Grazing cattle on public land

[fiveptbill]

I hate it that I can't even take a mountain bike or game cart into a wilderness area but a rancher can run hundreds of cattle. And if you go into an area that has riparian fences everything inside the fence is in much better shape than that outside the fence. My only question is does that cow tag in my pocket when I am in a wilderness area include angus???

 

[theat]

I am not a big fan of cattle on public lands either. I have been on too many state sections and FS lands that look like the moon and have no game on them. I wouldn't have such a problem with it if a more competitive price is charged per AMU, there is an increase in the % of feed left for wildlife, better monitoring of leases is done, and violaters of the lease agreements permanently loose their lease. Might sound a little harsh but I love our public lands and it really pisses me off when I see them trashed.

 

[sweetnectar]

Ya no one takes care of a rental as well as their own tools, car, house, or whatever. Public bathrooms get trashed by all users. Public lands don't get taken care of as well as private lands. As far as who is a better steward over land I'd argue the guy that owns it.

Now can cattle be beneficial to the landscape? Of course!.....and they taste good. Can they be detrimental? Of course!....and someone can step in a freshy.

I laugh when I hear something like public lands provide clean water, fresh air, and bla bla bla. The truth is land (all land) that is taken care of provides clean water, fresh air, and bla bla bla. When someone says private land gets more money per AUM it is likely because it is not public land. A private bathroom is much cleaner than the publicly used gas station bathroom.

 

[bjtc_brian]

Maintenance....impressive.

Would you agree that $1.35 is a joke? What is a fair price in your opinion? Any guesses on what the Federal gov't makes from permitting these grazing permits? I am not anti-grazing, but from a pure business standpoint, this is a joke....unless you are lucky enough to "own" a permit. In my area I know of no permittee that has dropped a dollar for a livestock pit or any fencing material.

I know pointer has been involved with this issue more than me and may have different opinions. I would like to hear more from him. Come on Tyler, UT must be different than northern MT.

Miller, yes, $1.35 seems pretty much like a joke. But saying that, it somewhat depends on the quality of the land that is for lease. I've seen some pretty crappy pieces of property.

 

[bjtc_brian]

Having grown up with a father who was a fisheries biologist for the Forest Service(Salmon, Idaho) I can vouche for the damage that cattle do to a stream bank.

The problem he faced in the Forest Service was every guy had their own agenda and weren't willing to work very well with each other. The minerals guy wanted to mine the forest, the timber guy wanted to log every tree, the wildlife and fisheries guys tried to push what they thought was best. It was a constant battle.

What I saw was that nobody would move to the middle. The dang ranchers wouldn't rotate their cattle soon enough. They seemed to think that all was well until every blade of grass was gone. If they would just move them to another allotment before the cows turned it into the moon they would safe themselves all this bashing. Funny thing is they don't practice the same thing on "their" private land. They will rotate the cows from pasture to pasture. They aren't stupid they know what is best for the land. The difference is one is theirs and the other is a rental.

I don't want to argue but I could have him provide me with hundreds of photos of stream banks that are trashed by cattle. Way more than that off wildlife.

My good friend has cows on his place and he'll be the first too admit that they don't hardly stray from the water tanks. That's just how cattle are. Wildlife will find enough water out of a seep to keep them hydrated. Don't get me wrong if you're water tank is there they will drink but cattle are in more need of it.

I guess maybe I didn't put it clear what I meant before. I am not saying that cows don't do any damage, I am just saying that elk can and have done more damage.

Some of this could be even less if they would put in more watering tanks. Cows will stay in close proximity to water if there is food around.

 

[bjtc_brian]

I guess maybe this is the reason I don't understand the issue. My family doesn't run their publicly leased land like this. Nor do I see lands run like that around any of the areas I hunt. As a matter of fact, my dad felt they were overgrazing parts of it and suggested they let that part rest for a year to let the grass grow back. And no it wasn't cause it looked like the moon or overgrazed. Just that is made for better grazing if it were run that way.

I have seen multiple private places where the owners made the moon look lucious. So, not everyone takes care of their own property even.

 

[bjtc_brian]

Okay, I promise that this is my last response to Jose.

Since you are so against government subsidies, then I hope you don't watch any tv and you better get off the internet. All of these have had government subsidies. You are a welfare interneter and and welfare OYOA watcher!

