"They're doing this for one reason only, and that is to take care of one rancher," said Bob Tuck of Selah, a former state Fish and Wildlife commissioner who opposes grazing on state land.
"It's a perversion of the whole system...," Tuck said. "I'm sure he's a fine fellow, but the needs of one rancher should not drive where and what you graze."
Dueling science
While the Skookumchuck was for years subject to what one former state wildlife lands manager called "a lot of very, very bad grazing practices," it had long been coveted by the agency.
Its acquisition last fall connected the Whisky Dick and Quilomene wildlife areas, creating a broad landscape of publicly owned shrub-steppe, critical habitat for threatened sage grouse and other species.
The Skookumchuck had been called "the No. 1 critical habitat project" in a state fund to support wildlife and recreation.
"Suddenly (the state Wildlife Department) is giving the cattle industry what they want on lands that are supposed to be managed for fish and wildlife," said Katie Fite of Western Watersheds Project, the Idaho-based group suing the state. "It's just shocked me how the (department) and the governor, who has really been promoting this and is behind what's going on, have been ignoring current ecological science."
There's plenty of dueling science on the issue, with both sides quick to show research supporting their contentions about grazing's benefits or detriments to wildlife.
Cattlemen, for example, say cattle will eat cheat grass that would otherwise grow thicker and present a larger fire hazard to the open range.
Perry Harvester, who oversees the Wildlife Department's regional habitat division, said grazing is essential for managing wildlife across a large landscape -- with grazing as just one tool of many -- rather than on a per-site basis. Wildlife officials also say the cattle industry's support was a key factor in recent state acquisitions of large blocks of land that allow that kind of wide-scale management.
"That's what we're working towards in a cooperative-type grazing plan, to be able to manage it on a landscape scale," Harvester said. "The problem is, we rarely have opportunities where we have the ability to monitor, or the funds to monitor on the level we will out there.
"There's going to be much more intense scrutiny" under the state's management program, he said.
What about the elk?
That scrutiny will involve ensuring Stingley's cattle remove no more than 35 percent of the available forage in any of the six pastures that make up the 18,500-acre block (about 29 square miles). The rest is to be left as cover for nesting birds, like sage grouse, and forage for deer and elk.
In one 5,988-acre pasture of the Skookumchuck where Stingley's cattle will graze, state biologists doing aerial surveys earlier this month counted 979 elk. That's the most they've ever recorded there at that time of year. Typically, they count fewer than 80 elk in the pasture.
Biologists attribute the dramatic increase to a nearby winter road closure two years ago, which reduced human disturbance of the Colockum elk herd.
But what about the disturbance caused by the cattle moving in?
"That's the big question, isn't it?" said state wildlife biologist Jeff Bernatowicz. "Where are (the elk) going to go, and what are they going to find there to eat? And are they going to be running through people's fences
"One of the reasons behind all this (managed grazing), in theory, is to create good elk habitat to keep them on state lands longer. The reality is, if you put out cattle on April 1, the elk are most likely going to leave."
The elk will probably move into the higher-elevation pastures, above the flatter fields preferred by the cattle. They're accustomed to doing just that, since the Skookumchuck has been heavily grazed for years.
"Historically, the elk were probably being pushed out of there by April anyway," Bernatowicz said. "But we've never had that many elk there, either."
Keeping ranches around
For Stingley, getting state approval to have more cattle graze on the Skookumchuck than he would have been allowed on the Whisky Dick comes up short of what he was accustomed to. He's long leased on the Skookumchuck under both the state Department of Natural Resources and private land owners before the area's 2007 acquisition by the Wildlife Department.
And he'll have to do a lot more work. He'll have to keep rotating his cattle between the assigned pastures to keep the cattle from devouring more than the prescribed 35 percent of the vegetation.
"It's quite a bit more time-consuming now," Stingley said. "This is probably the biggest (managed grazing project) they've got going in the state -- and the most looked-at. After it goes through, the rest won't be quite as bad. A lot of this is just going to be to show that it does work, to show the (Wildlife) Department that it can be done."
If it doesn't work -- and the grazing worsens forage and ground cover for wildlife, as opponents anticipate -- wildlife won't be the only ones to suffer. So will small cattlemen like Stingley.
If he and other cattle ranchers can't find ways to remain profitable -- with monitored grazing on public lands -- the alternative might be much worse.
Some, said Jack Field, executive vice president of the Washington Cattlemen's Association, may simply opt to sell their private land to developers.
"The value of that land," Field said, "to keep it as a pasture or rangeland when you're looking at development plans in the $7,000, $8,000, even $10,000 per acre range, there's absolutely no way a farmer or rancher, or anybody in agriculture, can compete with the type of dollars coming from developers.
"When done right, grazing is an absolute benefit for both the ranchers and the wildlife, by maintaining those landscapes that surround the public lands. That's a buffer between the developers and our scenic areas. People would rather have one or two large landowners there than 250 ranchettes.
"And that's better for the wildlife, too."
Friday, March 28, 2008
Conservationists push for meadow jumping mouse protections
By SUSAN MONTOYA BRYAN Associated Press Writer
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M.—Conservationists want the federal government to take notice of the New Mexico meadow jumping mouse, saying climate change and unchecked livestock grazing are pushing the rare rodent closer to extinction.
The mouse once lived in nearly 100 locations along rivers and streams around New Mexico and in parts of Arizona, but recent surveys have shown that the furry rodent is now found only in about a dozens places in the two states.
The mouse, considered endangered by the New Mexico Game and Fish Department, was recently added to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's list of plants and animals that are candidates for protection under the federal Endangered Species Act.
"We've argued that the Fish and Wildlife Service should emergency list this mouse and so we believe that all federal agencies should take steps now to protect the mouse in order to prevent its extinction. It is that imperiled," said Nicole Rosmarino, director of WildEarth Guardians' wildlife program.
Conservationists and state and federal biologists agree the biggest threats facing the mouse are grazing and the loss of habitat. The mouse depends on moist meadows along streams and rivers to make its home, find food and reproduce.
WildEarth Guardians sent the U.S. Forest Service a letter last week asking that the agency take a close look at grazing practices and other activities on forest land considering the mouse's status.
The group charges that poor land management is partly too blame for the loss of habitat.
"Certainly, the Forest Service does not have a good track record when it comes to reining in livestock grazing," Rosmarino said. "Our public lands in the Southwest are hammered by livestock grazing ... despite steady pressure from us to curtail that very harmful land use."
While grazing in the national forest system has been a privilege for ranchers for decades, Forest Service spokesman Art Morrison said the agency's rangers take seriously their role as stewards in monitoring grazing practices.
"When we talk about doing the annual operating plans, there's all kinds of things in the way of adjustments for a multitude of species," he said. "By and large, most of it has to do with the amount of rainfall."
No rain means no grass, and no grass means no food or cover for the meadow jumping mouse.
Jim Stuart, a non-game endangered species mammologist with the Game and Fish Department, said the effects of drought are evident when looking at the mouse's historic range.
During the 1980s, biologists found the mouse in the Jemez, Sangre de Cristo and Sacramento mountains of New Mexico. A second round of surveys in 2005 and 2006 found that many of the original sites had dried up and the mouse was gone.
Another problem, Stuart said, is that the rodent is found in small populations far from one another.
"You fragment their distribution to the point that there's no continuity among any of the scattered populations and then they're more vulnerable," he said. "They could basically disappear completely."
While the Fish and Wildlife Service has yet to decide whether the mouse warrants endangered species protection, Stuart's agency has put together a recovery plan for the rodent. The state Game Commission will consider the plan at its meeting next month.
The Forest Service also considers the mouse a species of concern. That means any time a project is proposed on forest land, the agency has to ensure that the rodent's habitat won't be affected.
State and federal biologists agree that protecting riparian habitats across the state will help more than just the mouse. Of the state's 867 species of vertebrates, more than half rely to some extent on aquatic, wetland or riparian areas.
"As long as we keep things in balance and keep the habitat in a way that can sustain itself over time, then everybody—everybody being all the species—is better off in the long run," Morrison said.
By SUSAN MONTOYA BRYAN Associated Press Writer
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M.—Conservationists want the federal government to take notice of the New Mexico meadow jumping mouse, saying climate change and unchecked livestock grazing are pushing the rare rodent closer to extinction.
The mouse once lived in nearly 100 locations along rivers and streams around New Mexico and in parts of Arizona, but recent surveys have shown that the furry rodent is now found only in about a dozens places in the two states.
The mouse, considered endangered by the New Mexico Game and Fish Department, was recently added to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's list of plants and animals that are candidates for protection under the federal Endangered Species Act.
