🚀 go-pugleaf

J ropin 1 (jropin1@aol.com) wrote:
: Doug, where are you getting your information buddy???

: Have you seen this "destruction", or just read about it somewhere? I am so
: sick and tired of people believing this crap about how cattle are
: destroying the land.  And I'm real tired of this "welfare cowboy" crap.

I'm not Doug, but I've seen it.

: Subsidized how?

: When we run cattle on public land, we pay the AUM which is lower than what
: we pay a private lessee, but that person does all the labor, maintains the
: fences, keeps the water going, feeds the mineral etc.etc.etc.

Let's see.  AUMs went for just over $2 in the late 1970s.  It has
now been dropped to $1.6x (I forget the "x").  If AUMs had kept
pace with inflation, they'd cost...what...$3.50? $4?

So you're paying, in real dollars, 1/3 to 1/2 of what was paid
in the late 1970s.

And whatever you say about all that labor and stuff (gee, I work
at my job, too) ... revenues don't meet expenses in BLM grazing
programs.

That be a fact, boy - you can look it up.  If revenue doesn't
meet expenses, it be a subsidy in my book.

: On public land's, we, the permitee, maintains and improves on that land.
: The water and mineral we provide for our cattle attract wildlife. That's
: period...because it is the TRUTH. Wildlife graze with cattle ALL THE TIME.

Some wildlife, that is.  Wildlife is more than just deer and pronghorn.

Shoot any coyote lately?

Ever hear of sagegrouse, which have crashed throughout Oregon
and Washington due to the change in plant communities brought
about by cattle grazing?

: I am a good range manager as are all cattleman who are still in
: the business.

You may be, but to claim all cattlemen are is patently false.

Even the cowboys I talk to would disagree with that statement.
Spoke to one who works on Roaring Springs Ranch in SE Oregon
who said he could see why conservationists are pissed at the
way cattle are run by the owner, because the owner just doesn't
give a s**t about the land.  He said he's even spoken to  the
owner, but when it comes down to it, "I get paid $30 to run cows
and I've got a daughter, and I just can't afford to piss him off
and lose my job".

: Anyone who is stating that our rangelands are being ruined by cattle
: grazing is full of shit, ignorant of the fact's and probably brainwashed
: by their environmental magazines and groups who tell them lies. 

Right!  Hundreds of wildlife biologists and range ecologists and
soils scientists can't be right!  Why, all that research is flat
out wrong, every last bit of it!  Just like gravity - what a
bunch of scientific bullshit!  And, gee, the earth's really
flat, too!

Why, you c'boys are the TRUE environmentalists.  Why, the ranchers
REALLY know how the range works!

Why, Ed Davis, the manager of the Alvord Ranch, must truly know
more about desert ecology than biologists and conservationists.

(Don and a state biologist surveying snowy plover on the Alvord
 Desert - one of the largest colonies in the state.  Ed drives
 up to us)

Ed: "Watcha all doing?"
state bio: "oh, we're doing our annual snowy plover survey"
Ed: "oh, you're wasting your time, I've lived here most of my
     life and NOTHING lives out there"

Gee, we counted about 180 mythical snowy plover that day.

Ed "really knows the land" Davis knows far more than me,
ya betcha!

My personal experience is that ranch people know a lot about
ranching, about forage, etc but much, much less about range
or desert ecology than they believe they know.

And I've talked to dozens...

: Maybe 100
: years ago the land was abused, but this is 1995 and for a long time now
: ranchers have become educated on positive range management (Holistic
: Resource Management).

There is no doubt that range managed has improved greatly, I'll
grant you that much.

: Why in the hell would we want to ruin the land which
: we love, and that feeds our families also?? How can you think this, it
: doesn't make a bit of sense.

OK.  Let's talk about crested wheatgrass plantings.  These certainly
don't "ruin the land" in the sense of feeding your family, there
is no doubt that conversion of sage to crested wheatgrass increases
available forage for cows (I might add, to the subsidy argument,
that such BLM planting in Oregon at least ARE PAYED FOR BY THE
TAXPAYER, NOT THE LEASEHOLDER AND ARE AFTERWARDS RENTED FOR THE
SAME LOW AUM RATE).  But such plantings are horrid for wildlife.
Even deer aren't fond of the stuff, and bird species diversity
drops to damned near one - about all you see are horned larks.


: And I am not going to give up my dreams and
: my lifestyle for people who are ignorant of the facts, AND many who will
: never even see this land they are trying to "save"!

I own as much a share in our federal land as you do, buddy.

Folks have to change to meet the times in all walks of life, why
should cattlemen be exempted from the realities of life and of
a changing society?

: Overgrazing is not profitable to us, but undergrazing is not healthy for
: the land either.

Hmmm.  I keep hearing this.  I live and work up to a 1/3 of the
year in the Great Basin, sage country, and it wasn't grazed
naturally before cows (no buffalo, prongies and deer are browsers,
not grazers, and that is not a hypothetical distinction).

Are you stating that the natural sage steppe community has been
improved by cattle grazing?

Would you care to be specific?

--

- Don Baccus -