Owyhee Initiative for Dummies

[Nemont]

EG,

Make the connection again, for me, that cattle grazing is destroying the hunting. I asked this before this: area has been grazed for 80 years and the hunting has been bad for how long? If the two point rule has been in force for the past 10 to 15 years how has grazing been the sole reason for the decline in the quality of hunting.

I want some grazing on MY PUBLIC LAND, where it makes sense. So I don't know who I will support.

Nemont

 

[JoseCuervo]

Nemont,

I don't need the connection. I have two mutually exclusive concerns.

I hunt, therfore, I want better hunting in the Owyhees. Cows, ATVs, Roads, Cheet Grass, doesn't matter, fix the problems so I have better hunting.

I own cows on private pasture, therfore, I don't want my competitors paying $1.35 to feed their cows on MY PUBLIC LANDS. I don't want to be paying outrageous salaries to the 1-Pointers of the world to managed grazing, further increasing my tax burden to the federal government.

Just call me "undecided".... and "unbiased"...

 

[Ten Bears]

EG, I'm LMAO @ how big an @rse you can make of yourself, with so few words.

I hunt, therfore, I want better hunting in the Owyhees. Cows, ATVs, Roads, Cheet Grass, doesn't matter, fix the problems so I have better hunting.

EG, basically you're saying you know what you want, but you don't know how to get it, and your problem is caused by somebody else, so you want everybody that doesn't think and act like you removed. Therefore, you want everthing changed, hoping that something will benefit you. Isn't that like the old adage: If you throw enough sh!t at the wall, some of its gotta stick.?????? Didn't you & IT post earlier under other topics that public land grazers were a small portion of the beef market, and therefore of no competition?

[ 04-16-2004, 10:50: Message edited by: Ten Bears ]

 

[Nemont]

EG,

I don't need the connection. I have two mutually exclusive concerns.

I hunt, therfore, I want better hunting in the Owyhees. Cows, ATVs, Roads, Cheet Grass, doesn't matter, fix the problems so I have better hunting.

1. To fix a problem don't you have to first know if it is a problem. If you don't have a connection to why the hunting quality has declined, how do you know that removing any of those items will greatly improve the hunting?

I own cows on private pasture, therfore, I don't want my competitors paying $1.35 to feed their cows on MY PUBLIC LANDS. I don't want to be paying outrageous salaries to the 1-Pointers of the world to managed grazing, further increasing my tax burden to the federal government

2. Well, on MY PUBLIC LAND I would rather have ranchers out there. You have a right to not graze public lands but my family, and all those who have grazing allotments, want to graze it because we do it right. I hunt and I want MY PUBLIC LANDS open to hunters and available for my children but I don't want it all just for myself. That is the part that the conservation and environmental groups can't see. WWP is a prime example of this.

Just call me "undecided".... and "unbiased"...

Those are two words that never come to my mind when I read your posts.

Nemont

 

[JoseCuervo]

Nemont,

In the Owyhees as in many parts of the West, poorly managed grazing and historic overgrazing have left hundreds of miles of desert streams in poor condition, suffering from poor water quality and high temperatures that threaten rare redband trout and other aquatic life. Ranchers say they are reversing the trends and beginning to improve range and wetland conditions.

The complaints of Tim Lowry, a rancher who lives on the Oregon border, were typical. He said he and his neighbors have been forced to take their cattle off the range early by environmentalists’ lawsuits. Now, he has to scramble to find more expensive private ground to keep his herds during the late summer. He’s not sure how long he can hang on.

Lowry wants a better system of fences and reservoirs so his cattle don’t camp in the creeks and are easier to manage. But because the range is in a wilderness study area, such development is banned. He said if groups like the Wilderness Society and the Sierra Club agreed to a fair scientific review and his minor developments -- which could be allowed under the Wilderness Act -- he’d be ready to make the range a permanent wilderness area.

Here is Lowry telling us all that the Private pasture is too expensive, and will force him out of business. Why should I feel bad for one of my competitors having to pay "free market" rates on private pasture? Isn't that the American way, where we all risk our capital and assets to make a buck? I do want to see him go out of business, so that when I take Cattle into the sale yard in Caldwell, I don't have him unloading the same day, depressing my prices for our few local buyers. I think our local supply could use a few less producers, and certainly the producers who feed their cattle on MY PUBLIC LANDS.

Just call me "undecided"..."unbiased" and "open-minded"....

 

[Nemont]

Here is Lowry telling us all that the Private pasture is too expensive, and will force him out of business. Why should I feel bad for one of my competitors having to pay "free market" rates on private pasture? Isn't that the American way, where we all risk our capital and assets to make a buck? I do want to see him go out of business, so that when I take Cattle into the sale yard in Caldwell, I don't have him unloading the same day, depressing my prices for our few local buyers. I think our local supply could use a few less producers, and certainly the producers who feed their cattle on MY PUBLIC LANDS

I have never asked you for any sympathy regarding producers who graze public lands. I believe in the free market as well.
I guess I have never gotten to the point of wishing my competition was out of business I just went out and out competed them with a better product and better service.