"We've argued that the Fish and Wildlife Service should emergency list this mouse and so we believe that all federal agencies should take steps now to protect the mouse in order to prevent its extinction. It is that imperiled," said Nicole Rosmarino, director of WildEarth Guardians' wildlife program.
Conservationists and state and federal biologists agree the biggest threats facing the mouse are grazing and the loss of habitat. The mouse depends on moist meadows along streams and rivers to make its home, find food and reproduce.
WildEarth Guardians sent the U.S. Forest Service a letter last week asking that the agency take a close look at grazing practices and other activities on forest land considering the mouse's status.
The group charges that poor land management is partly too blame for the loss of habitat.
"Certainly, the Forest Service does not have a good track record when it comes to reining in livestock grazing," Rosmarino said. "Our public lands in the Southwest are hammered by livestock grazing ... despite steady pressure from us to curtail that very harmful land use."
While grazing in the national forest system has been a privilege for ranchers for decades, Forest Service spokesman Art Morrison said the agency's rangers take seriously their role as stewards in monitoring grazing practices.
"When we talk about doing the annual operating plans, there's all kinds of things in the way of adjustments for a multitude of species," he said. "By and large, most of it has to do with the amount of rainfall."
No rain means no grass, and no grass means no food or cover for the meadow jumping mouse.
Jim Stuart, a non-game endangered species mammologist with the Game and Fish Department, said the effects of drought are evident when looking at the mouse's historic range.
During the 1980s, biologists found the mouse in the Jemez, Sangre de Cristo and Sacramento mountains of New Mexico. A second round of surveys in 2005 and 2006 found that many of the original sites had dried up and the mouse was gone.
Another problem, Stuart said, is that the rodent is found in small populations far from one another.
"You fragment their distribution to the point that there's no continuity among any of the scattered populations and then they're more vulnerable," he said. "They could basically disappear completely."
While the Fish and Wildlife Service has yet to decide whether the mouse warrants endangered species protection, Stuart's agency has put together a recovery plan for the rodent. The state Game Commission will consider the plan at its meeting next month.
The Forest Service also considers the mouse a species of concern. That means any time a project is proposed on forest land, the agency has to ensure that the rodent's habitat won't be affected.
State and federal biologists agree that protecting riparian habitats across the state will help more than just the mouse. Of the state's 867 species of vertebrates, more than half rely to some extent on aquatic, wetland or riparian areas.
"As long as we keep things in balance and keep the habitat in a way that can sustain itself over time, then everybody—everybody being all the species—is better off in the long run," Morrison said.
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Trust land talks reach an impasse
The Associated Press
Published: 03.27.2008
PHOENIX - Talks aimed at reaching a legislative compromise on a ballot measure on state trust land have hit an apparent impasse that likely means no proposal goes to voters in November, a top aide to Gov. Janet Napolitano said Wednesday.
The talks hit a blockage over whether to prohibit use of impact fees on new homes from being used to purchase trust land for conservation as open space under a proposed new process for trust land, said Mike Haener, a deputy chief of staff to the governor.
That at least dims, if not extinguishes, prospects for agreement this session on a consensus package that lawmakers could put on the November ballot, Haener told The Associated Press in an interview.
The state's roughly 9.3 million acres of trust land represent a century-old legacy from statehood that has seen recent unsuccessful efforts to set aside large parcels for conservation as open space while protecting funding the land provides for public schools through sales and leases.
Months of negotiations have taken place since Napolitano last summer convened a gathering of key legislators to try to forge a compromise on trust land proposals - a subject of frustration in recent years for lawmakers and advocacy groups as diverse as teachers, home builders, conservationists and cattle ranchers.
Trust land accounts for about 13 percent of the state's total real estate.
Its future development or preservation, especially in urban areas, has received new attention as sprawl increases pressure for conservation of open space at a time when the state is trying to increase funding for education.
Home builders, whose industry is a major economic force in Arizona and one that has significant sway at the Legislature, had sought the prohibition on use of impact fee money, arguing it would burden a struggling industry, dampen prices paid for trust land and use impact fees for inappropriate purposes.
Sierra Club lobbyist Sandy Bahr said the prohibition sought by home builders is unacceptable because multiple funding sources are needed to acquire trust land for conservation purposes.
The Associated Press
Published: 03.27.2008
PHOENIX - Talks aimed at reaching a legislative compromise on a ballot measure on state trust land have hit an apparent impasse that likely means no proposal goes to voters in November, a top aide to Gov. Janet Napolitano said Wednesday.
The talks hit a blockage over whether to prohibit use of impact fees on new homes from being used to purchase trust land for conservation as open space under a proposed new process for trust land, said Mike Haener, a deputy chief of staff to the governor.
That at least dims, if not extinguishes, prospects for agreement this session on a consensus package that lawmakers could put on the November ballot, Haener told The Associated Press in an interview.
The state's roughly 9.3 million acres of trust land represent a century-old legacy from statehood that has seen recent unsuccessful efforts to set aside large parcels for conservation as open space while protecting funding the land provides for public schools through sales and leases.
Months of negotiations have taken place since Napolitano last summer convened a gathering of key legislators to try to forge a compromise on trust land proposals - a subject of frustration in recent years for lawmakers and advocacy groups as diverse as teachers, home builders, conservationists and cattle ranchers.
Trust land accounts for about 13 percent of the state's total real estate.
Its future development or preservation, especially in urban areas, has received new attention as sprawl increases pressure for conservation of open space at a time when the state is trying to increase funding for education.
Home builders, whose industry is a major economic force in Arizona and one that has significant sway at the Legislature, had sought the prohibition on use of impact fee money, arguing it would burden a struggling industry, dampen prices paid for trust land and use impact fees for inappropriate purposes.
Sierra Club lobbyist Sandy Bahr said the prohibition sought by home builders is unacceptable because multiple funding sources are needed to acquire trust land for conservation purposes.
Monday, March 24, 2008
Rangeland Monitoring Data Collected by Outside Source Cooperators
March 15, 2008
By Jim Cagney, Wyoming Range Program Lead, Bureau of Land Management jim_cagney@blm.gov or 307-775-6194
Printed/published in the Guardians of the Range newsletter, March 2008 issue, and in Wyoming Livestock Roundup's March 15, 2008, issue
Kathleen Jachowski, Executive Director, Guardians of the Range, solution@vcn.com or 307-587-3723
Wyoming Livestock Roundup 800-967-1647 or 307-234-2700 http://www.wylr.net
Submit a Letter to the Editor of Wyoming Livestock Roundup: jennifer@wylr.net
Public collection of range monitoring data is a developing issue in the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) range program. It is undeniable that the BLM needs additional monitoring data. Every grazing permit we authorize must be analyzed in accordance with the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), and issued with a decision the public can appeal. We need information to defend our decisions. However, the scope of the Wyoming range program makes it difficult for our range mangers to generate the monitoring data necessary to fully support the volume of permit renewal decisions we issue. The Wyoming BLM manages 18,000,000 acres of public land, and issues around 380 permits a year. Consequently, we're not in a position to say no thanks to willing cooperators, and we can't be perceived as not wanting valid information.
The problem with relying on outside source cooperators is that rangeland monitoring lends itself to a wide range of interpretation and complexity. Simply requiring cooperators to stick to “established protocols” doesn't address the complexity, because the issue transcends just collecting data. Let’s say, for example, a rancher and I agree to limit utilization to 50%. The meeting ends amicably with the rancher thinking the use cap is an average for the pasture, and me thinking it’s about use levels on green needlegrass (a cow favorite) along a transect near the best water source in the pasture. Hopefully we'd get on the same page soon, because that is a very substantive difference. But what if the rancher and I never talked about that use level distinction, and the issue was left to a cooperator who would make that determination by the way the monitoring program was designed? Clearly, that scenario must be avoided.
Data collection is just a component of a comprehensive monitoring program. The study design and evaluation process are equally important. Furthermore, monitoring is not the starting point of an effective range program. How do we choose what to monitor? First rate goals and objectives are the foundation. On a loamy site in the Bighorn Basin, my goal might be to increase the abundance of bluebunch wheatgrass, because bluebunch has the potential to produce both the most forage for cattle and hiding cover for grouse nesting. That is a good goal, but it is not measurable. Before I can specify a measurable objective, I need to establish where and how the data will be collected and evaluated. The where, what, and how part of a monitoring program links the BLM’s land use goals with the measurable objectives in a specific allotment. This is the critical function the BLM can not delegate to the public.
A permittee is not required to collect monitoring data. Anyone with legal public access is free to record their observations, and free to send their findings to the BLM. However, placement of infrastructure (such as utilization cages), gets to the “how and where” part of the study design. If the BLM accepts cooperator data but fails to evaluate it, does it become part of the official record anyway? Clearly we need to formally accept or decline cooperator data in a timely manner, and communicate our intent to both the cooperator and the grazing permittee.
