BigHornRam
Well-known member
Kevin Hurley is a good guy to have looking into this mess.
More domestics and bighorns
- Thread starter mtmiller
- Start date
Good info, Kat. I was trying to remember why the name Frank Robbins was so familiar.
I was in the process of adding a bunch of info here when the page froze and I lost it. Heading to Reno for the Wild Sheep Foundation convention early tomorrow morning, so if I don't get around to it late tonight, it will have to wait until next week.
I was in the process of adding a bunch of info here when the page froze and I lost it. Heading to Reno for the Wild Sheep Foundation convention early tomorrow morning, so if I don't get around to it late tonight, it will have to wait until next week.
opyff
New member
What is it about sheep ranchers and them getting away with such poor conservation practices on public land? In SW Wyoming we have a few of them that any time someone brings up their poor conservation practices either on the BLM or Forest, you'd half expect a black suburban to show up and whisk them off to some far away prison. I can't see the point of protecting a domestic critter that you can hardly go to your local grocery store and find in the meat department, to the extent that the BLM and FS has done. I have really been hoping that the federal gov't would have embraced the same stance that the Payette NF in ID took on this issue.
katqanna
Well-known member
Oak, I just got off the phone with Kevin Hurley who is already down there about a copy of the FOIA'd letter, to make it available since it wasnt on either the main Wild Sheep Foundation website, nor the Wyoming page to link to. It may be after he gets back before I receive it though he thinks a copy is on his laptop. Nothing like reading it from the horses mouth.
teamhoyt
Well-known member
I have personally met Frank, once at his house and I talked to him on the phone a few times about hunting elk on his property. He has allowed me to hunt, but he most certainly will do whatever he can to get his own way. I don't know if its true or not but I had heard that the reason he moved to Wyoming is because his parents kicked him out of the house and they pay him a large sum of money to keep him from coming back! Sure makes sense when you look at his actions and sense of entitlement.
There exists a science-based model to assess the risk of contact between domestic sheep (DS) and bighorn sheep (BHS) when domestics are managed within or adjacent to bighorn habitat. That peer reviewed model was developed jointly by the USFS and BLM using bighorn sheep telemetry data from the Payette NF, which is perhaps the largest set of data for a BHS metapopulation in existence. You can read more about it here:
http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1264&context=usdafsfacpub
http://www.critigen.com/blog/protecting-bighorn-sheep-repeatable-gis-analysis
The model has withstood judicial review:
http://news.wildlife.org/featured/decision-to-remove-sheep-from-national-forest-upheld/
Many BHS advocates are urging the land management agencies to use this model to analyze risk to BHS when making DS management decisions. Despite the fact that the agencies created the Risk of Contact Tool, there is no directive in either agency for managers to use the model at the local level.
I will give a personal example of how, like in the linked article of the original post, managers seem to be stifling staff that want to do the right thing.
A BLM unit in Big Sheep County, AnyWesternState, USA has been working on a Resource Management Plan for the last several years. In late 2012, they began to work on the DS grazing portion of the RMP by creating their own “Probability of Interaction” (POI) model to assess the risk DS pose to the BHS in the BLM unit. While the national Risk of Contact (ROC) tool was nearly finalized, it had not been published yet (Jan. 2013).
The problem was that the POI was largely not based in science, included many very false assumptions, and was not supported by Colorado Parks and Wildlife, BHS advocates or even BLM staff at the State or Washington, DC level. Once the ROC model was published in 2013, all stakeholders on the BHS side asked the BLM to switch models, which they were unwilling to do. The disagreement over use of the POI model continues to date. I was even told by the Field Office Manager over a year ago that if I felt strongly about the issue, that I should attend a Big Sheep County Commissioner’s meeting and explain to the commissioners that I feel like bighorn sheep are more important than a domestic sheep industry in their county.
I attended a BLM kickoff scoping meeting this summer in Big Sheep County for analysis and renewal of many domestic sheep allotments in an adjacent BLM unit to the one mentioned above. Attendees of the meeting were primarily BLM employees, domestic sheep producers, Big Sheep County Commissioners and CPW employees.
After the formal meeting concluded, I had a conversation with the BLM Field Office Manager, and I explained that my concern would be that they use the national ROC model rather than the POI model used in the adjacent BLM unit’s RMP. She replied to me, “I don’t understand that. I don’t understand what the problem is with our local model.”
She said that the ROC model "just produces numbers" which she does not understand and are not defensible. She said that she has been through enough court cases that she now makes sure she can defend an analysis before signing her name to it. She said, "I would rather stand in front of a judge and defend our local model than to defend the [ROC] model." (Keep in mind that the ROC model has already been successfully defended, per the link above.)
