State asks Forest Service to collaborate on land management

While a bill that would call on the state to take over much U.S. Forest Service and BLM lands in New Mexico appears to be floundering in the state Legislature, another measure that would request the Forest Service work collaboratively in land management has been approved without a dissenting vote.
A House Memorial will ask the federal Forest Service to engage with state agencies and local governments in "meaningful" watershed health planning and management.
The House of Representatives message contends the Forest Service has done a poor job, "in light of the history of wildfires on public land in New Mexico and it light of the United States Forest Service's breach of regulatory and fiduciary responsibilities to New Mexico."
The memorial calls on the state engineer, attorney general and state forester to take steps to enforce the obligations of the Forest Service under an 1897 federal act to protect watershed health in New Mexico's forests.
The state agencies will be requested to integrate local, state and tribal watershed plans and management with the efforts of the Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Federal Bureau of Reclamation.
The memorial was introduced by Rep. Yvette Herrell, R-Alamogordo, who also offered the measure for New Mexico to take over much of the Forest Service and BLM property in the state.
The Organic Act of 1987, Herrell said, established much of the national forests. She noted the act states that, "No national forest shall be established except to improve and protect the forest within the boundaries or for the purpose of securing favorable conditions of water flows and to furnish a continuous supply of timber for the use and necessities of citizens of the United States."
The memorial contends there have been two decades of catastrophic wildfires in New Mexico that have adversely affected private property, commerce and the environment of the public lands in the state.
The New Mexico Environment Department, in commenting on House Memorial 65, attested to the damage that wildfires have caused to New Mexico watersheds.
"Given the experiences seen with the 2012 Little Bear Fire, which affected watersheds for Ruidoso and Alamogordo, and the 2011 Track Fire in Raton, small communities can lose drinking water supplies due to sediment and other water quality impacts after a fire," the department wrote. "The NMED has seen first-hand the consequences of forest fires on drinking water supplies for small communities and support efforts for watershed planning across the state. The watershed planning and associated prescribed burns and thinning that have occurred in the Santa Fe municipal watershed provide an example of the type of activities that can help to avoid the disastrous impacts of these types of fire."
A memorial carries no legal weight and simply asks that its wishes be considered.

Of cows and climate

One needs only to look at the coffee-table book Welfare Ranching’s full page pictures of muddy streams and packed dirt ground to know that cattle grazing can have a negative impact on rangelands. While its specific effects are harder to pinpoint, climate change, too, affects hydrology, native plants and wildlife. Add climate change and cows together, says a recent study, and you've got the potential for a very stressed landscape. In at least one part of the U.S., the Bureau of Land Management has already begun to incorporate those findings into grazing permits.

On Jan. 28, the BLM’s Owyhee Field Office in southwestern Idaho took the opportunity offered by the renewal of four grazing permits to lower the number of cows allowed on those permits. Specifically, the revised permits cut livestock numbers by one third to one half and limit the amount of time the cattle can be on the BLM land. The grazing cutbacks didn't come about just because the BLM was integrating new science, though. Rather, they are the culmination of an epic legal battle begun by the nonprofit Western Watersheds Project, whose pressure has forced the cutbacks. The group, known for its unwillingness to compromise and staunch opposition to public lands grazing, sued the BLM in 1997 for issuing nearly 70 permits without a thorough consideration of rangeland health. In 2002, a U.S. District Court judge ruled in WWP’s favor.

Because of that ruling, the agency is just now re-evaluating the health of the area, and an environmental analysis of the first four permits found that all of the allotments violated at least two, and sometimes four, of the BLM’s rangeland health standards, including water quality, endangered species habitat and native plant health. More importantly, the analysis determined that livestock were “significant causal factors” in the allotments’ failure to meet standards -- in other words, the cows are to blame. A small paragraph in document also notes that cattle are a stressor that adds to impacts already being wrought by climate change, and cites a paper published in January in Environmental Management that details the relationship between cattle and climate. When deciding how to revise the grazing permits to respond to the environmental assessment's findings, Loretta Chandler, the field manager of the Owyhee Field Office, appeared to consider these findings, although a spokesman for the Idaho state office said the agency still needs more research on how grazing levels react with climate change.


The authors of the study, “Adapting to Climate Change on Western Public Lands:
Addressing the Ecological Effects of Domestic, Wild,and Feral Ungulates,” argue that reducing cattle numbers or eliminating them entirely will lead to the recovery and resilience of the arid sagebrush steppe ecosystem, important in a region stressed by drought, higher temperatures, more fires and insect outbreaks. Over 70 percent of Forest Service and BLM lands have livestock grazing, but despite this, there are fewer efforts to mitigate cattle’s deleterious effect on the landscape than other stressors, they say.
“They invariably talk about fire, forestry, roads, and they never talk about grazing,” says Robert Beschta, an emeritus professor in Oregon State University’s department of forest ecosystems and society and co-author of the study. “That’s the biggest land use on public lands, (and) it’s basically ignored when they talk about resiliency.” Why? Beschta points to internal politics. “Is there an internal agenda by agencies to downplay grazing impacts? I would say yes.”

The BLM’s new Owyhee grazing permits may be a step towards a more holistic consideration of the impact of grazing when combined with climate change. Chandler notes that the revised permits are an opportunity to prioritize ecosystem resilience and resistance to the impacts of climate change through careful livestock management. The grazing alternative she chose, to limit grazing to the summer time and reduce the number of cattle, will mean that “native plant communities…will be better armed to survive such (climatic) changes,” the permit reads.

The consideration of climate seems progressive, and counter to some recent agency history. The BLM certainly does not always acknowledge that cattle, or climate, are stressors. In a 2010 grazing management strategy for Juniper Mountain in eastern Oregon, the agency received a comment asking the BLM to consider how impacts of cattle grazing exacerbate climate-induced stress on the ecosystem. The agency responded by denying that climate change was a “new stress” on ecosystems, and wrote that “climate variability has occurred since the beginning of time and most healthy native ecosystems adapt.”

In November 2012, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) reported that the agency had directed scientists to exclude livestock as a possible factor in changing landscapes. According to the PEER report (which filed a scientific integrity complaint against the agency):

“Launched in 2010 with more than $40 million in stimulus funds, BLM sought to analyze ecological conditions across six “eco-regions” covering the Sagebrush West. There was only one catch: when scientists were assembled BLM managers informed them that there was one “change agent” that would not be studied – the impacts of commercial livestock grazing. BLM managers told stunned scientists the reason for this puzzling exclusion was due to “stakeholders” opposition and fear of litigation, according to documents appended to the PEER complaint.”

To get PEER’s take on the Owyhee permits, I contacted Jeff Ruch, the group’s executive director, and asked him if he’d seen mention of the relationship between climate and cattle in grazing permits before. He admitted he was not familiar enough with permit restrictions to answer that question, but noted climate (and how its effects are, in turn, affected by cattle grazing) wasn’t the deciding factor in reducing livestock numbers. “In both the EA and the permit decision, climate change appeared to be cited as a plus factor, sort of a cherry on top of the regulatory sundae, adding a further justification for pursuing reductions in grazing levels,” he wrote.

As for Beschta, the author of the study cited in the EA, for the BLM to begin to think about this problem at all is a big deal.

To move towards a solution, he says “first of all you need to know you have a problem.”

Emily Guerin is the editorial fellow at High Country News.

Village backs federal land transfer legislation

Citing the disproportionate amount of federally-owned land in Western states, including New Mexico, Ruidoso village councilors Tuesday approved a resolution supporting legislation to create a mechanism for the transfer of public land from the federal government to the state.
Councilor Joseph Eby, who asked for the item to be placed on the council's meeting agenda, said House Bill 292 was presented Monday to the state legislature and was headed to committee reviews. The law is modeled after similar legislation passed in Utah, but would not affect national monuments or wilderness areas.
"New Mexico is 70 percent U.S. government land," he said. "When New Mexico became a state, the federal government promised to extinguish title to public lands within a reasonable amount of time. We've been a state more than 100 years and are still waiting for that promise to be fulfilled."
With the transfer of public lands, the state would benefit economically from any sales of that land and for access to minerals and other natural resources, he said. In any case, the state, counties and communities would have more of a say in management decisions.
He cited a U.S. Forest Service forest fuels reduction and watershed improvement project around Bonito Lake that was delayed because of a protest by an environmental group, and in June, that habitat was destroyed in the Little Bear Fire.
"I'm not saying it wouldn't have happened, but it could have prevented the spread of the fire,"Eby said.