The BLM’s challenge is to take advantage of offers of support, and honor the concept of public participation, without abdicating our responsibility. In the near future, the Wyoming BLM State Office will issue guidance to the field offices designed to assure that we steer a steady course in our efforts to work with cooperators. I need to thank Kathleen Jachowski for her critical help in sorting out these important issues.
Hat Tip to http://www.propertyrightsresearch.org
March 15, 2008
By Jim Cagney, Wyoming Range Program Lead, Bureau of Land Management jim_cagney@blm.gov or 307-775-6194
Printed/published in the Guardians of the Range newsletter, March 2008 issue, and in Wyoming Livestock Roundup's March 15, 2008, issue
Kathleen Jachowski, Executive Director, Guardians of the Range, solution@vcn.com or 307-587-3723
Wyoming Livestock Roundup 800-967-1647 or 307-234-2700 http://www.wylr.net
Submit a Letter to the Editor of Wyoming Livestock Roundup: jennifer@wylr.net
Public collection of range monitoring data is a developing issue in the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) range program. It is undeniable that the BLM needs additional monitoring data. Every grazing permit we authorize must be analyzed in accordance with the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), and issued with a decision the public can appeal. We need information to defend our decisions. However, the scope of the Wyoming range program makes it difficult for our range mangers to generate the monitoring data necessary to fully support the volume of permit renewal decisions we issue. The Wyoming BLM manages 18,000,000 acres of public land, and issues around 380 permits a year. Consequently, we're not in a position to say no thanks to willing cooperators, and we can't be perceived as not wanting valid information.
The problem with relying on outside source cooperators is that rangeland monitoring lends itself to a wide range of interpretation and complexity. Simply requiring cooperators to stick to “established protocols” doesn't address the complexity, because the issue transcends just collecting data. Let’s say, for example, a rancher and I agree to limit utilization to 50%. The meeting ends amicably with the rancher thinking the use cap is an average for the pasture, and me thinking it’s about use levels on green needlegrass (a cow favorite) along a transect near the best water source in the pasture. Hopefully we'd get on the same page soon, because that is a very substantive difference. But what if the rancher and I never talked about that use level distinction, and the issue was left to a cooperator who would make that determination by the way the monitoring program was designed? Clearly, that scenario must be avoided.
Data collection is just a component of a comprehensive monitoring program. The study design and evaluation process are equally important. Furthermore, monitoring is not the starting point of an effective range program. How do we choose what to monitor? First rate goals and objectives are the foundation. On a loamy site in the Bighorn Basin, my goal might be to increase the abundance of bluebunch wheatgrass, because bluebunch has the potential to produce both the most forage for cattle and hiding cover for grouse nesting. That is a good goal, but it is not measurable. Before I can specify a measurable objective, I need to establish where and how the data will be collected and evaluated. The where, what, and how part of a monitoring program links the BLM’s land use goals with the measurable objectives in a specific allotment. This is the critical function the BLM can not delegate to the public.
A permittee is not required to collect monitoring data. Anyone with legal public access is free to record their observations, and free to send their findings to the BLM. However, placement of infrastructure (such as utilization cages), gets to the “how and where” part of the study design. If the BLM accepts cooperator data but fails to evaluate it, does it become part of the official record anyway? Clearly we need to formally accept or decline cooperator data in a timely manner, and communicate our intent to both the cooperator and the grazing permittee.
The BLM’s challenge is to take advantage of offers of support, and honor the concept of public participation, without abdicating our responsibility. In the near future, the Wyoming BLM State Office will issue guidance to the field offices designed to assure that we steer a steady course in our efforts to work with cooperators. I need to thank Kathleen Jachowski for her critical help in sorting out these important issues.
Hat Tip to http://www.propertyrightsresearch.org
The fingerprint of a lonely profession
Published: Sunday, March 23, 2008 12:04 AM MDT
A few hundred footsteps separate a two-track methane road in the Wyoming prairie and a stone obelisk that is a few feet taller than a grown man and twice as wide.
But it seems a million steps away from the lonely lifestyle of a group of men whose boredom made them the first architects in the region.
Creeping its toes to the edge of the sandstone altar stands what one Gillette man calls the “world’s greatest” sheepherder’s monument. The solitary figure’s only company, like the sheepherder who constructed it, is the wind that howls through its crevices in a pitch that resembles the faint cries of a man alone in the distance.
THEIR EXISTENCE IS A MYSTERY
Suppositions about the purpose for the meticulously assembled Rubik’s Cubes of stone that are spread across the region are as varied as the people who see them.
Some say they are navigational markers. Others say they are predator deterrents. All suppose that boredom had much to do with it.
“My herders just said it was out of boredom,” says Patty Meyers, Campbell County Public Library executive director.
While working as a historical librarian in Johnson County, Meyers researched the sheep industry and found that herders often spent entire summers with their herds isolated from human contact.
“Some herders would allow their lines to cross with another’s herd simply for the company,” says Meyers while leafing through a book that details the rise of the wool industry in early 20th century Wyoming.
A century later, the monuments still stand as the fingerprint of a lonely profession all but dead.
Those fingerprints have intrigued Steve Riss, a local artist, hairdresser and devotee of Western history, since he first came across the one off Echeta Road that he claims is the world’s greatest.
The “why” of their existence doesn’t interest him as much as the architecture.
“We all want to leave a mark on this earth even if it’s just chalk on the wall,” Riss says.
EACH IS UNIQUE
Each monument is unique in shape, structure and history.
The wool industry boomed in Wyoming near the turn of the 20th century and beckoned thousands of men to the high plains to tend herds.
At its peak, the Empire Ranch near Moorcroft was home to 100 herders, according to owner Judy McCullough.
Once when she was young, she was scolded for disassembling a monument on the ranch where she spent her childhood.
Some monuments, like the “world’s greatest” that stands atop an altar of sandstone on the Gates-Yonkee Ranch, have more history than others — or at least their history has not yet passed with its owners.
The massive pile of flat stones is a puzzle itself — not only in its almost snap-together design but in the rock itself. The gray stones coated with orange lichen bear no resemblance to the rocks scattered around its pedestal. Riss speculates that a lonely sheepherder constructed the structure carrying the stones one at time from distant hills.
The solitary sentinel, which clings to its perch high above the grassy draw below, existed before the first homesteader claimed the land. It is an artifact from a time before people laid claim to the hills it lords over.
“The great big ones are ones that have been around since before his time,” says Nancy Yonkee, whose father, Lee Gates, homesteaded the ranch in the teens of the 20th century.
Yonkee recalls that her father, a bronc rider and cattleman, added to the already sizable monument in the wake of the Great Depression when he bought and tended a herd of sheep on the ranch to recover his family’s fortunes.
“He brought himself back up by the bootstraps with sheep,” Yonkee says, running her finger over a set of silver spurs he made her when she was young. “In the post-drought era, sheep could survive while cows could not.”
Now it is the sheep ranchers who struggle to find a market for a commodity few want.
The citadels of stone outlived the profession that built them.
NOTHING LASTS FOREVER
Riding the peaks of the harsh landscape, the stony eyes of the giant have watched booms and busts, winters and summers, and fathers and sons come and go.
For now, the elements that have reduced the land around it have strengthened the rock.
Riss slides his hands over the stones on the Goliath’s armor, feeling for a single loose plate. He finds none.
“Over time, the wind has rattled the rocks together until each one cut dimples in the one below and locked them together,” says Riss as he crouches to look inside the stone honeycomb.
The same wind that cemented its footing will one day wear the legs from under it and like all things, it will go back to the earth.
“It’s a hell of a balancing act, and neither nature nor man have brought it down yet,” Riss says in admiration.
As Riss plodded away, his footsteps in the snow are erased within moments by the wind, a reminder of the impermanence of things — even the world’s greatest.
Published: Sunday, March 23, 2008 12:04 AM MDT
A few hundred footsteps separate a two-track methane road in the Wyoming prairie and a stone obelisk that is a few feet taller than a grown man and twice as wide.
But it seems a million steps away from the lonely lifestyle of a group of men whose boredom made them the first architects in the region.
Creeping its toes to the edge of the sandstone altar stands what one Gillette man calls the “world’s greatest” sheepherder’s monument. The solitary figure’s only company, like the sheepherder who constructed it, is the wind that howls through its crevices in a pitch that resembles the faint cries of a man alone in the distance.
THEIR EXISTENCE IS A MYSTERY
Suppositions about the purpose for the meticulously assembled Rubik’s Cubes of stone that are spread across the region are as varied as the people who see them.
Some say they are navigational markers. Others say they are predator deterrents. All suppose that boredom had much to do with it.