Nemont

 

[Ten Bears]

So, your antigrazing agenda is based in you own greed.

As I posted before:

EG, basically you're saying you know what you want, but you don't know how to get it, and your problem is caused by somebody else, so you want everybody that doesn't think and act like you removed. Therefore, you want everthing changed, hoping that something will benefit you. Isn't that like the old adage: If you throw enough sh!t at the wall, some of its gotta stick.?????? Didn't you & IT post earlier under other topics that public land grazers were a small portion of the beef market, and therefore of no competition?

Now we see that there is a market competition issue...... How many more lies have you told here?

 

[BuzzH]

Ten beers,

Gunner has stated the same thing many, many, times.

You seem to think its A-OK for the greed of the welfare ranchers, but when Gunner plays the same game, then its not OK?

Come on now, stay consistant.

Nemont said, "I guess I have never gotten to the point of wishing my competition was out of business I just went out and out competed them with a better product and better service."

I agree, and paying 1/10th as much for the items you need to provide that service, compared to what your competition pays for the same items, doesnt hurt your chances to out-compete them either...does it?

 

[JoseCuervo]

Originally posted by Nemont:

I believe in the free market as well.

I guess I have never gotten to the point of wishing my competition was out of business I just went out and out competed them with a better product and better service.

Nemont

Would your beliefs in the "free market" extend to competitive bids on grazing leases??? The cattleman's association over in Idaho has fought those, tooth and nail.

How do you compete with a better product and service on a commodity? By definition, my beef is the same as your family's. (assuming similar grades/sizes). The only way right now, is to work on the niches, (drug free, certified Angus, Marketing Co-Ops).

And why wouldn't you want your competition out of business? Do you just want to out compete with them, and have them hang around as weak players? And have the gov't throw them bail-outs every so often????

 

[JoseCuervo]

Originally posted by Ten Bears:
So, your antigrazing agenda is based in you own greed.

Now we see that there is a market competition issue...... How many more lies have you told here?

Yeppers Ten, when I risk my capital, I expect to make a return on my investment. That is one of the things they will likely teach you in a couple of years, when you get to 5th grade.

Just what sort of Socialism are you advocating where people don't try and maximize the return on their capital???

 

[Ten Bears]

Would your beliefs in the "free market" extend to competitive bids on grazing leases??? The cattleman's association over in Idaho has fought those, tooth and nail.

So, rather then fight for competative bidding, you have decided to opt for eliminating a resource?

You seem to think its A-OK for the greed of the welfare ranchers, but when Gunner plays the same game, then its not OK?

No, I see it as some have gone the mile to attain/retain grazing leases, and others that have't want them revoked. I see it as an issue of "you've got yours, but I can't have yours, so I'll try to find somebody else (insert bully tactics) to take yours from you."

 

[Nemont]

Would your beliefs in the "free market" extend to competitive bids on grazing leases??? The cattleman's association over in Idaho has fought those, tooth and nail.

How do you compete with a better product and service on a commodity? By definition, my beef is the same as your family's. (assuming similar grades/sizes). The only way right now, is to work on the niches, (drug free, certified Angus, Marketing Co-Ops).

And why wouldn't you want your competition out of business? Do you just want to out compete with them, and have them hang around as weak players? And have the gov't throw them bail-outs every so often????

I would have no problem with competitive bidding on grazing leases. I think I have stated before that the price per AUM is not high enough.

If your own private Idaho cattle are superior to those who spend some of their time on public land wouldn't the consumer figure that out?

EG, let me ask you this question: why does the federal government continue to lease these land out for grazing? (I think you have stated on this forum or one of the anti grazing people have said that the majority of Americans support less grazing) we in Montana and Idaho have very little political clout in Washington D.C. why has it not stopped if the majority of people don't like it?

Nemont

 

[Ithaca 37]

Nemont, I think the short answer is most people don't realize what a destructive welfare give away it is. Some of the Easterners who post on Hunt Talk had no idea about welfare ranching until we started exposing it here in SI.

The Cattlemen's Association is quite politically powerful, plus you've got the big corporations that are getting most of the welfare grazing benefits. Listen to Idaho Sen. Larry Craig squeal whenever anyone mentions welfare ranching in Washington, DC! They've got him right in their back pocket.

 

[Ten Bears]

"Some of the Easterners who post on Hunt Talk had no idea about welfare ranching until we started exposing it here in SI."

IT, if they took what you have to say about it at face value, they still don't know.

 

[JoseCuervo]

Originally posted by Ten Bears:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />"Some of the Easterners who post on Hunt Talk had no idea about welfare ranching until we started exposing it here in SI."