He showed councilors a map illustrating the amount of federal land still held in Western states, 50 percent, versus 5 percent for Eastern states. "There's a disparity," he pointed out. "The U.S. government still holds over 50 percent (of Western lands)," but have given back most of the land in the East.
Councilor James Stoddard asked Village Attorney Dan Bryant if there was any reason the council should not support the legislation or if there were legal issues the resolution might raise.
"If the council passes the resolution (in support of the legislation), it will be sent to Santa Fe, our legislative delegation and other legislators asking them to vote affirmatively on the bill," Bryant said. The resolution also calls for the creation of a Public Lands Transfer Task Force.
"This battle over federal land management has been raging in the West my entire life," the attorney said.
Over the years, the viewpoint has shifted, he said. The BLM, the U.S. Forest Service and other management agencies were populated by the sons and daughters of farmers and ranchers and land users, "but today those agencies are no longer populated by those sons and daughters and local communities in the red part of this map have lost our voice."
"It all boils down to the bureaucracy and the jobs they have to lose if it happened," Stoddard said. "The bureaucracies that maintain those positions will lobby like crazy to keep this from happening."
Bryant, who also is attorney for the Otero County Commission, said 88 percent of that neighboring county is federal land, "so we run the society just south of here on 12 percent of the land mass. The numbers in Lincoln County are close, 78 percent to 85 percent, he said.
Mayor Ray Alborn asked about any restrictions if the bill passes. Bryant said as drafted, the bill, "would not undo national parks or monuments or any of those kinds of places, but there are tens of thousands of acres that could be turned over to the state that could be turned into productive ground that are sitting fallow and unused," he said.
The state and counties receive money from the annual Congressionally-authorized Payment in Lieu of Taxes program as some compensation for not being able to levy property taxes against the acreage, Bryant explained. Otero County runs on a $30 million budget and receives $1.4 million for 88 percent of the county's real estate, he said.
"Who then bears the cost of services (counties and cities provide), our taxpayers on that 12 percent of the real estate, because we are unable to get benefit from the balance of that real estate," Bryant said.
BLM probably manages double the number of acres contained in the Lincoln National Forest, he added.
"What it's really about is getting a voice into the local communities about the decisions that are going to be made on neighboring federal land," Bryant said. "In the last generation, we've had almost no voice. We have a great local forester. I'm not talking about personnel, but it's a larger question." 

Ruidoso News

NM legislation to take federal lands

Legislation that would move the ownership and management of U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management lands in New Mexico to the state has been introduced at the Roundhouse.
The Transfer of Public Lands Act is sponsored by Rep. Yvette Herrell, R-Alamogordo, and Sen. Richard C. Martinez, D-Espanola.
In a prepared statement, Herrell said New Mexico has a rich history of farming, ranching, hunting, fishing and oil drilling.
"In our past we have also had a thriving timber industry that is unfortunately near nonexistent," Herrell said. "We have been fortunate to have vast expanses of land that can be utilized by New Mexicans to help feed their families and enrich their communities. However, we are currently not getting the full use of the land that could be available. Instead, we are paying a management fee to the federal government in order to allow them to make the rules on how our land is used."
The legislation, introduced on Monday, would exclude national parks, national historic parks, national monuments, wilderness areas, and tribal lands. The bill calls on the U.S. Government to extinguish title to the public lands and transfer title to the state on or before Dec. 31, 2015.
"In my home of Otero County, we would greatly benefit from this act as it has the potential to allow for a renewal of the timber industry," Herrell said. "A healthy timber industry, managed responsibly by New Mexicans, would not only help our economy by creating a large number of jobs, but it would also help to protect our watersheds and keep our forests as livable habitat for all wildlife. Additionally, by responsibly thinning our overgrown forests, we can help decrease the devastation of wildfires. As it is currently, the federal government has logging restrictions that keep our forests overgrown, creating a hazardous environment. When a fire starts, the overgrowth serves as kindling, creating a massive forest fire that threatens the safety of our homes and communities."
Herrell said it is time to put an end to the wildland fire danger.
The legislation is similar to the Transfer of Public Lands Act enacted last year in Utah. But an analysis by the Utah Office of Legislative Research and General Counsel cautioned lawmakers and the governor that the act would interfere with Congress' power to dispose of public lands. The review noted that any attempt by Utah to enforce the requirement would have a high probability of being declared unconstitutional.
Staff in the New Mexico Attorney General's Office normally reviews proposed legislation.
"This bill does not show up on our public records site yet," Phil Sisneros, director of communications for the AG's office said Thursday. "That means either it is still being reviewed or it has not come to us for analysis."
The New Mexico Transfer of Public Lands measure would establish a public lands transfer task force to facilitate the transfer of the federal lands to the state. The task force would also establish a prioritized list of management actions to in part preserve and promote the state's interest in protecting public health and safety, preventing catastrophic wildfire and forest insect infestation, preserving watersheds, preserving and enhancing energy and the production of minerals, preserving and improving range conditions, and increasing plant diversity and reducing invasive weeds.
Herrell said the transfer of national forest and BLM lands to the state would also provide revenues to New Mexico's coffers instead of the feds.
"If we follow suit with other states that have done exactly what I am proposing, we can bring in 100 percent of revenues from oil, gas, timber and other industries from this land instead of the less than 50 percent that we currently keep. Doing so will allow us to put more money into our education system to ensure that the children of New Mexico get the education that they deserve."
Herrell pointed to a study done for the Otero County Commission by the Southwest Center for Resource Analysis. She said the report indicated lands currently managed by the BLM and U.S. Forest Service generates more than $500 million in annual revenues for the federal government.
A Fiscal Impact Report for House Bill 292 had not been completed. Legislative Finance Committee staff analyst Mary McCoy said the report would likely be finalized on the day the bill is scheduled to be heard by its first committee, the Agriculture and Water Resources Committee. Rep. Zach Cook, R-Ruidoso, is a member of the committee. A date for a hearing had not been scheduled as of Thursday.
Herrell said five other Western states are looking at similar legislation.
"I am happy to blaze this trail along with other states in the west," Herrell said. "New Mexicans deserve better than the land management we are currently getting from the federal government."



Ruidoso News

Feds File Motion to Weaken Ranchers' Claim

By Jeff Tucker
SUN Staff Writer

Published:

Thursday, November 29, 2012 9:59 AM MST

    Attorneys for the federal government argued this month to dismiss a key portion of a lawsuit concerning grazing rights on historic land grant areas in Northern New Mexico. Plaintiffs say if approved by the federal judge, the motion would limit damages that could be recovered.

    The lawsuit, filed in January against the U.S. Forest Service by the Jarita Mesa and Alamosa livestock grazing associations, two dozen Hispanic ranchers with permits to graze in the Carson National Forest, and the Rio Arriba County commissioners, focuses on a 2010 decision by Carson National Forest El Rito District Ranger Diana Trujillo to cut cattle grazing by 18 percent on the Jarita Mesa and Alamosa grazing allotments.

    “Plaintiffs and their ancestors are Hispanic stockmen whose families have been grazing livestock in this area for many generations,” the plaintiffs’ lawsuit states. “In fact, most of their families were grazing livestock in this area before the United States Forest Service existed. Grazing livestock is an integral part of their existence and is a central part of life in the villages they reside in and in all of Northern New Mexico.”

    At a Nov. 9 federal court hearing in Albuquerque, U.S. District Judge James O. Browning heard the federal government’s motion to dismiss the first count of the lawsuit, which charges Trujillo with unconstitutional conduct.

    Richard Rosenstock of Sante Fe, co-counsel for the plaintiffs, said if the federal court dismisses the First Amendment count of the lawsuit, it would limit the plaintiffs’ ability to seek relief under the Administrative Procedure Act, which is a body of administrative law governing the review of federal agency decisions.

    Rosenstock said it is doubtful the Act would allow sufficient discovery to prove discrimination.