“My herders just said it was out of boredom,” says Patty Meyers, Campbell County Public Library executive director.
While working as a historical librarian in Johnson County, Meyers researched the sheep industry and found that herders often spent entire summers with their herds isolated from human contact.
“Some herders would allow their lines to cross with another’s herd simply for the company,” says Meyers while leafing through a book that details the rise of the wool industry in early 20th century Wyoming.
A century later, the monuments still stand as the fingerprint of a lonely profession all but dead.
Those fingerprints have intrigued Steve Riss, a local artist, hairdresser and devotee of Western history, since he first came across the one off Echeta Road that he claims is the world’s greatest.
The “why” of their existence doesn’t interest him as much as the architecture.
“We all want to leave a mark on this earth even if it’s just chalk on the wall,” Riss says.
EACH IS UNIQUE
Each monument is unique in shape, structure and history.
The wool industry boomed in Wyoming near the turn of the 20th century and beckoned thousands of men to the high plains to tend herds.
At its peak, the Empire Ranch near Moorcroft was home to 100 herders, according to owner Judy McCullough.
Once when she was young, she was scolded for disassembling a monument on the ranch where she spent her childhood.
Some monuments, like the “world’s greatest” that stands atop an altar of sandstone on the Gates-Yonkee Ranch, have more history than others — or at least their history has not yet passed with its owners.
The massive pile of flat stones is a puzzle itself — not only in its almost snap-together design but in the rock itself. The gray stones coated with orange lichen bear no resemblance to the rocks scattered around its pedestal. Riss speculates that a lonely sheepherder constructed the structure carrying the stones one at time from distant hills.
The solitary sentinel, which clings to its perch high above the grassy draw below, existed before the first homesteader claimed the land. It is an artifact from a time before people laid claim to the hills it lords over.
“The great big ones are ones that have been around since before his time,” says Nancy Yonkee, whose father, Lee Gates, homesteaded the ranch in the teens of the 20th century.
Yonkee recalls that her father, a bronc rider and cattleman, added to the already sizable monument in the wake of the Great Depression when he bought and tended a herd of sheep on the ranch to recover his family’s fortunes.
“He brought himself back up by the bootstraps with sheep,” Yonkee says, running her finger over a set of silver spurs he made her when she was young. “In the post-drought era, sheep could survive while cows could not.”
Now it is the sheep ranchers who struggle to find a market for a commodity few want.
The citadels of stone outlived the profession that built them.
NOTHING LASTS FOREVER
Riding the peaks of the harsh landscape, the stony eyes of the giant have watched booms and busts, winters and summers, and fathers and sons come and go.
For now, the elements that have reduced the land around it have strengthened the rock.
Riss slides his hands over the stones on the Goliath’s armor, feeling for a single loose plate. He finds none.
“Over time, the wind has rattled the rocks together until each one cut dimples in the one below and locked them together,” says Riss as he crouches to look inside the stone honeycomb.
The same wind that cemented its footing will one day wear the legs from under it and like all things, it will go back to the earth.
“It’s a hell of a balancing act, and neither nature nor man have brought it down yet,” Riss says in admiration.
As Riss plodded away, his footsteps in the snow are erased within moments by the wind, a reminder of the impermanence of things — even the world’s greatest.
Friday, March 21, 2008
Ranch agrees to end grazing near park
Part of a federal grazing allotment south of Yellowstone National Park that was a hot spot for problems with bears and wolves has been retired.
The National Wildlife Federation and other groups brokered the deal between the Diamond G Ranch of Dubois, Wyo., and the Shoshone National Forest.
The agreement will end grazing on about 35,000 acres of federal land and will pay the Diamond G Ranch $150,000 to secure grazing elsewhere.
The deal is the 29th of its kind since 2002 aimed at reducing conflicts in the Yellowstone ecosystem between livestock and predators in prime wildlife areas. So far, about 550,000 acres of federal grazing allotments have been retired, said Hank Fischer, special projects coordinator with the National Wildlife Federation.
"This is all voluntary. We don't twist anybody's arms. The reason why this works is we're only focusing on allotments that have long-term, chronic conflicts," Fischer said.
The Dunoir grazing allotment, along the east and west forks of the Dunoir River, certainly has had its share of conflicts.
Stephen Gordon, Diamond G Ranch president, estimated losses to predators in the hundreds of thousands of dollars over the years. That includes cows, horses, family dogs snatched from the front porch and a young colt killed in a corral, he said.
"It's really been hell for us," he said Thursday. "We're 27 miles as the crow flies from the southeast corner of Yellowstone, so we're really right in the line of fire."
Since 1991, wildlife officials have confirmed 31 cows killed by grizzlies, and the actual losses may be three times higher, he said. Although the ranch has a very high density of bears, ranch managers found ways to work around them.
The arrival of wolves after reintroduction in 1995 and 1996, though, proved too much, Gordon said. Over the past 13 years, verified losses to wolves include 27 cows, eight dogs and four horses. The actual number of depredations may be about eight times higher, Gordon said.
"The increasing number of wolves in this area makes future ranching operations difficult at best and could eventually lead to sale or subdivision of our property," said Gordon, who once sued the federal government to have wolves removed from the ranch.
The deal reached between the Shoshone Forest, Diamond G and the wildlife federation would retire the upper portion of the allotment - the area with abundant wildlife and the most roadless habitat - and allow grazing to continue on the lower 14,500 acres connected with private property.
Gordon said they're now scaling back their ranch operation. The decision to have part of the grazing allotment retired was done "with some reluctance."
Fischer said the retired area is "spectacular" for hiking and recreation as well as its wildlife.
Over the past 20 years, wildlife trackers have counted at least 52 individual grizzlies using the area. It also has been occupied since 1999 by the Washakie wolf pack, which now has 11 members. It's also rife with elk in the fall, bighorn sheep in the winter and moose year-round.
Last year, the groups brokered a deal to retire about 178,000 acres of national forest southeast of Grand Teton National Park. Other deals involved about 74,000 acres south of Big Timber and 84,000 acres in the Bridger-Teton National Forest.
With the latest agreement on the Dunoir allotment, four of the five allotments with the most intense livestock/predator conflicts in the Yellowstone ecosystem have been retired.
In all but one of the deals, the ranchers have used the money from the conservation groups to move grazing operations elsewhere, Fischer said.
"I don't think we're so much eliminating livestock grazing as we're redistributing where it occurs so it's away from conflict areas," Fischer said. "I think that's good for everybody."
Part of a federal grazing allotment south of Yellowstone National Park that was a hot spot for problems with bears and wolves has been retired.
The National Wildlife Federation and other groups brokered the deal between the Diamond G Ranch of Dubois, Wyo., and the Shoshone National Forest.
The agreement will end grazing on about 35,000 acres of federal land and will pay the Diamond G Ranch $150,000 to secure grazing elsewhere.
The deal is the 29th of its kind since 2002 aimed at reducing conflicts in the Yellowstone ecosystem between livestock and predators in prime wildlife areas. So far, about 550,000 acres of federal grazing allotments have been retired, said Hank Fischer, special projects coordinator with the National Wildlife Federation.
"This is all voluntary. We don't twist anybody's arms. The reason why this works is we're only focusing on allotments that have long-term, chronic conflicts," Fischer said.
The Dunoir grazing allotment, along the east and west forks of the Dunoir River, certainly has had its share of conflicts.
Stephen Gordon, Diamond G Ranch president, estimated losses to predators in the hundreds of thousands of dollars over the years. That includes cows, horses, family dogs snatched from the front porch and a young colt killed in a corral, he said.
"It's really been hell for us," he said Thursday. "We're 27 miles as the crow flies from the southeast corner of Yellowstone, so we're really right in the line of fire."
Since 1991, wildlife officials have confirmed 31 cows killed by grizzlies, and the actual losses may be three times higher, he said. Although the ranch has a very high density of bears, ranch managers found ways to work around them.
The arrival of wolves after reintroduction in 1995 and 1996, though, proved too much, Gordon said. Over the past 13 years, verified losses to wolves include 27 cows, eight dogs and four horses. The actual number of depredations may be about eight times higher, Gordon said.
"The increasing number of wolves in this area makes future ranching operations difficult at best and could eventually lead to sale or subdivision of our property," said Gordon, who once sued the federal government to have wolves removed from the ranch.
The deal reached between the Shoshone Forest, Diamond G and the wildlife federation would retire the upper portion of the allotment - the area with abundant wildlife and the most roadless habitat - and allow grazing to continue on the lower 14,500 acres connected with private property.
Gordon said they're now scaling back their ranch operation. The decision to have part of the grazing allotment retired was done "with some reluctance."
Fischer said the retired area is "spectacular" for hiking and recreation as well as its wildlife.