IT, if they took what you have to say about it at face value, they still don't know. </font>[/QUOTE]Ten,
All of the Easterners who made it into 4th grade would understand what we are talking about. Don't assume everybody struggles with the 3rd grade like you do...

 

[Ithaca 37]

Watch for a guest editorial by Russ Heughins of IWF soon on the OI. Hunters got sold out by the ICL.

 

[Muledeer4me]

"Although Gunner and MD4me are both Friends (To me that is, they could cut each others eyes our ), I could care less of their thoughts if I thought they were wrong.

What I'm doing is learning more about each procces and figureing out for myself how I and D.H.I. stands as a club onthis issue. We're nothing magic and won't be the Swing vote either way but we are surely jumping on the side that makes sense."


Right on moosie.
I have friends on both sides of this issue.
It's up to each one of us to learn every thing we can about both side's and decide what we think is best.
Not to be badgered and belittled into taking up someone side because we are to chicken chit to make up are own mind's.
There is good and bad on each side of this coin.

I have had the pleasure of meeting Tim Lowry and his parent's, you wont find a nicer family . While they were going through a tough time dealing with Jon Marvel and his greenie org. I never once heard them say the type of thing's Elkgunner & Ithaca has said about rancher's,not even close.

Seeing how the two side's refer to each other sure give's one an idea of what each are made of,and I know the Lowry's have a larger stake in the out come yet they didn't stoop to the low's that some folks have.

 

[JoseCuervo]

Seeing how the two side's refer to each other sure give's one an idea of what each are made of,and I know the Lowry's have a larger stake in the out come yet they didn't stoop to the low's that some folks have.

Oh please.... I have heard Marvel called every name in the book by the some of the fine upstanding ranchers in Owyhee county. For being so far from the ocean, they all talk like they have been in the Navy... That is funny as Hell to think that the Welfare Ranchers down there take the high ground.

The ranchers down there are not Saints, they are no better nor worse than any group of people. You have good people, people that pretty much carry the school down there due to the lack of school funding by Kempthorne and the Republican Legislature. You have people down there that work hard to keep the Catholic church down there vibrant. You have guys down there who poach huge Elk, and then go back to town and brag about it. (Remember them??? Weren't they off the ranches?)

Don't try and throw some Pity Party out there for the "oppressed" Marloboro men. There's good, there's bad, but no different than any "population".

 

[Nemont]

An angry man


When Marvel began his nonprofit Idaho Watersheds Project, it was clear that he harbored a monumental grudge. In the fall of 1994, Marvel attended a grazing fee meeting in Park City, Utah, and proceeded to call all the ranchers and agency people in the room "categorical liars."


"Does that include me?" asked moderator Bob Armstrong, assistant secretary for the Department of the Interior.


Marvel didn’t flinch: "Yes, that includes you."


Before Armstrong could say anything, everyone in the room turned on Marvel, expressing their outrage. He later apologized.


But he probably wasn’t very sorry. He admits that his brash approach to dealing with politicians and agency officials is intentional. He says he figures he won’t change federal and state grazing policy by being Mr. Nice Guy.


Marvel’s attitude, however, can be so alienating that he hurts his cause. In a 1995 Land Board meeting, he stuck out his tongue at Idaho Controller J.D. Williams when he was denied the right to bid on a grazing lease.


Marvel continues to shout insults at federal agency staffers across a room or he calls them names on the phone, several sources say. On the other hand, he also has spies in the agencies who help him.


"He may burn more bridges than he crosses," says Armstrong, who recently retired to Austin, Texas. "He does that at some peril if he hopes to make things happen."

Well, EG Jon Marvel is no saint either. If someone treated me that way I most likely wouldn't work hard to include him in many meetings either.
I am surprised that you march in lock step with him when on his website his stated goal is to "destabilize" the entire livestock industry. Apparently you think that doesn't include the part of the industry which grazes on private land.

Nemont

 

[JoseCuervo]

But he probably wasn’t very sorry. He admits that his brash approach to dealing with politicians and agency officials is intentional. He says he figures he won’t change federal and state grazing policy by being Mr. Nice Guy.

That is well known by all people, on both sides of the issues. Remember, you gotta break a few eggs to make an omelette. Many disagree with his tactics, and advise him otherwise, but none disagree with his effectiveness.

Look what happened on the Owyhee Initiative, with the ICL, Sierrra, and WS trying to be nice and polite, sharing cookies with each other. We ended up with Wilderness being re-defined to allow motorized access, unlimited development for "ranching" in the wilderness, proposing to set a precedent where the Feds pay ranchers for leases, and releasing 200k acres from studying.

Tell me how anything was gained by the OI process, for anybody but ranchers. What did HUNTERS gain in the process? We got nothing. And if I have to support Marvel to get better hunting, I have no problem doing so.