    Rio Arriba County officials and ranchers say Trujillo retaliated against them, violating their First Amendment rights, by cutting grazing by 18 percent after the ranchers complained to their legislators and the forest service about Trujillo’s management of grazing issues. They contend the forest service is trying to push them from land that has been ranched by their families for centuries, and that Trujillo veered from normal practices by not implementing the stocking levels recommended by forest service scientists, which would have kept the number of livestock head unchanged from 1980, with modified rangeland improvement.

    “Livestock grazing has played a central role in the cultural, social and economic fabric of the Hispanic people in Northern New Mexico since 1598, becoming fully developed in the area by the late 1690s,” the plaintiffs’ lawsuit states. “Prior to the United States exercising sovereignty over what is now Northern New Mexico in 1848, most, if not all, of the land which now constitutes the El Rito Ranger District of the Carson National Forest, including the land where the Jarita Mesa and Alamosa allotments are located, was community land grant land that supported the local communities.”

Grazing right reduction in effect

    The 18 percent reduction of grazing opportunities went into effect the 2011 season, and is effective for about 10 years, until the forest service’s next environmental assessment of the Jarita Mesa and Alamosa allotments.

    The plaintiffs sued Trujillo in both her individual and official capacities. The ranchers contend Trujillo violated their First Amendment right to petition their government for the redress of grievances.

    The forest service says management practices by the ranchers have contributed to the overuse of meadows, that fences were either poorly maintained or in disrepair on the two allotments, and that current grazing levels are unsustainable.

    The ranchers say in the lawsuit the property rights of Hispanics have been ignored and an institutional bias exists in the forest service. The ranchers noted a 1972 forest service policy, implemented following a 1967 raid of the Tierra Amarilla Courthouse over unresolved land grant issues, which said Hispanic residents of Northern New Mexico had a relationship with the land. The policy declared their culture a resource that must be recognized when setting forest service policies.

    “(T)his loss of grazing permits causes not only severe economic harm to plaintiffs, but also grave damage to viability of the unique cultural and social fabric of their families and communities, the preservation and enhancement of which has been recognized by defendant forest service as essential, not just to the residents of Northern New Mexico, but to the entire nation,” the plaintiffs’ lawsuit states.

    Rosenstock said if the First Amendment count is dismissed, it would prevent the plaintiffs from recovering compensatory and punitive economic damages. He said, at best, an Act proceeding could result in a reversal of Trujillo’s decision and limited restitution, despite the economic hardship he says the ranchers have suffered and continue to suffer under the 18 percent grazing reduction.

    Rosenstock also said if the First Amendment count is dismissed, it would prevent the plaintiffs from suing Trujillo for damages as both a federal employee and a private individual, which Rosenstock said is necessary to provide a significant deterrent against First Amendment infringements by government officials.

    The lawsuit also charges Trujillo violated various environmental and administrative laws, including regional forest service policy requiring that management decisions support the survival of Native American and Hispanic traditions. If the court grants the government’s motion to dismiss the plaintiffs’ First Amendment count, the remaining counts charging violations of the National Environmental Policy Act, the National Forest Management Act, the Federal Sustained Yield Forest Management Act and forest service policy would all fall under the purview of the Administrative Procedures Act.

    “We asserted a claim for damages for the decision for the grazing permit reduction,” Rosenstock said. “The judge can reverse the 18 percent reduction based on finding Trujillo was motivated by retaliatory action.”

Fed’s argument

    Assistant U.S. Attorney Ruth Keegan argued to dismiss the First Amendment count, saying a successful lawsuit such as that filed by the ranchers could paralyze government officials with the fear of being sued for any decisions they make.

    Browning noted law enforcement officers may be sued as private individuals, yet they manage to do their jobs.

    Keegan argued the U.S. Supreme Court doesn’t allow federal employees outside of law enforcement to be personally sued for damages.

    The judge is expected to issue a ruling in the near future on the government’s motion to dismiss the First Amendment count.

    Rosenstock said if the First Amendment count is dismissed, he and co-counsel Simeon Herskovits, of Taos, would continue the lawsuit through an Act proceeding.

    The Rio Arriba County commissioners joined the lawsuit against the forest service to keep grazing permits for local ranchers on federal lands. In addition, Rio Arriba County, along with local school districts, receives payment in lieu of taxes from the forest service that are derived in part from grazing fees.

    District III Commissioner Felipe D. Martinez, who attended the Nov. 9 hearing in Albuquerque on behalf of the commissioners, said the County reaps tens of thousands of dollars a year from the grazing fees and livestock taxes, in addition to increased economic activity throughout the county and region.

    “The lawsuit is a long time in coming,” said Martinez, whose father once owned a grazing permit on the Alamosa allotment. “For too many years, Native Americans and Hispanic Americans have not been able to benefit completely from the resources on federal lands. The thing is that we’ve been here the longest. Our ancestors shed a lot of blood, sweat and tears to colonize this area.”

    “We’re hoping he’ll be fair, we want a fair shake,” Martinez said of the federal judge. “We want the judge to know we’ve been treated differently, unfairly, that we are being retaliated against for expressing our right to free speech and to petition for the redress of our grievances.”

    At a Nov. 4 public meeting in Abiquiú, Rio Arriba county attorney Ted Trujillo said the public land restrictions would result in the extinction of Hispanic and Native American ranchers who have run livestock on forest lands for generations. He also said the grazing restrictions would increase catastrophic forest fires due to over-growth and have a negative economic impact on local agricultural communities.

    The Rio Arriba County Planning Office officials said in a November 2011 County news release the Hispanic and Native American ranchers of Rio Arriba County have suffered economic hardship and the diminishment of customs and traditions due to a lack of representation with the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

    Planning office officials are recommending the USDA implement an historic cultural sensitivity policy, observe a social justice requirement during management and decision-making by the forest service and implement regional-based management to promote customs.

    Forest service public information officer Mark Chavez declined to comment on the lawsuit since it is in litigation.

Rio Grande Sun

Climate Change Increases Stress, Need for Restoration on Grazed Public Lands

Released: 11/13/2012 1:10 PM EST
Embargo expired: 11/14/2012 12:05 AM EST
Source: Oregon State University

Newswise — CORVALLIS, Ore. – Eight researchers in a new report have suggested that climate change is causing additional stress to many western rangelands, and as a result land managers should consider a significant reduction, or in some places elimination of livestock and other large animals from public lands.
A growing degradation of grazing lands could be mitigated if large areas of Bureau of Land Management and USDA Forest Service lands became free of use by livestock and “feral ungulates” such as wild horses and burros, and high populations of deer and elk were reduced, the group of scientists said.
This would help arrest the decline and speed the recovery of affected ecosystems, they said, and provide a basis for comparative study of grazing impacts under a changing climate. The direct economic and social impacts might also be offset by a higher return on other ecosystem services and land uses, they said, although the report focused on ecology, not economics.
Their findings were reported today in Environmental Management, a professional journal published by Springer.
“People have discussed the impacts of climate change for some time with such topics as forest health or increased fire,” said Robert Beschta, a professor emeritus in the College of Forestry at Oregon State University, and lead author on this study.
“However, the climate effects on rangelands and other grazing lands have received much less interest,” he said. “Combined with the impacts of grazing livestock and other animals, this raises serious concerns about soil erosion, loss of vegetation, changes in hydrology and disrupted plant and animal communities. Entire rangeland ecosystems in the American West are getting lost in the shuffle.”
Livestock use affects a far greater proportion of BLM and Forest Service lands than do roads, timber harvest and wildfires combined, the researchers said in their study. But effort to mitigate the pervasive effects of livestock has been comparatively minor, they said, even as climatic impacts intensify.
Although the primary emphasis of this analysis is on ecological considerations, the scientists acknowledged that the changes being discussed would cause some negative social, economic and community disruption.
“If livestock grazing on public lands were discontinued or curtailed significantly, some operations would see reduced incomes and ranch values, some rural communities would experience negative economic impacts, and the social fabric of those communities could be altered,” the researchers wrote in their report, citing a 2002 study.