Over the past 20 years, wildlife trackers have counted at least 52 individual grizzlies using the area. It also has been occupied since 1999 by the Washakie wolf pack, which now has 11 members. It's also rife with elk in the fall, bighorn sheep in the winter and moose year-round.
Last year, the groups brokered a deal to retire about 178,000 acres of national forest southeast of Grand Teton National Park. Other deals involved about 74,000 acres south of Big Timber and 84,000 acres in the Bridger-Teton National Forest.
With the latest agreement on the Dunoir allotment, four of the five allotments with the most intense livestock/predator conflicts in the Yellowstone ecosystem have been retired.
In all but one of the deals, the ranchers have used the money from the conservation groups to move grazing operations elsewhere, Fischer said.
"I don't think we're so much eliminating livestock grazing as we're redistributing where it occurs so it's away from conflict areas," Fischer said. "I think that's good for everybody."
Thursday, March 13, 2008
Lawsuit Filed to Protect Oregon Spotted Frog From Livestock Grazing
PORTLAND, OREGON, Mar. 12 -/E-Wire/-- PORTLAND, Ore.— The Center for Biological Diversity, Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics, and Klamath Siskiyou Wildlands Center filed suit Tuesday against the Fremont-Winema National Forest for driving a rare population of the Oregon spotted frog to the brink of extinction, failing to conduct proper environmental analyses, and violating its own Forest Plan and the Clean Water Act. The suit challenges the Forest Service’s decision to allow continued grazing on the federal “Antelope’” grazing allotment, where a population of the spotted frog, which is a candidate for protection under the federal Endangered Species Act, lives in Jack Creek and has declined precipitously in recent years.
“Continued livestock grazing on the Antelope Allotment is damaging water quality and stream banks and in the process decimating a population of the highly endangered Oregon spotted frog,” said Noah Greenwald, science director at the Center. “This is a clear example of poor stewardship of public lands on the part of the Forest Service.”
In 2005, the Forest Service sent letters to the public and the allotment permittees stating it was considering fencing Jack Creek to protect Oregon spotted frogs, but has never constructed the fence. The agency subsequently issued a new permit in 2006 that increased grazing from 345 to 945 animal-unit-months, or AUMs, without any environmental analyses or action to ensure spotted frog habitat was not further degraded. The new permit was issued under legislative riders attached to the massive Interior Appropriations Bills passed by Congress in 2003 and 2005, which allow the Forest Service to continue to allow grazing without environmental analyses or mitigation for damage to streams, wildlife, or other resources.
“Congress’s continued allowance of public-lands livestock grazing without consideration of the environmental impacts is leading to degradation of the nation’s public lands, including Jack Creek and the Oregon spotted frog,” said James Johnston, policy analyst with Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics. “This is a violation of the public trust.”
The population of spotted frogs in Jack Creek is one of only approximately 29. The frog has been a candidate for protection as an endangered species since 1991 and has a “listing priority number” of 2, which is the highest it can have and is based on the high magnitude of threats and the small number of populations. Overall, the frog is gone from 90 percent of its range. In Jack Creek, the species declined from an estimated 316 frogs in 1997 to only 13 frogs in 2005.
“The decline of the Oregon spotted frog in Jack Creek is a direct result of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s failure to protect the Oregon spotted frog under the Endangered Species Act,” said George Sexton, conservation director of Klamath Siskiyou Wildlands Center. “The Bush administration has delayed protection for the Oregon spotted frog and hundreds of other species for too long.”
Under the Bush administration, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has been notoriously slow at protecting candidate species. There are currently 280 species on the candidate species list, which on average have been waiting 19 years for protection. Since passage of the Act, at least 24 candidate species have gone extinct. Despite these stark facts, the Fish and Wildlife Service has not listed a single species in 671 days. Under this administration the agency has only listed 58 U.S. species, compared to 522 under the Clinton administration and 234 under the first Bush administration.
Contact Info: Noah Greenwald, Center for Biological Diversity, (503) 484-7495
PORTLAND, OREGON, Mar. 12 -/E-Wire/-- PORTLAND, Ore.— The Center for Biological Diversity, Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics, and Klamath Siskiyou Wildlands Center filed suit Tuesday against the Fremont-Winema National Forest for driving a rare population of the Oregon spotted frog to the brink of extinction, failing to conduct proper environmental analyses, and violating its own Forest Plan and the Clean Water Act. The suit challenges the Forest Service’s decision to allow continued grazing on the federal “Antelope’” grazing allotment, where a population of the spotted frog, which is a candidate for protection under the federal Endangered Species Act, lives in Jack Creek and has declined precipitously in recent years.
“Continued livestock grazing on the Antelope Allotment is damaging water quality and stream banks and in the process decimating a population of the highly endangered Oregon spotted frog,” said Noah Greenwald, science director at the Center. “This is a clear example of poor stewardship of public lands on the part of the Forest Service.”
In 2005, the Forest Service sent letters to the public and the allotment permittees stating it was considering fencing Jack Creek to protect Oregon spotted frogs, but has never constructed the fence. The agency subsequently issued a new permit in 2006 that increased grazing from 345 to 945 animal-unit-months, or AUMs, without any environmental analyses or action to ensure spotted frog habitat was not further degraded. The new permit was issued under legislative riders attached to the massive Interior Appropriations Bills passed by Congress in 2003 and 2005, which allow the Forest Service to continue to allow grazing without environmental analyses or mitigation for damage to streams, wildlife, or other resources.
“Congress’s continued allowance of public-lands livestock grazing without consideration of the environmental impacts is leading to degradation of the nation’s public lands, including Jack Creek and the Oregon spotted frog,” said James Johnston, policy analyst with Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics. “This is a violation of the public trust.”
The population of spotted frogs in Jack Creek is one of only approximately 29. The frog has been a candidate for protection as an endangered species since 1991 and has a “listing priority number” of 2, which is the highest it can have and is based on the high magnitude of threats and the small number of populations. Overall, the frog is gone from 90 percent of its range. In Jack Creek, the species declined from an estimated 316 frogs in 1997 to only 13 frogs in 2005.
“The decline of the Oregon spotted frog in Jack Creek is a direct result of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s failure to protect the Oregon spotted frog under the Endangered Species Act,” said George Sexton, conservation director of Klamath Siskiyou Wildlands Center. “The Bush administration has delayed protection for the Oregon spotted frog and hundreds of other species for too long.”
Under the Bush administration, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has been notoriously slow at protecting candidate species. There are currently 280 species on the candidate species list, which on average have been waiting 19 years for protection. Since passage of the Act, at least 24 candidate species have gone extinct. Despite these stark facts, the Fish and Wildlife Service has not listed a single species in 671 days. Under this administration the agency has only listed 58 U.S. species, compared to 522 under the Clinton administration and 234 under the first Bush administration.
Contact Info: Noah Greenwald, Center for Biological Diversity, (503) 484-7495
Monday, March 10, 2008
Received from American Land Rights Association
House Vote on 26,000,000 NLCS BLM Acres Wed. 3-12
...Congress seeks to codify new NLCS Land Grab -- (From Federal Parks and Recreation Newsletter); Seventeen House members from both parties teamed up in April, 2007 to introduce legislation (HR 2016) that would give the National Landscape Conservation System official Congressional certification.
The system, administered by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), was created administratively by former Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt during the Clinton years.
In June 2000 the Interior Department under the guidance of former Secretary Babbitt established the 26 million acre NLCS in BLM to protect what they called special areas.
The NLCS consists of major conservation areas in 12 western states, including 15 national monuments, 13 national conservation areas, Steens Mountain area in Oregon, Headwaters Forest Reserve in northern California, 36 wild and scenic rivers, 148 wilderness areas, 4,264 miles of national trails, and more than 600 wilderness study areas.
Making the NLCS permanent threatens recreation, access, grazing, mining, oil and gas and many other uses. Gradually these areas will be turned into parks with traditional uses strangled and roads cut off. Private property owners and inholders in the areas can say so long to their property rights. You will see new areas nominated for NLCS status gradually eroding BLM multiple-use.
Four Democratic senators introduced counterpart legislation (S 1139) in April, 2007. Said chief sponsor of the Senate bill, Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-NM), "Given the broad public support for these areas, I expect this bill to be non-controversial and it is my hope that it will be able to move quickly through the Congress and enactment into law." Bingaman chairs the Senate Energy Committee. Non-Controversial?
The four lead House sponsors of HR 2016, all co-chairs of an NLCS caucus, are Reps. Mary Bono (R-CA), Rick Renzi (R-AZ), Raúl Grijalva (D-AZ) and Jim Moran (D-VA). Reps. Bono and Renzi need to receive lots of contacts. The others are not likely to change their position but should receive as many calls as possible.