 

[Lawnboy]

I am not saying that cows don't do any damage, I am just saying that elk can and have done more damage.
.

I'm still baffeled that you can say that elk can and do more damage to stream banks They use crossings and some wallowing but they move around so much that the damage is minimal. Cattle hang and make a huge mess in those spots.

Sweetnectar could post some picts of the water holes on his place and 80% of the damage is from the cows not the elk. It is what it is. Cows are just being cows.

As far as your dad rotating and grazing properly that's great! I know that Sweetnectar does the same on their land and you can see the benefits. Not too many ranchers with the forsight or willingness to learn about the benefits.

 

[bjtc_brian]

I'm still baffeled that you can say that elk can and do more damage to stream banks They use crossings and some wallowing but they move around so much that the damage is minimal. Cattle hang and make a huge mess in those spots.

They both do damage, and plenty of it. I think part where elk are the hardest on stream beds is in the Willows. They browse on these and cause them to die around the streams. Look up the effects of the elk and the streams in the park. No bovine there, and the streams were in shambles.

 

[Lawnboy]

You win :W: I guess we agree to disagree. I've spent way to many days and miles with my dad doing stream surveys to change my mind. Good thread though to spark debate.

 

[BuzzH]

Its pretty tough to debate with someone that actually believes elk do more riparian damage than cattle.

I'm sure its true in fantasy land....

 

[bjtc_brian]

I'm not on here to win, I would just people have both sides of the story. I just don't like to see threads like this start without someone sticking up for the ranchers. I really don't have the time or energy to be doing it, hence why I don't do it very often. Been a long couple weeks at work and needed somewhere to vent about something I guess. Hopefully some day we will meet up out on an hunt and share fun stories instead of all this hogwash.

If anything, you have way more experience in this than I do.

 

[bjtc_brian]

Its pretty tough to debate with someone that actually believes elk do more riparian damage than cattle.

I'm sure its true in fantasy land....

And your so easy to debate against when these are your comments.

"It gets old listening to ranchers whine and complain how they cant make money, how much the federal leases are, how they want welfare reform, blah, blah, blah...yet feed at the same government trough as any other welfare recipient."

Lots of information there, thanks for the great discussion!

 

[6speed]

You are an idiot, with all due respect. I am a staunch supporter of capitalism and the free market, unlike you with your communist/socialist ideas of allocating public resources for the production of the nation's food sources.

My family has ran cattle on private deeded acres for generations, never needing to have government welfare like the Welfare Ranchers running their cattle on My Public Lands.

Ah yes once again the troubled childhood issues lash out at someone who doesn't agree with your very single minded view of the way the world should work. I am not an idiot, communist or socialist. I would say I am in fact a realist. I know in your dream world the government doesn't offer subsidies and bunnys crap jelly beans and butterflys fart fairy dust but in reality if the government were to shut down all subsidies to food producers the national economy would fail, a lot of people would go hungry and we would become even more dependent on foreign aid. I have wondered how bad it would get for people with no way to support themselves in such a scenario. In fact I wonder, how much food can you grow if it all changed tomorrow? The price of corn would be the main catalyst. Then it's effect on livestock feeding and production. I would be ok as I have a big area for a garden and plenty of beef for a while but how about you? Could you afford to pay the prices needed if food were to be produced in a truly free market? Could you defend against the masses who couldn't? The sheer number of people who could not afford to buy food nor produce it for themselves would be apocalyptic. How would My Public Lands look after a year or two of that kind of change.

In reality the system needs fixed and someday an agricultural economy that survives solely on the free market would be great but there are several million people living in places like LA, NYC, and even Boise that are standing in the way.

 

[jmcd]

I love it when the "subsidy finger" gets pointed around by the usual dbags on this and a few other sites. Gets me to thinking.... How much do all you "sportsmen" pay to use public land? What would comparable cost on private lands be? Does the Forest Svc, BLM, etc. make or lose taxpayer money managing recreation? If you own the public wildlife, does the public pay all costs associated them? Was there a group of cowboy bullies that use to roam Missoula and the Root giving wedgies to shoot straight and Buzz? Never seen grown men with such a hard on against someone.....

 

[1_pointer]

You and I both know that the RMPs that are over 20 years old are the biggest problems.... You have callouses from days spent in front of a copier machine to confirm that.