Among the observations of this report:
• In the western U.S., climate change is expected to intensify even if greenhouse gas emissions are dramatically reduced.
• Among the threats facing ecosystems as a result of climate change are invasive species, elevated wildfire occurrence, and declining snowpack.
• Federal land managers have begun to adapt to climate-related impacts, but not the combined effects of climate and hooved mammals, or ungulates.
• Climate impacts are compounded from heavy use by livestock and other grazing ungulates, which cause soil erosion, compaction, and dust generation; stream degradation; higher water temperatures and pollution; loss of habitat for fish, birds and amphibians; and desertification.
• Encroachment of woody shrubs at the expense of native grasses and other plants can occur in grazed areas, affecting pollinators, birds, small mammals and other native wildlife.
• Livestock grazing and trampling degrades soil fertility, stability and hydrology, and makes it vulnerable to wind erosion. This in turn adds sediments, nutrients and pathogens to western streams.
• Water developments and diversion for livestock can reduce streamflows and increase water temperatures, degrading habitat for fish and aquatic invertebrates.
• Grazing and trampling reduces the capacity of soils to sequester carbon, and through various processes contributes to greenhouse warming.
• Domestic livestock now use more than 70 percent of the lands managed by the BLM and Forest Service, and their grazing may be the major factor negatively affecting wildlife in 11 western states. In the West, about 175 taxa of freshwater fish are considered imperiled due to habitat-related causes.
• Removing or significantly reducing grazing is likely to be far more effective, in cost and success, than piecemeal approaches to address some of these concerns in isolation.
The advent of climate change has significantly added to historic and contemporary problems that result from cattle and sheep ranching, the report said, which first prompted federal regulations in the 1890s.
Wild horses and burros are also a significant problem, this report suggested, and high numbers of deer and elk occur in portions of the West, partially due to the loss or decline of large predators such as cougars and wolves. Restoring those predators might also be part of a comprehensive recovery plan, the researchers said.
The problems are sufficiently severe, this group of researchers concluded, that they believe the burden of proof should be shifted. Those using public lands for livestock production should have to justify the continuation of ungulate grazing, they said.
Collaborators on this study included researchers from the University of Wyoming, Geos Institute, Prescott College, and other agencies.

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What you didn't know about newest senator

State Sen. Pat Woods, who took office last week, says he has packed a lifetime of lessons into the last eight months. "I guess I got a Ph.D. in politics," said Woods, R-Broadview.
Woods enters the Legislature as a bigger-than-life character, thanks in part to a fellow Republican, Gov. Susana Martinez.
She used her influence in the Senate primary to try to defeat Woods, sending money and her political might to help his opponent, Angie Spears.
More important, the Martinez forces went negative against Woods, a tactic that backfired.
A friend to most in the Clovis area, Woods seemed to pick up votes as the attacks against him escalated.
Woods attended his first committee meeting Thursday, though he was so reserved he first sat down with the audience instead of the lawmakers.
Rep. Debbie Rodella, chairwoman of the Economic and Rural Development Committee, and other legislators invited Woods to join them at the lawmakers' table.
Woods once donated $100 to Democrat Rodella's campaign, saying he found her to be a hardworking and fair-minded legislator. He also gave $100 to Sen. Timothy Keller, another Democrat.
Spears and her political advisers used those contributions to try to paint Woods as a turncoat seeking to buy influence in Santa Fe.
Another claim against him was that he was a lobbyist trying to run for office. Woods said he used to travel to Santa Fe once or twice a year on behalf of the Farmers Electric Cooperative Board, an organization he served for 20 years. But never was he a lobbyist, he said.
With the mean campaign behind him, Woods is setting his sights on service in the Senate.
Unopposed in next week's general election, he took office early. Former foe Martinez appointed him as the senator for Senate District 7 after incumbent Clint Harden resigned in October.
Harden, also a Republican, did not run for re-election. He threw his support to Woods in the primary election, unhappy with the tactics of the governor and her political adviser.
Even after all the headlines Woods made campaigning, he is still a mystery man in some ways. He says he will bring his life experiences to the Senate, including a painful one.
Woods, 63, has dyslexia, but it has not stopped him from being a voracious reader. Eva, his wife of 41 years, says he pores over books and newspapers each night, retaining incredible amounts of information.
But, Woods says, he has a hard time speaking in public because of his dyslexia. Words that ought to flow simply and naturally become cluttered in his mind when he is in front of an audience.
His sons, Toby and Charlie, had such severe dyslexia that Eva says they were below-par readers in third grade. One of Martinez's legislative initiatives is state-mandated retention of thousands of third-graders who read poorly.
The Woods kids forged ahead instead of being retained. Through study and plenty of help at home, both graduated from college.
Toby taught high school math before becoming manager of the family's 100-year-old farm. Charlie is an electrical engineer in Denver.
"Early childhood intervention is the secret" to kids becoming proficient readers, Woods said.
He also has a daughter, Loralee, who is an attorney in Roswell. She represented Democratic state Sen. Tim Jennings before the state Supreme Court last spring, when a rival tried to throw him off the ballot on technical grounds.
Pat Woods said he had an audience with Martinez before she appointed him to the Senate. The meeting occurred at his request, and they talked mostly about capital projects for his district.
Woods said he did not bring up the primary campaign but Martinez did. She said she committed to support Spears early on. Nothing was said about the negative tactics.
As a senator, Woods said he would approach the job cautiously, listening and learning before introducing legislation.
But he said a concept he heard about in Utah fascinated him. The idea is for states to reclaim certain federal land within their borders.
BLM and Forest Service property would revert to state or private control. Woods said such a system might invigorate New Mexico's rural economy through more farming, ranching and logging. He also said he recognized that such a dramatic change would require approval from Congress.
But the possibilities of using the land to improve the economy excite him.
"Local control is the best government," Woods said.
He comes to the Senate with some fixed positions. For instance, he agrees with Martinez that a 2003 law allowing illegal immigrants to obtain New Mexico driver licenses should be repealed.
But, Woods said, he intends to work with Democrats and fellow Republicans to spend money wisely, approve laws only when necessary and solve problems.
"I don't see a big wreck with working with another elected official," Woods said.  link

Environmental group is denied fee award even where it successfully challenged agency decision

In Western Watersheds Project v. Ellis, 2012 DJDAR 13948 (2012), the U.S. Court of Appeal for the Ninth Circuit decided a claim for attorney fees made by an environmental organization arising from grazing permit litigation.
In summary, Western Watersheds (Western), an environmental organization, sued the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) renewal of grazing permits in an area managed by BLM called the Jarbridge Resource Area. The district court concluded that the BLM failed to protect the environmental habitat in the area and issued an injunction against the grazing permits.
Based on the district court’s ruling, the BLM and Western settled the litigation, including all issues relating to attorney fees to that point in time. Subsequent to the 2007 settlement, a severe wildfire erupted in the Jarbridge Resource Area which greatly changed the landscape of the Resource Area.
As a result, the BLM once again allowed grazing on unburned areas of the Resource Area. Western successfully challenged the post-fire grazing conditions and authorizations. Western then asked for attorney fees as the prevailing party pursuant to the Equal Access to Justice Act (EAJA). The district court denied Western’s motion. The Ninth Circuit affirmed the lower court’s decision declining to grant fees.
The Ninth Circuit noted that under the EAJA, a prevailing party is generally entitled to fees against the government, unless the position of the government was “substantially justified.” In making a call whether or not the government’s position was “substantially justified,” a court must look to both the government’s position during litigation and to the agency action that the plaintiff’s lawsuit was based on.
The Ninth Circuit concluded that the district court properly considered the reasonableness of the BLM’s underlying decision to issue grazing authorizations after the fire. For that reason, this court was convinced that the district court correctly determined that the BLM was substantially justified in its position. The motion for fees under the EAJA was denied.