Creating this massive new conservation area program (read land grab) will take money especially from the National Park Service that is way behind in deferred maintenance and other uses. It will also take money from vast areas of BLM lands. The NLCS will eventually become a huge new agency with thousands of additional bureaucrats added over time.
Any promises made when these areas like Steens Mountain and the Missouri Breaks National Monument and all the other affected monuments as well as the Grand Staircase National Monument and many others will be conveniently forgotten as more and more regulations are added.
The NLCS will convert millions of acres of now accessible BLM land into park-like areas with park-like regulations and will be gradually managed like a park. Gradually existing uses will be strangled out of existence.
Supporters of the NLCS insist they are not competing with other conservation programs for fiscal 2008 appropriations. One said, "We do want to see a shift in the funding priorities of the BLM itself. Specifically, the oil and gas program of the BLM has become the dominant program of the BLM at the expense of some the best lands and waters of the American West."
It is the nature of the Congressional appropriations beast that money for all programs in the Interior appropriations bill comes out of the same pot and the programs compete with each other.
One of the sponsors of the bill to codify the NLCS, Sen. Ken Salazar (D-CO), said the measure would not affect management of lands or existing rights or public access. Added Salazar, "The bill does, however, recognize that these landscapes are of great interest to the American people and should be managed to protect their values."
Does anyone believe setting up the NLCS would not change the management of these areas? If that were true, why would Congress want to do it?
American Land Rights will be sending out thousands of faxes, letters and e-mails to alert landowners, rural communities and allies about the danger and work to build more allies in Congress to stop the NLCS from passing. ALRA needs your support to defeat the massive new National Landscape Conservation System.
It is critical that private property owners and Federal land users make a big push now to head off this attack on private property and access to Federal lands. It is so much cheaper to fight it early than to wait. Hit it hard now. Call, write and fax your Congressman. You must overwhelm his or her office with calls between now and 5:00 pm Wednesday, March 12th. You may call any Congressman at (202) 225-3121....
House Vote on 26,000,000 NLCS BLM Acres Wed. 3-12
...Congress seeks to codify new NLCS Land Grab -- (From Federal Parks and Recreation Newsletter); Seventeen House members from both parties teamed up in April, 2007 to introduce legislation (HR 2016) that would give the National Landscape Conservation System official Congressional certification.
The system, administered by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), was created administratively by former Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt during the Clinton years.
In June 2000 the Interior Department under the guidance of former Secretary Babbitt established the 26 million acre NLCS in BLM to protect what they called special areas.
The NLCS consists of major conservation areas in 12 western states, including 15 national monuments, 13 national conservation areas, Steens Mountain area in Oregon, Headwaters Forest Reserve in northern California, 36 wild and scenic rivers, 148 wilderness areas, 4,264 miles of national trails, and more than 600 wilderness study areas.
Making the NLCS permanent threatens recreation, access, grazing, mining, oil and gas and many other uses. Gradually these areas will be turned into parks with traditional uses strangled and roads cut off. Private property owners and inholders in the areas can say so long to their property rights. You will see new areas nominated for NLCS status gradually eroding BLM multiple-use.
Four Democratic senators introduced counterpart legislation (S 1139) in April, 2007. Said chief sponsor of the Senate bill, Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-NM), "Given the broad public support for these areas, I expect this bill to be non-controversial and it is my hope that it will be able to move quickly through the Congress and enactment into law." Bingaman chairs the Senate Energy Committee. Non-Controversial?
The four lead House sponsors of HR 2016, all co-chairs of an NLCS caucus, are Reps. Mary Bono (R-CA), Rick Renzi (R-AZ), Raúl Grijalva (D-AZ) and Jim Moran (D-VA). Reps. Bono and Renzi need to receive lots of contacts. The others are not likely to change their position but should receive as many calls as possible.
Creating this massive new conservation area program (read land grab) will take money especially from the National Park Service that is way behind in deferred maintenance and other uses. It will also take money from vast areas of BLM lands. The NLCS will eventually become a huge new agency with thousands of additional bureaucrats added over time.
Any promises made when these areas like Steens Mountain and the Missouri Breaks National Monument and all the other affected monuments as well as the Grand Staircase National Monument and many others will be conveniently forgotten as more and more regulations are added.
The NLCS will convert millions of acres of now accessible BLM land into park-like areas with park-like regulations and will be gradually managed like a park. Gradually existing uses will be strangled out of existence.
Supporters of the NLCS insist they are not competing with other conservation programs for fiscal 2008 appropriations. One said, "We do want to see a shift in the funding priorities of the BLM itself. Specifically, the oil and gas program of the BLM has become the dominant program of the BLM at the expense of some the best lands and waters of the American West."
It is the nature of the Congressional appropriations beast that money for all programs in the Interior appropriations bill comes out of the same pot and the programs compete with each other.
One of the sponsors of the bill to codify the NLCS, Sen. Ken Salazar (D-CO), said the measure would not affect management of lands or existing rights or public access. Added Salazar, "The bill does, however, recognize that these landscapes are of great interest to the American people and should be managed to protect their values."
Does anyone believe setting up the NLCS would not change the management of these areas? If that were true, why would Congress want to do it?
American Land Rights will be sending out thousands of faxes, letters and e-mails to alert landowners, rural communities and allies about the danger and work to build more allies in Congress to stop the NLCS from passing. ALRA needs your support to defeat the massive new National Landscape Conservation System.
It is critical that private property owners and Federal land users make a big push now to head off this attack on private property and access to Federal lands. It is so much cheaper to fight it early than to wait. Hit it hard now. Call, write and fax your Congressman. You must overwhelm his or her office with calls between now and 5:00 pm Wednesday, March 12th. You may call any Congressman at (202) 225-3121....
Texas ranchers, Army work together
Fort Hood has mixed cattle grazing, war training since 1954.
By PETER ROPER
THE PUEBLO CHIEFTAIN
Cattle and cannon fire are a poor mix, but ranch families and the Army have been mixing them together on 200,000 acres at Fort Hood, Texas, for more than 50 years.
Home of the III Corps and the 1st Cavalry Division, Fort Hood is the Army's largest armor training post, covering 217,000 acres just north of Killeen, Texas. The post was established in the early days of World War II when the Army was racing to prepare for war overseas and needed training bases quickly.
So the War Department condemned the ranches and farms of some 300 families to create then-Camp Hood in the cedar-covered hill country between Austin and Waco. The Army expanded the post again during the Korean War (1950-53).
"My family lost land both times," said Steve Manning, a rancher and member of the Central Texas Cattlemen's Association, an exclusive group of ranchers whose families were evicted to make Fort Hood. "When the Army expanded the post during the Korean War, it reached out to the landowners and agreed to let them continue to graze cattle on the land. It was sort of a package deal and we've been doing that since 1954."
Which is why some 3,000 cattle roam - year in and year out - the same grassy hills as M1A2 Abrams battle tanks and Bradley Fighting Vehicles. It's an unnatural but forced sharing of the land.
"I think you'll find this is the only place in the country where the Army allows this," Manning agreed.
In Southeastern Colorado, the Army and area ranchers have been at odds for two years now over a plan to expand the 238,000-acre Pinon Canyon Maneuver Site northeast of Trinidad. The Army claims it needs another 414,000 acres to help support some 10,000 additional troops being based at Fort Carson. Many of the surrounding ranchers have bluntly replied that they already lost land to the Army in the 1980s and they aren't selling or giving any more. Period.
To the Army's surprise, the ranch community mobilized both state and federal lawmakers last year to block the expansion thus far - even getting language in the 2008 federal budget to prevent the Army from spending any money on the expansion this year, including for preliminary plans and studies.
Right now, the Army is preparing reports for Colorado Sens. Ken Salazar and Wayne Allard, justifying why it wants more land at Pinon Canyon and what economic help it can offer to protect the region's ranching economy. That's usually when Fort Hood gets mentioned as a possibility - an option that the Army's civilian leaders have told lawmakers could be discussed once Congress agrees to let the expansion process begin with an environmental study.
Officially, it's "inappropriate to speculate" on what the Army might do, before the required expansion studies are conducted, according to Lt. Col. Jim Rice, the current chief of Fort Carson's training and operations. Rice is overseeing the expansion project.
Down at the boot level, though, the Army does not like mixing cattle ranching and war training. Fort Carson officials have told the public at previous meetings they do not envision sharing the Pinon Canyon site as a realistic answer for either the Army or ranchers. It is one of the few things both sides have agreed on.
But then, cattle grazing at Fort Hood was a shotgun wedding of sorts.