She then asked me what I would expect them to do after an analysis using the ROC model. I told her that I would expect them to not graze DS in areas of high risk of contact with BHS. She said, "do you realize that would put every sheep rancher in this room out of business? Is that what you want?"
I told her that I felt the either/or argument was a false choice, and that they should be looking at analysis on a larger scale to find lower risk areas to move DS, look at change in class of livestock, etc. She said, "you expect me to tell these people that they have to move 2 states away if they want to keep raising domestic sheep?"
She then went on to tell me that the domestic sheep industry was much more valuable to Big Sheep County and the region than bighorn sheep: "The sheep industry probably means $1 billion to this region."
Now you tell me...do you think I can ever expect a decision from this BLM office that favors BHS over DS? The deck is stacked against BHS, and nothing will change unless someone is willing to challenge the management decisions being made.
http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1264&context=usdafsfacpub
http://www.critigen.com/blog/protecting-bighorn-sheep-repeatable-gis-analysis
The model has withstood judicial review:
http://news.wildlife.org/featured/decision-to-remove-sheep-from-national-forest-upheld/
Many BHS advocates are urging the land management agencies to use this model to analyze risk to BHS when making DS management decisions. Despite the fact that the agencies created the Risk of Contact Tool, there is no directive in either agency for managers to use the model at the local level.
I will give a personal example of how, like in the linked article of the original post, managers seem to be stifling staff that want to do the right thing.
A BLM unit in Big Sheep County, AnyWesternState, USA has been working on a Resource Management Plan for the last several years. In late 2012, they began to work on the DS grazing portion of the RMP by creating their own “Probability of Interaction” (POI) model to assess the risk DS pose to the BHS in the BLM unit. While the national Risk of Contact (ROC) tool was nearly finalized, it had not been published yet (Jan. 2013).
The problem was that the POI was largely not based in science, included many very false assumptions, and was not supported by Colorado Parks and Wildlife, BHS advocates or even BLM staff at the State or Washington, DC level. Once the ROC model was published in 2013, all stakeholders on the BHS side asked the BLM to switch models, which they were unwilling to do. The disagreement over use of the POI model continues to date. I was even told by the Field Office Manager over a year ago that if I felt strongly about the issue, that I should attend a Big Sheep County Commissioner’s meeting and explain to the commissioners that I feel like bighorn sheep are more important than a domestic sheep industry in their county.
I attended a BLM kickoff scoping meeting this summer in Big Sheep County for analysis and renewal of many domestic sheep allotments in an adjacent BLM unit to the one mentioned above. Attendees of the meeting were primarily BLM employees, domestic sheep producers, Big Sheep County Commissioners and CPW employees.
After the formal meeting concluded, I had a conversation with the BLM Field Office Manager, and I explained that my concern would be that they use the national ROC model rather than the POI model used in the adjacent BLM unit’s RMP. She replied to me, “I don’t understand that. I don’t understand what the problem is with our local model.”
She said that the ROC model "just produces numbers" which she does not understand and are not defensible. She said that she has been through enough court cases that she now makes sure she can defend an analysis before signing her name to it. She said, "I would rather stand in front of a judge and defend our local model than to defend the [ROC] model." (Keep in mind that the ROC model has already been successfully defended, per the link above.)
She then asked me what I would expect them to do after an analysis using the ROC model. I told her that I would expect them to not graze DS in areas of high risk of contact with BHS. She said, "do you realize that would put every sheep rancher in this room out of business? Is that what you want?"
I told her that I felt the either/or argument was a false choice, and that they should be looking at analysis on a larger scale to find lower risk areas to move DS, look at change in class of livestock, etc. She said, "you expect me to tell these people that they have to move 2 states away if they want to keep raising domestic sheep?"
She then went on to tell me that the domestic sheep industry was much more valuable to Big Sheep County and the region than bighorn sheep: "The sheep industry probably means $1 billion to this region."
Now you tell me...do you think I can ever expect a decision from this BLM office that favors BHS over DS? The deck is stacked against BHS, and nothing will change unless someone is willing to challenge the management decisions being made.
Nemont
Well-known member
I don't believe for a second that the Rancher is a victim however this article makes the Wyoming BLM and the BLM's upper management out to be less than stellar stewards of the lands they are entrusted to manage.
Not certain that the government can demand he not graze sheep on his private deeded lands, they sure can tell him to keep them off of BLM lands.
Buzz: You can be dumb and still own lands. They are not mutually exclusive.
Not certain that the government can demand he not graze sheep on his private deeded lands, they sure can tell him to keep them off of BLM lands.
Buzz: You can be dumb and still own lands. They are not mutually exclusive.
.280 Remington
New member
- Joined
- Aug 21, 2012
- Messages
- 285
When federal government goons and welfare ranchers collide, there's no doubt fault on both sides!!!
jryoung
Well-known member
Good stuff Oak, thanks for posting that.
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