Prop. 120 would give AZ 'control' of US lands

PHOENIX - Arizona really can force the federal government to surrender title to close 73 million acres of land in the state, the chief proponent of the ballot proposition insists.
But others who support Proposition 120 concede that even with voter approval it may be a legally ineffective measure, as the likelihood of Congress agreeing is virtually nil.
Still, they say there is a good reason for Arizona voters to declare sovereignty over all that federal land, and it could make a difference, even without congressional action, by forcing federal agencies to be more responsive to requests to make use of those public lands.
However, the measure ran into a wall of opposition largely from the environmental community fearful of the management practices of state agencies reporting to state elected officials.
On paper the idea behind Proposition 120 is simple. It would add a section to the Arizona Constitution declaring the "sovereign and exclusive authority over the air, water, public lands, minerals, wildlife and other natural resources within its border."
Central to the idea is frustration with federal management of its lands within the state.
Rep. Chester Crandell, R-Heber, sponsor of the legislation that put the issue on the ballot, said a prime example has been the forests.
"We had a thriving forest industry back in the '70s and '80s," he said, with timber companies harvesting logs on federal lands. "That's when all the (environmental) lawsuits started."
That, in turn, led to a reticence of federal agencies to allow logging projects, or even forest thinning. The result, Crandell said, has been huge wildfires that devastated large portions of the state.
"And what have we accomplished?" he continued. "We've burned up the habitat of the spotted owl and the goshawk as well."
Jim Klinker, chief administrative officer of the Arizona Farm Bureau, sees it in more basic terms.
"Those forests should have been thinned. We should have had timbering out there. We should encourage grazing on those lands, put ranchers out there to manage it, put foresters out there to manage these lands working with these federal agencies," he said. "But that has broken down."
And that gets to the essence of Klinker's complaint.
He said groups that seek to do something on federal lands, like grazing, used to be able to work with federal employees on the ground in Arizona. They could get quick answers, which is no longer the case.
"There's little response, if you will, from the federal agencies," he said.
"It seems to get worse and worse," Klinker said. "The bureaucracy that dictates from Washington, D.C., to the Forest Service and BLM land is just getting so bureaucratic you can't get anything done on the ground."
Beyond concerns about how state agencies would manage the lands, Steve Arnquist of the Arizona League of Conservation Voters said, there are more practical arguments against the measure.
One is that it makes no sense to let each of the 50 states have its own set of environmental rules and regulations, and not have a baseline safe level of clean air and clean water, he said.
"Let's say one state has a more aggressive Clean Air Act standard than the state next to it," he said. "But the air doesn't know when to stay in the state."
And he rejected arguments that there may be legitimate reasons to let states set some of their own environmental regulations, such as for dust control, which is different in the desert than it might be back East.
"I would respond to that that human lungs are the same in all the states," Arnquist said.
"We know what the maximum levels of certain pollutants are before it starts making people sick," he said. "And that's the same whether you're in Pennsylvania or you're in Arizona."
Perhaps the bigger question is whether Arizona could actually manage all those federal lands when, Arnquist noted, the state has struggled just to keep its parks open.
Gov. Jan Brewer agrees.
Brewer said while she shares the frustration over how the state's natural resources are being managed, this is not the answer. Brewer vetoed an early legislative attempt to take control of federal lands.
She said if the federal government were to somehow accede to the demand, the state is totally unprepared to take over almost 73 million acres of federal land.
Crandell said Arizona could manage all those lands, collecting the fees and using them to help balance the state budget and keep taxes low.
Klinker, however, has his doubts.
"I don't think these lands could be turned over overnight to the states," he said. "But there could be a system in place that moved more decision making back here to the local level."
And that, from Klinker's perspective, could be the best possible outcome, especially with the belief that the vote would be largely symbolic.
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Livestock Payments May Change

One branch of the federal government, the Agriculture Department’s Wildlife Services, set traps in the northern edge of the Gila National Forest last week in a frustrating, monthlong effort to capture the elusive alpha female of the Fox Mountain wolf pack, blamed for a string of recent livestock kills.

Meanwhile, officials in another agency, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, fretted over the difficult decision to impound the wolf, one of an official count of 58 in New Mexico and Arizona.

The tug of war over what to do with the Fox Mountain wolf has illustrated again the deep divide that has plagued the recovery of the endangered Mexican gray wolf.

On one hand, conservationists want a native predator that was nearly hunted to extinction restored to the landscape under the Endangered Species Act; on the other, critics, dominated by the livestock industry, argue the lobos are a menace that take a bite out of their pocketbooks by killing cows and other livestock.

Now, the Fish and Wildlife Service appears poised to endorse a new approach, dubbed coexistence, aimed at creating more tolerance for lobos in the ranching community.

Details won’t be released until next month at the earliest. However, according to a broad outline provided by people familiar with the plan, it would do this: Rather than compensate ranchers for confirmed wolf kills of livestock, the program would pay ranchers and those who own property in wolf country, based on a formula that would take into account a number of factors, such as the proximity of a wolf pack, the number of livestock exposed to the threat of wolves, a ranchers’ willingness to take steps to reduce wolf-livestock conflicts and the growth of the wild wolf population.

The idea of shifting to a new way of compensating ranchers in wolf country is, in part, a recognition that ranchers sustain losses for which they are not compensated, for instance, cattle that disappear or stressed cattle, said Craig Miller, Southwestern representative of Defenders of Wildlife and a member of the Mexican Wolf Interdiction Fund Stakeholders Council. The Council makes recommendations on how much to pay ranchers for livestock killed by wolves, with payments from a privately managed fund financed by Defenders and the federal government.

A baseline payment, of a still undetermined amount, would recognize that “there are costs of living in the presence of wolves,” Miller said. “The program is trying to get away from postmortem compensation. That begins with dead livestock and ends with dead wolves.”

As Miller envisions it, Arizona-based Defenders of Wildlife would continue, as it does now, to provide funds to ranchers for measures aimed at avoiding wolf-livestock conflicts, such as hiring range riders to guard herds, moving cattle to pastures away from wolf dens, or the purchase of hay. According to Miller, ranchers could be paid to take steps to reduce conflicts with wolves, and then be rewarded when those measures result in the growth of the wolf population.

“It’s trying to get cooperation on both sides,” said Sherry Barrett, wolf recovery program coordinator for the Fish and Wildlife Service. “There’s a lot of emotion around wolves, both pro and con. … So we are trying to find something that reduces some of this conflict.”

A key part of the plan — securing a big enough pot of money to pay ranchers an amount that would allay concerns about cattle losses — has yet to be accomplished. Money in the existing Interdiction Fund managed by a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit group can only be used to pay ranchers for livestock losses.

To succeed, the plan would have to be embraced by the livestock industry, and several ranchers in Arizona and New Mexico said this week that they knew little or nothing about it. Laura Schneberger, president of the Gila Livestock Growers Association, said she doubted such a program would work for small ranchers who are less able to endure wolf depredations.

In the case of the Fox Mountain packs’ cattle depredations, ranchers called for wolf removals, while hundreds of wolf supporters pushed back against the initial kill order issued Aug. 8. Many wolf advocates celebrated when the kill order was rescinded two days later, after permanent housing for the wolf was secured in an Arizona sanctuary, while others maintained that the wolf should be allowed to remain free.

Before a few wolves were reintroduced to the wild in 1998, federal officials projected there would be about 100 wolves in the forests of southwestern New Mexico and southeastern Arizona by the end of 2006. As of January, the official population count was 58.

Illegal poaching and the removal of wolves in earlier years for cattle depredations have been major factors in keeping down the number of wild-roaming lobos.

The desire to respond to rancher concerns was, in no small measure, what motivated Fish and Wildlife to exercise the discretion it has to manage, or remove, a “problem” wolf that repeatedly preys on livestock, Barrett acknowledged.

Whether a new approach to compensating ranchers for living with wolves is enough to bridge old divides is far from certain. Just in the past week, an online petition was launched that calls for blocking new releases of wolves and, eventually, the removal of wolves from the Southwest.

“I suspect we’ll get backlash from all sides,” Barrett said. “I’ve never seen a plan that didn’t get backlash, but what we are doing is trying to find a middle ground.”

Meanwhile, one freedom-loving lobo continues trying to steer clear of traps.

UpFront is a daily front-page news and opinion column. Comment directly to Rene Romo in Las Cruces at rromo@abqjournal.com or 575-526-4462. Go to ABQjournal.com/letters/new to submit a letter to the editor.

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Hage Forage Right Trial Ends With BLM and U.S. Forest Service Employees Found in Contempt

 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                                                     Sept. 4, 2012

RENO, NV—Friday, August 31, a weeklong show-cause hearing ended with Chief Federal District Court Judge Robert C. Jones finding Tonopah Bureau of Land Management (BLM) manager Tom Seley and Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest Service ranger (USFS) Steve Williams in contempt of court. The contempt, including witness intimidation, occurred during the pendency of the five-year-old forage right case, U.S. v. Estate of E. Wayne Hage and Wayne N. Hage. 