"Fort Hood is an aberration," said Corwin Brown, a Pinon Canyon-area ranch manager and part of the Pinon Canyon Expansion Opposition Coalition. He recently visited Fort Hood to look at the mixture of cattle grazing and military operations. Part of a delegation from the Colorado Cattlemen's Association, Brown said the Army let the delegation watch a training exercise as part of their tour.
"The Army explained that before they can use a firing range, they clear off any cattle," he said. "If the cattle wander back, they have to stop training and go clear them off again. The range officers made it clear they wish there weren't any cattle on the post."
It's not ideal, but Manning said the Fort Hood ranchers have learned to work closely with the Army over the years.
"I grew up raising cattle around tanks and trucks and helicopters," he said, noting he also has ranchland off the post. "It's what we're used to. Sure, we occasionally lose animals because of the Army. But we just figure that into the cost of doing business."
The relationship can be as free-roaming as one might imagine. There is only one perimeter fence at Fort Hood, so the cattle - bulls, cows and calves - wander all over the 200,000-acre training ground. Manning said the families with grazing rights keep between 2,000 and 3,500 animals on the post, depending on the year.
Brown countered that Colorado ranchers would be bewildered at the notion of going into open range to sort out their cattle from animals wearing ear-tags for other families - which is what the Fort Hood ranchers do.
"I just don't see that kind of grazing happening at Pinon Canyon," he said. "And letting 2,000 or 3,000 head of cattle graze isn't much economic benefit if they are divided up among (80) families," he said.
The Texas ranchers have been an unexpected ally to the Army in recent years. Live-fire exercises have caused numerous wildfires that have burned down large areas of wild bird habitat on the post, prompting U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officials to begin investigating the status of two endangered species of birds on Fort Hood. Afraid they could both lose access to land, the ranchers and the Army have worked together to create a bird-trapping program and conservation program on surrounding private lands that has staved off federal intervention.
But the cooperation has its limits. When the Army wanted to expand the post by 70,000 acres in the mid-1970s, the surrounding landowners - including the Central Texas Cattlemen's Association - blocked the expansion. Fort Hood was big enough, landowners said.
"I understand how the people in Colorado feel," Manning said. "I wouldn't want to lose any more of my land to the Army either. But I suspect the Army is going to be there at Fort Carson for a good long time, so they may have to figure out a way to work together."
Brown said that the Army offering ranchers grazing leases on Pinon Canyon may sound better than condemning land through eminent domain, but the end result would be the same - ranchers losing their property, where currently more than 10,000 cattle graze.
"Taking away 95 percent of an entire area's economy and replacing it with 'leasing and more troops' is not a win-win situation, nor is it realistic," Brown wrote in his report on Fort Hood. "There is no way to offset the loss to the communities and state's economies should this be allowed to happen."
Fort Hood has mixed cattle grazing, war training since 1954.
By PETER ROPER
THE PUEBLO CHIEFTAIN
Cattle and cannon fire are a poor mix, but ranch families and the Army have been mixing them together on 200,000 acres at Fort Hood, Texas, for more than 50 years.
Home of the III Corps and the 1st Cavalry Division, Fort Hood is the Army's largest armor training post, covering 217,000 acres just north of Killeen, Texas. The post was established in the early days of World War II when the Army was racing to prepare for war overseas and needed training bases quickly.
So the War Department condemned the ranches and farms of some 300 families to create then-Camp Hood in the cedar-covered hill country between Austin and Waco. The Army expanded the post again during the Korean War (1950-53).
"My family lost land both times," said Steve Manning, a rancher and member of the Central Texas Cattlemen's Association, an exclusive group of ranchers whose families were evicted to make Fort Hood. "When the Army expanded the post during the Korean War, it reached out to the landowners and agreed to let them continue to graze cattle on the land. It was sort of a package deal and we've been doing that since 1954."
Which is why some 3,000 cattle roam - year in and year out - the same grassy hills as M1A2 Abrams battle tanks and Bradley Fighting Vehicles. It's an unnatural but forced sharing of the land.
"I think you'll find this is the only place in the country where the Army allows this," Manning agreed.
In Southeastern Colorado, the Army and area ranchers have been at odds for two years now over a plan to expand the 238,000-acre Pinon Canyon Maneuver Site northeast of Trinidad. The Army claims it needs another 414,000 acres to help support some 10,000 additional troops being based at Fort Carson. Many of the surrounding ranchers have bluntly replied that they already lost land to the Army in the 1980s and they aren't selling or giving any more. Period.
To the Army's surprise, the ranch community mobilized both state and federal lawmakers last year to block the expansion thus far - even getting language in the 2008 federal budget to prevent the Army from spending any money on the expansion this year, including for preliminary plans and studies.
Right now, the Army is preparing reports for Colorado Sens. Ken Salazar and Wayne Allard, justifying why it wants more land at Pinon Canyon and what economic help it can offer to protect the region's ranching economy. That's usually when Fort Hood gets mentioned as a possibility - an option that the Army's civilian leaders have told lawmakers could be discussed once Congress agrees to let the expansion process begin with an environmental study.
Officially, it's "inappropriate to speculate" on what the Army might do, before the required expansion studies are conducted, according to Lt. Col. Jim Rice, the current chief of Fort Carson's training and operations. Rice is overseeing the expansion project.
Down at the boot level, though, the Army does not like mixing cattle ranching and war training. Fort Carson officials have told the public at previous meetings they do not envision sharing the Pinon Canyon site as a realistic answer for either the Army or ranchers. It is one of the few things both sides have agreed on.
But then, cattle grazing at Fort Hood was a shotgun wedding of sorts.
"Fort Hood is an aberration," said Corwin Brown, a Pinon Canyon-area ranch manager and part of the Pinon Canyon Expansion Opposition Coalition. He recently visited Fort Hood to look at the mixture of cattle grazing and military operations. Part of a delegation from the Colorado Cattlemen's Association, Brown said the Army let the delegation watch a training exercise as part of their tour.
"The Army explained that before they can use a firing range, they clear off any cattle," he said. "If the cattle wander back, they have to stop training and go clear them off again. The range officers made it clear they wish there weren't any cattle on the post."
It's not ideal, but Manning said the Fort Hood ranchers have learned to work closely with the Army over the years.
"I grew up raising cattle around tanks and trucks and helicopters," he said, noting he also has ranchland off the post. "It's what we're used to. Sure, we occasionally lose animals because of the Army. But we just figure that into the cost of doing business."
The relationship can be as free-roaming as one might imagine. There is only one perimeter fence at Fort Hood, so the cattle - bulls, cows and calves - wander all over the 200,000-acre training ground. Manning said the families with grazing rights keep between 2,000 and 3,500 animals on the post, depending on the year.
Brown countered that Colorado ranchers would be bewildered at the notion of going into open range to sort out their cattle from animals wearing ear-tags for other families - which is what the Fort Hood ranchers do.
"I just don't see that kind of grazing happening at Pinon Canyon," he said. "And letting 2,000 or 3,000 head of cattle graze isn't much economic benefit if they are divided up among (80) families," he said.
The Texas ranchers have been an unexpected ally to the Army in recent years. Live-fire exercises have caused numerous wildfires that have burned down large areas of wild bird habitat on the post, prompting U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officials to begin investigating the status of two endangered species of birds on Fort Hood. Afraid they could both lose access to land, the ranchers and the Army have worked together to create a bird-trapping program and conservation program on surrounding private lands that has staved off federal intervention.
But the cooperation has its limits. When the Army wanted to expand the post by 70,000 acres in the mid-1970s, the surrounding landowners - including the Central Texas Cattlemen's Association - blocked the expansion. Fort Hood was big enough, landowners said.
"I understand how the people in Colorado feel," Manning said. "I wouldn't want to lose any more of my land to the Army either. But I suspect the Army is going to be there at Fort Carson for a good long time, so they may have to figure out a way to work together."
Brown said that the Army offering ranchers grazing leases on Pinon Canyon may sound better than condemning land through eminent domain, but the end result would be the same - ranchers losing their property, where currently more than 10,000 cattle graze.
"Taking away 95 percent of an entire area's economy and replacing it with 'leasing and more troops' is not a win-win situation, nor is it realistic," Brown wrote in his report on Fort Hood. "There is no way to offset the loss to the communities and state's economies should this be allowed to happen."
Friday, March 7, 2008
Agency probes wolf-baiting claims
Already stained by the blood of dead wolves and suffering from a variety of other setbacks, the program to reintroduce endangered Mexican gray wolves to the Southwest is now at the center of two criminal investigations. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is formally looking into the disappearance of two wolves in New Mexico and a rancher’s claim that he intentionally baited wolves in order to get them killed.