In some cases that may very well be the case. Where I worked, the RMPs were all older than 20yrs and in all cases, IMO, provided plenty of latitude and options for management that would allow for better conditions. The biggest glaring hole in those were the travel plans as they were written prior to the proliferation of ATVs. However, that could often be dealt with in an activity level decision.

Please give some examples of these overarching changes that would be prevented from occuring without an new RMP? I'd be curious to here it.

 

[1_pointer]

Maintenance....impressive.

Would you agree that $1.35 is a joke? What is a fair price in your opinion? Any guesses on what the Federal gov't makes from permitting these grazing permits? I am not anti-grazing, but from a pure business standpoint, this is a joke....unless you are lucky enough to "own" a permit. In my area I know of no permittee that has dropped a dollar for a livestock pit or any fencing material.

I know pointer has been involved with this issue more than me and may have different opinions. I would like to hear more from him. Come on Tyler, UT must be different than northern MT.

IMO, installation of infrastructure should often include a cost share of some form and in many cases that's what we'd do on projects I was involved with. Most often we'd supply the materials and the permittee would provide labor for installation. Or in the case of water developments, they owned the water rights, so that would be their in kind contribution. Maintenance was almost always asssigned to the range user. Notable exceptions were for things that required quite a bit of engineering (wells, pumps, etc). If these things are not happening in northern MT that's easily solved.

Funding for range improvements (not all of these are infrastructure) should, again IMO, only be paid for by money generated through grazing reciepts (you know the fund code). That's what it is there for. If that is not generating enough money for a given project, there is nothing to say that the applicant can't bring extra funds to the table from either their own pocket or from other groups. I have worked on projects with joint funding from a variety of sources ranging from Rancher Bob's checkbook to a whole suite of alphabet soup NGO's and state/local agencies. Better management is just that better and it's not too hard to find cooperators to make sure you can do better.

Regarding the grazing fees; I'd agree that they are probably too low. Only way to change that would be to get a low passed to over-ride PRIA. That takes an act of Congress, so I feel like it's pretty much a moot point. I am more interested in effective and proper management than balancing the book on the use. Heck, IME there is hardly any commercial enterprise on public lands that I've dealt with that isn't cheaper there than on private lands. As part of an interdisciplinary team working on an application for a wind farm the applicant stated openly that the reason they were applying to put it on BLM was that it was cheaper and easier than putting in on adjacent private.

PS- Thanks for putting own in quotation marks as one does not own a permit, they might have preference for one though...

 

[1_pointer]

On the cattle vs. elk thing; IMO which does "more" damage is irrelevant. I think the first thing folks need to admit is that each can do damage to streambanks. I worked with a ranch that resorted to leasing some ground to sheep, which are often much easier than either cattle or elk on streams, in an effort to getting the elk moving off of their wet meadows and streambanks. The elk were putting them in just as rough shape as cattle could have and cattle hadn't been ran on this part of the ranch much in the last 20yrs. It boils down to management. If given proper management one can have healthy streams, viable livestock grazing and abundant wildlife populations. The sticky part is getting folks to agree on what "proper" management is!

PS- I told myself I wouldn't post on this thread. I guess I've shown the willpower that's allowed me to get so fat...

 

[Wapiti Warrior]

My biggest complaint is the cattle are moved off public land during hunting season (archery). This pushes all animals away for weeks. I do believe we need to subsidize ranching/farming, they are the ones feeding this world! I would like to see more patrolling of public land to ensure the cattle are not overgrazing. I think with just a few changes this argument would not be such a hot issue.

John

 

[mtmiller]

Regarding the grazing fees; I'd agree that they are probably too low. Only way to change that would be to get a low passed to over-ride PRIA. That takes an act of Congress, so I feel like it's pretty much a moot point. I am more interested in effective and proper management than balancing the book on the use.

Typical gov't worker.

Heck, IME there is hardly any commercial enterprise on public lands that I've dealt with that isn't cheaper there than on private lands. As part of an interdisciplinary team working on an application for a wind farm the applicant stated openly that the reason they were applying to put it on BLM was that it was cheaper and easier than putting in on adjacent private.

Exactly the opposite up here.

PS- Thanks for putting own in quotation marks as one does not own a permit, they might have preference for one though...

I know, just stating how many permittees feel. Is there a value on permit when selling a ranch?