            Seley was specifically found having intent to destroy the Hages’ property and business interests. “Mr. Seley can no longer be an administrator in this BLM district. I don’t trust him to be unbiased. Nor can he supervise anybody in this district,” the judge stated in his order from the bench.

            The contempt finding was the result of the USFS and BLM having filed suit against Wayne N. Hage and the Estate of E. Wayne Hage in 2007 but then also seeking alternative remedies while the case was pending in derogation of the court’s jurisdiction. 

            “The problem is Mr. Seley especially, and to a lesser extent, Mr. Williams...had to kill the business of Mr. Hage. They had to stop him in any way possible,” the judge noted as the motive for their contemptuous actions. “My problem was that you were seeking remedy outside this court,” he added.

            The court noted, “You got a random draw of a judge. You submitted to this civil process.” Then, Seley and Williams pursued their own remedies by trying to extort money out of third-party ranchers who had leased cattle to Wayne N. Hage. They issued trespass notices, demands for payments, their own judgments, and in one instance coerced a $15,000 settlement. All of this was done during the time the court had jurisdiction over these issues.

            Counts against Seley and Williams included filing on top of the Hages’ vested and certificated stockwater rights with intent of converting those rights to a new permittee; sending 75 solicitations for 10-year grazing permits in the Ralston allotment aiming to destroy the Hages’ grazing preferences and water rights; issuing temporary permits to third parties, in particular Gary Snow of Fallon, Nev., with the knowledge that Snow’s cattle would drink the waters belonging to the Hage family; and, finally, the assessment of fines, penalties and judgments on third parties whose cattle were under the legal possession of Wayne N. Hage.

            Judge Jones remarked about the July 26 Federal Circuit Court of Appeals’ ruling in the parallel constitutional Fifth Amendment takings case, U.S. v. Hage. The court expressly said the Hages have “an access right” to their waters. He also noted that the court did not overturn any of the Hages’ property rights that the Court of Claims found the Hages to own. Also, the takings that were overturned were overturned on the basis that the claims were not ripe, not because the government was acting correctly.

            The hearing began Monday, August 27, with a cadre of agency heads from Washington, D.C., regional and state offices turning up in Reno to defend their policies and employees in court. After intense questioning by the court, Judge Jones made witness credibility findings in which USFS Region 4 Director Harv Forsgren was found lying to the court, and Nevada head of the USFS, Jeanne Higgins, was not entirely truthful.  After those findings, several other named witnesses did not testify.

            In his bench ruling Friday night, Judge Jones stated: “The most persuasive testimony of anybody was Mr. Forsgren. I asked him has there been a decline in AUMs [animal unit months/livestock numbers] in the West. Then I asked him has there been a decline in the region, or this district. He said he doesn’t know. He was prevaricating. His answer speaks volumes about his intent and his directives to Mr. Williams.” The court noted that anybody who is school age or older knows “the history of the Forest Service in seeking reductions in AUMs and even an elimination of cattle grazing during the last four decades. Not so much with the BLM—they have learned that in the last two decades.”

            In his findings of witness intimidation, Judge Jones noted: “Their threats were not idle.  They threatened one witness’s father’s [grazing] allotment.” The judge referenced testimony wherein Steve Williams delivered trespass notices accompanied by an armed employee. In one instance the armed man snuck up behind one of the witnesses with his hands ready to draw his guns. “Packing a gun shows intent,” the court noted.

            In explaining the findings to Seley and Williams, the court found there was “intent to deprive this court of jurisdiction by intimidation of witnesses and threats against witnesses.” He added, “Where you crossed the line is you took civil action yourself in order to kill the business of Hage.”

            Seley and Williams were held personally liable for damages totaling over $33,000 should the BLM and USFS fail to fund the losses to Hage and third parties. In addition, Judge Jones imposed an injunction wherein the BLM and USFS are prevented from interfering with third-party leasing relationships when the livestock are in the clear operational control of Wayne N. Hage. The judge ordered Hage to reapply for a grazing permit and ordered the federal government to immediately issue permits to the Hages for the winter grazing season on the Ralston allotment.

            The judge said he had already written 100 pages of his final decision from the main trial ending June 6. He indicated his published decision should be forthcoming in early October. Wayne N. Hage represented himself, pro se, and Mark Pollot, a Boise, Idaho, attorney, represented the Estate.

‘Sagebrush rebellion’ case overturned

SAN FRANCISCO — America’s sagebrush rebellion has suffered a major setback far from the western rangeland where a modern battle was joined over grazing rights on public lands. Over the past 21 years, firebrand Nevada rancher Wayne Hage and his survivors waged a legal war against federal land managers who were seeking to restrict cattle grazing on public lands and became a heroic symbol for those who yearned for bygone days and bridled at the growing reach of government. Then in a little noticed decision on July 26, a three-judge panel of the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., overturned Hage’s hard-fought multi-million-dollar legal victories. It was a quiet rebuke to a legal saga that began in 1991 after the government impounded some of Hage’s cattle. The rancher had defied grazing restrictions in Nevada’s Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest, and refused to pay fines for grazing permit violations. Challenging the government in court was a costly and time-consuming endeavor that Hage threw everything he had at, including the ranch for which he was fighting. With his ranch house stuffed full of legal tomes as he became immersed in the case, the suit-clad, salt-and-pepper-bearded Hage became the epitome of the sagebrush rebel — the ideological forefathers of today’s tea party — and breathed life into a movement that captured the rebel spirit of the Old West. “Hage is a hero in the sagebrush rebellion. He bet the ranch, literally and deliberately, because he believed passionately in this cause,” said Jon Christensen, executive director of Stanford University’s Bill Lane Center for the American West. “The tragedy is that so much intelligence, creative passion and love for the West ... were wasted on such a doomed dead end,” he said. After his cattle were seized, Hage and his wife Jean filed suit, saying the government’s denial of his rights to freely graze on public lands threatened his livelihood. Hage said ranchers like him had worked the land for more than a century, and should be allowed to continue. In 2008, U.S. Claims Court Judge Loren Smith agreed, saying Hage’s rights had been violated, and ordered the government to pay the rancher’s family $4.4 million, a ruling that has now been tossed out. But Margaret Byfield, Hage’s daughter, said from her home in Georgetown, Texas, that the family has until Sept. 10 to file for a rehearing and they plan to do it. “We are not surprised by this decision. Sitting through the appellate court hearings, we could tell which way the judges were headed,” she said. “There was a lack of understanding of western law and how the western lands function.” At issue before the courts was whether private ranchers have a constitutionally protected ownership stake in public lands, and whether federal overseers of those lands — in this case the U.S. Forest Service and BLM — illegally stripped the ranchers of that property. Government land managers, enforcing environmental laws meant to improve conservation and public access to these lands, have curtailed unfettered grazing through issuing permits that regulate the number of cattle allowed in an area. Judge Smith ruled that the government illegally “took” Hage’s rights to graze on public lands by blocking his access to water. Wayne Hage died in 2006; Jean in 1996. His estate was awarded the damages. “If Hage’s case had succeeded, it would have been virtually impossible for public land managers to control private ranchers’ use of western public lands for cattle grazing,” said John Echeverria, a professor of law at Vermont Law School who filed “friend of the court” briefs in opposition to Hage. “This would have made it far more difficult to maintain the public’s lands in a healthy state and make them available for a wide variety of public uses, including hunting, fishing, hiking and other forms of recreation,” Echeverria said. Bureau of Land Management Nevada spokeswoman JoLynn Worley said the office could not comment on the ruling because of a related, ongoing trespassing case involving the Hage family. In the separate but related proceeding, a district court judge in Reno, Nev. on Friday indicated the Hage family and others are not guilty of trespassing on public lands, and that he intends to find federal rangers in contempt for issuing trespass notices while his court was still deciding the case. Even though the long-running legal saga has turned against the ranchers, those who fought alongside Hage said the sagebrush rebellion lives on, albeit with a different tone. “I think the fight’s going to continue, but it’s not a rebellion anymore,” said Fred Kelly Grant, a former federal prosecutor and private property advocate who helped Hage’s family with the case. Grant and Hage’s family now advocates not for “rebellion” but “cooperation,” a theory that the federal government is compelled by law to work more closely with states and counties when revising public lands policy. Hage’s daughter offers $1,500, eight-hour courses on how to implement the coordination strategy, a concept that has become popular with tea partyers and other states’ rights political movements. In the coordination movement, the sagebrush rebellion lives, Grant said. “As long as there are people in the rural West, the battle between those people and those who would have them off the land is going to go on.” link

State has spent more than $200K defending wolf lawsuit

 State wildlife managers spent more than $216,000 on outside attorneys in less than half a year to defend against a claim that they violated the federal Endangered Species Act relating to Mexican gray wolves.