“We had requests that we do a criminal investigation, and we are,” says agency spokeswoman Elizabeth Slown. In an interview last year, New Mexico ranch hand Mike Miller told High Country News that he deliberately baited a wolf with cattle in order to trigger the federal “three strikes” rule, which mandates the shooting or capturing of any wolf that kills three cows in one year’s time.
Miller works for the 275,000-acre Adobe-Slash Ranch, which is owned by Mexican businessman Eloy Vallina. Miller, who has an unlisted number, could not be reached for comment, and Gene Whetten, his supervisor, declined to answer questions when contacted by HCN on Feb. 26.
“Mr. Miller works for me and he’s forbidden to talk to you,” Whetten says. He alleges that the paper “fabricated” most of its story, and that the ranch is considering legal action against HCN.
The criminal investigations face significant challenges, according to a Fish and Wildlife source. In interviews with law enforcement officials, Miller reportedly denied making the statements attributed to him by HCN. Furthermore, according to the Interior Department, the fact that Miller branded cattle on private land within half a mile of a known wolf den does not in itself violate federal wolf reintroduction rules, which give ranchers wide leeway in how they operate even when wolves are nearby.
“The corral is located on private land and use of it for working cattle in this manner is consistent with annual ranch operations,” Interior Deputy Director Kenneth Stansell said in a Feb. 22 letter to environmentalists....
Already stained by the blood of dead wolves and suffering from a variety of other setbacks, the program to reintroduce endangered Mexican gray wolves to the Southwest is now at the center of two criminal investigations. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is formally looking into the disappearance of two wolves in New Mexico and a rancher’s claim that he intentionally baited wolves in order to get them killed.
“We had requests that we do a criminal investigation, and we are,” says agency spokeswoman Elizabeth Slown. In an interview last year, New Mexico ranch hand Mike Miller told High Country News that he deliberately baited a wolf with cattle in order to trigger the federal “three strikes” rule, which mandates the shooting or capturing of any wolf that kills three cows in one year’s time.
Miller works for the 275,000-acre Adobe-Slash Ranch, which is owned by Mexican businessman Eloy Vallina. Miller, who has an unlisted number, could not be reached for comment, and Gene Whetten, his supervisor, declined to answer questions when contacted by HCN on Feb. 26.
“Mr. Miller works for me and he’s forbidden to talk to you,” Whetten says. He alleges that the paper “fabricated” most of its story, and that the ranch is considering legal action against HCN.
The criminal investigations face significant challenges, according to a Fish and Wildlife source. In interviews with law enforcement officials, Miller reportedly denied making the statements attributed to him by HCN. Furthermore, according to the Interior Department, the fact that Miller branded cattle on private land within half a mile of a known wolf den does not in itself violate federal wolf reintroduction rules, which give ranchers wide leeway in how they operate even when wolves are nearby.
“The corral is located on private land and use of it for working cattle in this manner is consistent with annual ranch operations,” Interior Deputy Director Kenneth Stansell said in a Feb. 22 letter to environmentalists....
Tuesday, March 4, 2008
Western Watersheds sues BLM over grazing, fence building
Group alleges agency is threatening wildlife habitat in aftermath of Murphy fire
By Matt Christensen
Times-News writer
Hailey-based environmental group Western Watersheds Project has sued the Bureau of Land Management, alleging the agency violated a 2005 settlement by authorizing reconstruction on 500,000 acres of federal land burned in last year's Murphy Complex Fire.
The group wants a judge to block the agency from building fences and allowing livestock to graze on the habitat of sage grouse and pygmy rabbit - species under consideration for federal protection under the Endangered Species Act.
The U.S. District Court documents, filed Monday in Boise, ask a judge to halt fence construction in an area managed by the agency's Jarbidge Field Office near Three Creek. The group also wants the court to prohibit livestock grazing on 20 allotments covered in the 2005 court-stipulated settlement and to block grazing on an additional 36 allotments until the agency prepares an environmental impact statement.
Since the July fire, which burned 650,000 acres and destroyed more than 70 prime sage grouse breeding grounds, the agency has worked to rebuild 99 miles of burned fence, remove 12 miles of hazardous trees and plant more than 1,600 shrubs at a cost of about $25 million.
The agency has authorized additional grazing in unburned areas and an additional 400 miles of fence repair while ignoring impacts to wildlife, Western Watersheds alleges.
"BLM reported just before the Murphy Complex Fire that wildlife populations were already in great jeopardy," Katie Fite, Western Watershed's biodiversity director, said in a statement. "Now the fire has taken out the heart of remaining sagebrush habitat. BLM's response has been to intensify grazing in remaining unburned sagebrush. This can only be seen as a policy of grazing for the purposeful extinction of sage grouse and pygmy rabbits."
The group's executive director, Jon Marvel, said ranches in the area managed by Simplot Livestock and Rep. Bert Brackett, R-Rogerson, in particular, are "trampling our wildlife heritage" under the BLM's policies.
Brackett disagrees and questions the timing of the suits. "I find it amazing - not surprising - that they would do that," he said of the lawsuit. "They had their opportunity to appeal the rehab plan last fall just like everybody else â€- and they did not do so. It's just remarkable."
BLM officials are reviewing the legal documents and could comment next week, said Heather Tiel-Nelson, a BLM spokeswoman in the agency's Twin Falls office.
Meanwhile, the BLM is proceeding with plans to amend its fire prevention program that would affect nearly all of southern Idaho. The amendments, which include changes to 12 land use plans written between 1975 and 1988, call for reducing vegetation and grasses the agency says are responsible for recent large fires like the Murphy blaze.
The proposal would increase fuels treatment from about 25,000 acres to 154,000 acres each year for the next decade. The plan targets trees and grasses in wildland-urban interface areas to protect private property, as well as forested areas where a dangerous amount of vegetation can accumulate.
The public has until the end of this month to protest the new fire proposal, which is available at http://www.blm.gov.
Matt Christensen may be reached at 735-3243 or at matt.christensen@lee.net.
Group alleges agency is threatening wildlife habitat in aftermath of Murphy fire
By Matt Christensen
Times-News writer
Hailey-based environmental group Western Watersheds Project has sued the Bureau of Land Management, alleging the agency violated a 2005 settlement by authorizing reconstruction on 500,000 acres of federal land burned in last year's Murphy Complex Fire.
The group wants a judge to block the agency from building fences and allowing livestock to graze on the habitat of sage grouse and pygmy rabbit - species under consideration for federal protection under the Endangered Species Act.
The U.S. District Court documents, filed Monday in Boise, ask a judge to halt fence construction in an area managed by the agency's Jarbidge Field Office near Three Creek. The group also wants the court to prohibit livestock grazing on 20 allotments covered in the 2005 court-stipulated settlement and to block grazing on an additional 36 allotments until the agency prepares an environmental impact statement.
Since the July fire, which burned 650,000 acres and destroyed more than 70 prime sage grouse breeding grounds, the agency has worked to rebuild 99 miles of burned fence, remove 12 miles of hazardous trees and plant more than 1,600 shrubs at a cost of about $25 million.
The agency has authorized additional grazing in unburned areas and an additional 400 miles of fence repair while ignoring impacts to wildlife, Western Watersheds alleges.
"BLM reported just before the Murphy Complex Fire that wildlife populations were already in great jeopardy," Katie Fite, Western Watershed's biodiversity director, said in a statement. "Now the fire has taken out the heart of remaining sagebrush habitat. BLM's response has been to intensify grazing in remaining unburned sagebrush. This can only be seen as a policy of grazing for the purposeful extinction of sage grouse and pygmy rabbits."
The group's executive director, Jon Marvel, said ranches in the area managed by Simplot Livestock and Rep. Bert Brackett, R-Rogerson, in particular, are "trampling our wildlife heritage" under the BLM's policies.
Brackett disagrees and questions the timing of the suits. "I find it amazing - not surprising - that they would do that," he said of the lawsuit. "They had their opportunity to appeal the rehab plan last fall just like everybody else â€- and they did not do so. It's just remarkable."
BLM officials are reviewing the legal documents and could comment next week, said Heather Tiel-Nelson, a BLM spokeswoman in the agency's Twin Falls office.
Meanwhile, the BLM is proceeding with plans to amend its fire prevention program that would affect nearly all of southern Idaho. The amendments, which include changes to 12 land use plans written between 1975 and 1988, call for reducing vegetation and grasses the agency says are responsible for recent large fires like the Murphy blaze.
The proposal would increase fuels treatment from about 25,000 acres to 154,000 acres each year for the next decade. The plan targets trees and grasses in wildland-urban interface areas to protect private property, as well as forested areas where a dangerous amount of vegetation can accumulate.
The public has until the end of this month to protest the new fire proposal, which is available at http://www.blm.gov.
Matt Christensen may be reached at 735-3243 or at matt.christensen@lee.net.
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