Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Over-Grazing of Public Lands in the West

Grazing can be the best prevention for wildfire. We never had fires like we do now 30 yrs ago, BLM had 1-2 firefighters in our county back then, now there's a fleet of trucks & firefighters standing by. Vegetation gets eaten or burned, the first puts some $ back, the 2nd costs a hell of a lot more. Around here ranchers take it upon themselves to maintain water sources, doesn't cost taxpayers a dime.

Stepping in a cowpie ruins your day? It's grass & water, dude. Don't eat it.

And no, I'm no rancher.

I've got an idea. Get the Federal Government out of the "public" land business. All problems solved. (Except the cry babies that want something free, of course.)

Cows, not condos.

YOU GOT THAT WRIGHT!!

I am under the impression that The Taylor Grazing Act of 1934 makes it the responsibility of the BLM to manage public grazing lands for sustained yield.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taylor_Grazing_Act_of_1934

KC

The public lands need to be under local control.

Some people and even politicians "Get it".

http://thearizonasentinel.com/2011/08/28/taking-our-country-back-one-county-at-a-time/

I know of at least one situation where private management (or the lack of management) of public grazing was a miserable failure. Photos of North Park Colorado taken in the 1890s show endless acres of healthy grass. Thirty years later all the grass was gone, over-grazed by cattlemen competing for the free use of public land without restrictions. Most of North Park is today covered with sage and yucca. That's what has replaced the grass. It may never return to its' former health.

KC

OP must have gone out and stepped in a fresh cow pie

Just more pills and booze.. He does it all the time.

Where ever I have been on Fed lands they have Range Cons that go out and ck the range . If they determine it does not have enough graze left they tell the grazer to get the animals off. The NFS has rangers that ,if they see animals on fed land that are not supposed to be there they will get a hold of the owners and demand they take them off.

Cheat grass was accidentally introduced in the 1860's and the whole west changed. It has a deep root system that draws water from way down leaving inadequate water for native plants so it grows profusely while native plants suffer. It's an annual that dries off before anything else, in July, and leaves dense masses of tinder. When a fire gets started, it almost explodes with intense heat that kills the natives, including sagebrush. The cheat seeds survive the fires and the next year are the only thing left to grow.
It's only edible to animals in the early part of the growing season. Experiments have shown that intense grazing early in the season will reduce the mass considerably so when a fire gets going, the fuel is much less, keeping the temperatures down to where native plants can survive it. Controlled grazing is actually SAVING the range, not destroying it.

Rockchucker,
you're right about that dmned cheat grass. It can only be eaten very young, it all greens up about the same time, and takes very intense grazing to wipe it out.

That's the tough part, right there. Controlling means MONEY, either to wages or fencing. The old model of cows out on their own, was pretty cheap.

That's what did in the Savory Grazing Method which was sold as the savior of the world. It just took so much money, year after year, to build fences, repair them, and move animals all the time.

Also, factor in some of the West is damned dry in a good year, beef hasn't gone up in price near as much as everything a rancher needs, (jeans, boots, employees, trucks, diesel)there is a lot of pressure to keep animals on.

weather changes faster than size of your herd, prices are down when everyone is selling, prices to buy are up when everyone is buying (to re-stock).

There are definitely places in Arizona where ranchers get water improvement by the NRCS, road mtc by the County and the FS, grassland improvement by the FS, etc.

It was a hard way to make a living when you only went to town once a month. It's a lot harder to try and sustain a modern lifestyle, off of cows on public land.

Sycamore

Spend a season chasing upland birds on public land and you get to see all sides of this argument.
You can always tell the sections of public land, they are grazed into the dirt. It is less apparent in some areas, which is a testament to good stewardship, but overall the public land is treated much worse that the surrounding private.

Stock has to be removed from public land by a certain date, around Oct 1 in this area. A lot of ranchers save their private land to give the stock a place to graze during the winter. So, it does look better during hunting season. By spring, though, the private land will be grazed off while the public is coming back.
It doesn't make sense for a rancher to misuse his summer grazing land whether he owns it or just leases it. If he abuses it, it won't produce the forage he needs next year.

I never said overgrazing leased public ground makes sense, just that it is apparent.

this, lots of cows grazing on the BLM and such we hunt.....the land is in as good a shape as can be expected for that country....yeah to someone notfamiliar alot of it looks like chit, but its gonna look like chit whether there are cows or not cause it high clay/low organics and low rainfall.....even with nothing grazing out there its not gonna produce much.....that would be why there arent a ton of cows out there, land can only support so much and atleast up here the ranchers do a pretty darn good job on managing...

Strip. you are an ignorant puke. Member of NWF, I bet. And I bet you are all sweetness and light around ranchers when you're trying to get information on where the deer is. Hypocrite.
And Back, you need to brain up a little too. Something has to eat the graze, which developed with disturbance and needs to be chewed on and trampled, or it goes decadent and feeds nothing. You should go see some test plots.

...oops,

A lot of what he said is true, whether you like it or not. We have the largest % of BLM land of any State, and between the cattle/sheep grazing and the over population of feral ("wild") horses, things are getting pretty bad regarding the condition of the range and in regard to wildlife habitat.

Spend a week kicking around here, then look at photos of what it was like 30-40 years ago.

"...for a fairly reasonable fee" which does not cover the full costs of the lease. Yes, money is paid for the right to graze, but it does not include the costs of eventually restoring the land; this is borne by the taxpayer.

Actually, it isn't.

The program is called "Cost Share".

If brush is out of control, or smaller more efficient pastures, or updated water delivery systems, or new fence, or whatever is deemed needed, the rancher and the govt. agency that controls the land share cost and labor to complete the project.

Which is only fair since the government OWNS the land in question, don't you think?

Having ranches in both BLM in one state, and private land in another, I can tell you I would prefer the private land every time. I don't have to deal with idiots that way.

The BLM & Forest Circus are increasingly being managed and controlled by liberal environmentalists that don't want ANYONE to use the land. Especially not for things like hunting, shooting, fishing, camping or ranching.