This confrontation began when the New Mexico Game and Fish Department last year lifted a ban on trapping in southwestern New Mexico, where the federal government reintroduced the endangered wolves. It meant state lands again were open to potential adversaries of the rare wolves.

WildEarth Guardians sued the Game and Fish Department, alleging a state agency had created a system that could harm or kill wolves guaranteed protection by federal law.

The suit, filed in February in U.S. District Court in Albuquerque, named state Game and Fish Director James Lane and Game Commission Chairman Jim McClintic as defendants.

"No permit is necessary to trap skunks or coyotes. Wolves that should enjoy protection are in danger of being harmed or killed," said Wendy Keefover of WildEarth Guardians.

Every death of a Mexican gray wolf is statistically significant, she said, because its population in the wilds of New Mexico and Arizona numbers no more than 42.

Lane, through a spokesman, said money the state is using to defend against the lawsuit came from fishing, hunting and trapping licenses. He declined to say anything else.

State records show that most of the money spent so far by the Game and Fish Department has gone to the law firm of Kelley Drye in Washington, D.C. It had received $199,801 through June, the end of the state government's budget year.

Another $16,238 for the wolf case went to the Albuquerque law firm of Keleher & McLeod.

The suit is still being litigated, and seven agencies opposed to wolf reintroduction have intervened as defendants.

They include the New Mexico Council of Outfitters and Guides, the New Mexico Farm & Livestock Bureau and the New Mexico Cattle Growers' Association.

Caren Cowan, executive director of the cattle growers, said her group opposes the wolf as an unwanted and dangerous predator. She said she also resented WildEarth Guardians trying to create policies for the state.

"We need the ability to use our own lands," Cowan said in an interview.

Keefover of WildEarth Guardians said federal protection for the wolf trumps the state trapping program. Her group maintains the wolf's future is being threatened because of political maneuverings in New Mexico.

When Democrat Bill Richardson was governor, he issued an executive order prohibiting leg-hold and body-crushing traps within the Mexican gray wolf's New Mexico recovery area. He said he wanted to protect the wolves as much as possible until their population grew. Richardson's order came in July 2010, six months before he left office.

Republican Susana Martinez succeeded Richardson. The Game and Fish Department, as part of her administration, rescinded Richardson's trapping ban in July 2011.

It meant that trapping could occur year-round on lands where it had been prohibited. They included portions of the Wild Rivers Recreation Area of the Rio Grande, the Valle Vidal, Vermejo Ranch and the Valles Caldera National Preserve.

WildEarth Guardians is no happier with President Obama's administration than it is with Martinez's.

In 2010 the conservation group filed petitions with the U.S. Forest Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in hopes of receiving an emergency exclusion of trapping in the Mexican gray wolf's range.

The Forest Service rejected the request and the Fish and Wildlife Service ignored it, Keefover said.

The wolf's territory also extends into Arizona, where it is safer.

Trapping is outlawed on Arizona's public lands. Voters, not politicians, made that decision in a public vote in 1994.

Cowan of the cattle growers association said the lawsuit amounted to little. Even the U.S. government describes Mexican gray wolves in the wild as a "nonessential experimental population," she said.

Cowan also said the chances of wolves dying or being hurt in traps were small and had occurred infrequently since their reintroduction in New Mexico and Arizona in 1998.

A study by the U.S. Geological Survey and the U.S. Department of the Interior found that 14 Mexican gray wolves were captured in foothold traps set by people other than Fish and Wildlife employees. Thirteen of the trappings occurred in New Mexico.

Two of the wolves died and two others were hurt severely enough that leg amputations were necessary.

The same study found that 37 wolves were illegally shot, 12 were hit by vehicles, 11 were "lethally removed" by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, one was shot legally by a member of the public, and one died from a trap injury that was part of government research operations. Given the Mexican gray wolf's minuscule population outside captivity, Keefover said, the species could vanish, especially with programs such as state trapping that allows for year-round, unlicensed operations.

New Mexico residents pay $20 for a license to trap furbearers. But, as Keefover pointed out, no license for state residents is needed to trap coyotes or skunks.

Nonresident trappers can buy a license for $345. They must be licenses for coyote and skunk trapping.

Milan Simonich can be reached at msimonich@tnmnp.com or 505-820-6898. His blog is at nmcapitolreport.com

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Rancher, wolf battle escalates

When Laura Schneberger sent out an email over the weekend about her suspicions in regards to a wolf trap being tampered with, her frustration was clear.

Schneberger is president of the Gila Livestock Growers Association and said the association, now at 95 members, once was 150 or so members strong.

She blames this, in part, on wolves.

Or rather on the wolf program as managed by the Fish and Wildlife Service.

“Its like dealing with the dang mafia,” Schneberger said in reference to Fish and Wildlife. She said GLGA does not believe the department is doing enough to protect the ranchers.

Representing Fish and Wildlife, Tom Buckley said his department is doing what it can.

He said there have been four confirmed wolf depredations since March.

A single wolf, the alpha female of the Fox Mountain pack in Western Catron County, had been singled out by the service to be killed earlier this month, but because of public concern, Fish and Wildlife rescinded the kill order two days later, Aug. 10, and agreed to trap her instead.

“Our business is to recover the Mexican wolf,” Buckley said. “We don’t have any answers yet.”

A Mexican Wolf Interdiction Fund has been set up to provide compensation for confirmed wolf kills of cattle, Buckley said. The fund pays for the depredations, range riders and hay for cattle that can’t graze on their normal ranges.

The range riders generally stick around where the cattle are and put themselves between the wolves and the cows, he said.

“That’s usually enough to deter the wolves,” he said. “Most cattle don’t get bothered by the wolves at all.”

The environmental group Defenders of Wildlife generally covers the cost of the range riders, Buckley said.

He said statistics are very low when looking at wolf kills as compared to cattle killed in other predator attacks.

“Many more are killed by wild dogs and coyotes than wolves,” he said. “It’s just such a sensitive subject to some people.”

But to rancher Corwin Hulsey, it’s more than a sensitive subject, it’s his life.

With his cattle endangered after several losses in the last 12 months, Hulsey felt he had to move them off of land he leases at a cost of $1,600 a month.

“I moved all my cows in trailers with two pickups,” Hulsey said.

And because he moved the animals to his own land, quickly overgrazed, he had to buy hay to feed them.

“I fed them $8,500 worth of hay,” he said. “It took $800 in fuel just to move them back and forth.”

“Last year we lost 25 out of 200 calves,” Hulsey said. “You could attribute maybe two or three of those to other predators.”

Three days after Hulsey took his herd back to the leased land earlier this month, the wolves took another cow.

He said there are three range riders up there now, but the wolves attack mostly at night, and the riders can’t be taking their horses across the land at night.

Hulsey himself has been spending nights near the herd, getting up every hour and a half to walk through the area and watch for wolves.

He doesn’t feel the removal of the alpha female will stop the depredation.

“The whole pack is involved,” he said. “It’s discouraging to me.”

After an overall estimated monetary loss of $16,000, of which about $3,500 has been compensated, Hulsey doesn’t know if he can keep the business alive.

“Sooner or later they run everybody (the ranchers) down and they just give up,” Hulsey said. “I don’t think there is any answer. Several have quit because of the wolves.”

Hulsey said he understands Fish and Wildlife are just trying to do their job.

“Their job is to raise wolves and I have a different approach,” he said. “I don’t have a lot of bad feelings toward a lot of the people. It’s just business-wise, it’s running us out of business.”

Hulsey believes things can only be changed in Washington, by legislation.

He suggested the people in the government offices donate $5,000 each out of their paychecks to help him cover the cost of his losses. But, he said, they don’t want to do that.

Jess Carey, wolf interaction investigator for Catron County, said the Hulsey’s livestock is at continuous risk and his monetary loss has not been compensated.

“The stress of the possibility of losing his family ranch, no sleep and constant vigil has taken its toll,” Carey said.

Michael Robinson, with the Center of Biological Diversity, said the removal of the alpha female could be damaging to the wolf recovery efforts.

“Four stock have been lost at a time when mechanisms that have been set up should have prevented it,” he said. “Fish and Wildlife is in charge of this and needs to have a system. The wolves are being made to pay the price.”

Robinson said the magnitude of what is at stake has to be considered.

When the wolf program started it was projected there would be 102 Mexican grey wolves, including 18 breeding pairs by 2006. But today there are only 58 wolves and six breeding pairs on the ground.

Wolf recovery efforts in other locations have proven positive results restoring balances once lost, Robinson said.

In one example, in Yellowstone National Park, he said, wolves were reintroduced in 1995. Up until then, elk had been destroying streamside vegetation and river valley bottoms at the park. Because of the wolf reintroduction, the elk stopped browsing the unsafe areas in river canyons and many of the tall trees and riparian habitats have been restored.

“The question we have to answer as a society is ‘do we want to be responsible for extinction of an intelligent and creative animal?’” Robinson said. “The answer is ‘no.’”

In the meantime, Corwin Hulsy is driving back to his herd this week because something has killed one of his cattle again and he needs to check it out.

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Scientific American: Jaguars Win Critical Habitat in U.S.

After years of legal wrangling, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has granted jaguars protected territory

By Susan H. Greenberg

Jaguars, the third-largest cats after lions and tigers—and the biggest in the Western Hemisphere—used to live here. During the 18th and 19th centuries they were spotted in Arizona, New Mexico, California and Texas. Sometimes the cats roamed as far east as North Carolina and as far north as Colorado.

As humans encroached on their territory, the endangered cats' range shifted south. Today it stretches from northern Argentina into Mexico's Sonoran Desert. But jaguars cross into the American Southwest frequently enough for some conservationists to argue that they deserve critical habitat protection. Now, after years of legal wrangling, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) has agreed. In a  plan (pdf) published yesterday, the agency proposed designating 838,232 acres—an area larger than Rhode Island—as critical jaguar habitat. That means federal agencies cannot fund or authorize any activities that might "adversely modify" the earmarked land, which covers four stretches of mountain in southeastern Arizona, a section of the Peloncillo Mountains on the Arizona–New Mexico border, and a tiny piece of New Mexico's San Luis Mountains. It includes the site of a proposed copper mine in Arizona's Santa Rita Mountains, which will have to be carefully evaluated for its potential impact on jaguar habitat if the proposal is approved later this year, following a period of peer review, public comment (pdf) and economic analysis.

It is a dramatic step for the FWS, which has been dragging its feet on jaguars for years. The conservation group Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) first sued the FWS in 2003 to designate critical habitat and develop a recovery plan for the cats, which have been listed as endangered since 1997. The FWS determined that the species didn't need special protection in the U.S. to survive, compelling the CBD to file another lawsuit in 2007. Then, in 2009, controversy erupted over the death of a jaguar known as Macho B, a male that had been captured in Arizona's Atascosa Mountains, fitted with a radio collar and released, only to be later euthanized after he was found ailing. Macho B's death added urgency to the issue, and a few weeks later a federal district court agreed with the CBD, mandating that the FWS reconsider its previous decision not to grant jaguars critical habitat. Yesterday's proposal was the result of that ruling and includes the canyon in the Atascosa Mountains where Macho B lived.

The FWS reversal should help quell a long-standing debate among conservationists, scientists, government officials, ranchers and local residents about how vital U.S. territory is to the preservation of the species. Although the designated area represents the northernmost part of the jaguar's range, the FWS proposal argues that peripheral populations are essential to the species because their adaptation to different environmental conditions strengthens evolutionary diversity. Michael Robinson of the CBD praised the plan but wishes it went further. "These sky island mountain ranges near the border with Mexico are vital for jaguars to move into the United States," he says. "But we propose adding the Gila and Apache national forests in, respectively, New Mexico and Arizona, where roads are few and prey plentiful, in order to provide habitat for more jaguars, which could genetically bolster the population in northern Mexico."

Stealthy and mystical, jaguars (Panthera onca) lived primarily in North America until the Pleistocene epoch ended around 12,000 years ago, according to the anthropological records of the American Museum of Natural History. Since 1963 only male jaguars have been spotted in the U.S., and then only in south-central Arizona and southwestern New Mexico. "Counting cryptic carnivores is very, very difficult," says Howard Quigley, the executive director of the Jaguar Program of the wild cat conservation group, Panthera, and a co-leader of the Jaguar Recovery Team, a group of scientists and other experts whom the FWS convened to advise the government on its decision.

Some conservationists have long argued that jaguars belong in the American Southwest. Robinson says the cats are part of Arizona's historical flora and fauna and have inherent value to the ecosystem. He also says the government essentially owes them critical habitat, because the animals' demise has come largely at the hands of the government itself. Between 1918 and 1964, records show, a federal predator extermination program killed tens of thousands of wolves and coyotes, along with an unspecified number of jaguars, probably numbering in the dozens. Furthermore, the government initially failed to list jaguars under the 1973 Endangered Species Act—an oversight that took more than 25 years to rectify. The American Society of Mammalogists outlined the same arguments in a 2007 resolution calling for FWS to develop a jaguar recovery plan and delineate critical habitat. With the jaguar's range steadily shrinking, the resolution said, U.S. habitat is "vital to the long-term resilience and survival of the species, especially in response to ongoing climate change." Indeed, fringe populations are crucial to the preservation of a species, says Carlos López González, a Mexican biologist and co-leader of the Jaguar Recovery Team, who has been documenting the cats in northern Mexico since 1997, because they're part of the historical range. "Peripheral animals at the edge of a species are probably the animals that are more adaptable to climate change, global warming, drought and so on," he says.

Other prominent conservationists have argued it is a waste of time and money to focus on jaguar recovery in the U.S. Southwest. Alan Rabinowitz, Panthera's co-founder and president,agrees that fringe populations are critical to a species's preservation—provided they are resident or breeding populations. The closest breeding population to the Arizona border is more than 200 kilometers south in Mexico's state of Sonora. After Macho B's death, when the federal district court ordered FWS to reverse its position on critical habitat designation, Rabinowitz issued a swift rebuke on The New York Times op-ed page, calling the move "a slap in the face to good science." He wrote that the American southwest is "at best, marginal habitat for the animals," arguing that jaguar conservation efforts would be better directed at preserving "corridors" that link breeding populations with one another south of the border. He doesn't dispute that jaguars regularly cross the Mexican border into Arizona and New Mexico, but maintains they don't stay long. "There's something there that they don't like," he says. "If it was habitat they liked and could settle, why go back and forth?"

The best hope for jaguar recovery in the U.S. may lie in diverting resources across the border. "There's great science and money going into jaguar conservation in North America," Quigley says. "I would love to see it head south." Whereas Endangered Species Act funding may technically be used outside the U.S., it is rarely deployed that way. In October 2010 the U.S. Department of Homeland Security earmarked $6.8 million to fund conservation efforts—including just under $3 million "to survey and monitor jaguars and their habitat in Arizona"—in an agreement with U.S. Customs and Border Protection aimed at mitigating the impact of border security projects, such as the fence designed to deter illegal immigration. "The bad news is all the money has to be spent north of the border where there's one jaguar every three years," Quigley says. "We all realize the work needs to be done south of the border. It's horribly ironic and sad." He cites parts of the genetic corridor from Colombia to the central-southern Amazon that are critical to jaguar survival but receive no funding or attention. As the northernmost breeding center, Sonora is also key. "If we want to have jaguars in Arizona, there have to be more resources provided to Mexico," says López González, who has established incentive programs for Mexican ranchers to set photo traps for jaguars rather than kill them. Quigley says other such programs are beginning to win funding south of the border. "Our real purpose is to make sure the two core areas [Jalisco and Sonora] are preserved and there is genetic connectivity between them," he says. "If we do that right, there will be two or three jaguars that come across the border now and then." And someday, maybe more.

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