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Posted by Kevin Lorentz on May 16, 2001 at 23:29:28:
In Reply to: Mojave Desert Tortoise Under Attack! posted by Michelle on May 16, 2001 at 16:04:59:
We must do something to protect the desert tortise before it is to late ...... Kevin Lorentz member PARC & NRAAC .
Ranchers balk at cattle edict
A U.S. agency wants grazing cows moved off some public land to protect the desert tortoise.
It was the Old West in Daggett the other night.
Published 5/15/2001-Inland Empire Online
by Jennifer Bowles
A dozen ranchers from San Bernardino and Riverside counties --
some in Stetsons, jeans, belt buckles and boots still scuffed
with the day's dirt -- sat with their families inside the desert
town's community center.
It was not a happy gathering.
"They are scared to death," said Ron Kemper of East Highlands,
a property manager who runs a ranch in the east Mojave Desert.
Tensions are growing because 12 ranchers have been ordered by
the U.S. Bureau of Land Management to remove cattle from large
portions of their ranches -- a half-million acres in all of public land
-- to help prevent the desert tortoise from sliding to extinction.
Such a demand, the ranchers say, threatens their cattle, their
livelihood and their way of life. They're digging in their heels.
"I will continue business as usual," said Billy Mitchell, who runs
87 cattle at Rattlesnake Canyon east of Lucerne Valley. "I have
no other choice if I want to protect my personal and private
rights."
The ranchers are, in a sense, in a three-way showdown with the
Bureau of Land Management, which administers the public land
owned by the American people, and environmentalists who want
the BLM to abide by the Endangered Species Act in protecting
the tortoise from the cattle.
The way the ranchers see it, the government negotiated away
their rights in settling a lawsuit filed by the Sierra Club and other
environmental groups. The environmentalists say that grazing
cows on public lands is not a right but a privilege -- one that
should never have been allowed in such an arid desert
ecosystem.
The ranchers have roped in support from state and local
lawmakers as well as San Bernardino County Sheriff Gary
Penrod. The sheriff took the unusual step recently of rescinding
an agreement that allowed BLM rangers to enforce state laws on
federal lands within the county's borders.
"I do not wish to be associated with any (BLM) law enforcement
personnel who may be precipitating possible violent range
disputes through their official action," Penrod said in a letter to
the federal agency's law enforcement chief.
Penrod did not respond to requests for further comment, but
BLM officials say he acted too quickly in anticipating violence.
Still, BLM officials are under the gun. A federal judge last week
sided with the environmentalists and admonished the agency for
failing to have the cattle moved by the March 1 deadline.
A hearing before that same judge Thursday may determine
what's next for the ranchers. The judge said he wanted the BLM
to come up with a plan for compliance, or the agency would be
held in contempt.
Creosote and cattle
Alongside Camp Rock Road south of Daggett, three cows and a
calf soak up the sun among a field awash with spiky yuccas and
creosote shrubs blooming dainty yellow flowers.
It's an odd picture: cows in a desert landscape.
But ranchers will tell you they've been grazing here since the
mid-1800s, ever since people began to settle the West and
homestead in the California desert.
The ranchers raise only cattle born in the desert, so they are
acclimated to the wild fluctuations in the weather -- hotter than
hot in the summer and below freezing in the winter.
Hormone-free and pesticide-free, the cattle move virtually
uninhibited in the desert, drifting with the seasons.
The dirt road leads to the Ord Mountains and a valley housing a
barn-like office for Dave Fisher, a third-generation rancher who
runs the 154,848-acre Shield F Ranch with some 500 cows. He
hopes his three grandsons have a chance to run the ranch
someday.
Under the negotiated settlement between the environmental
groups and the BLM, Fisher must move the cattle off of 54,000
acres, about one-third of the ranch, from March 1 to June 15 and
again from Sept. 7 to Nov. 7, key foraging times for the desert
tortoise. Kemper, Mitchell and nine other ranchers are being
asked to make similar moves.
A few things complicate the demand.
For one, Fisher and most of the other ranchers own interlocking
sections of land within their leased grazing allotments. To move
the cattle from the public land, Fisher's herd would lose access
to some of his private grazing land, which he believes is illegal.
In addition, he owns water rights to three springs that are in the
closure area, so his cattle would not be able to use them. The
springs, he noted, allow wildlife besides cows to flourish on the
ranch.
"I will not consider complying to such an order," said Fisher
outside his office, speaking over the whir of a windmill that
pumps ground water when solar panels don't do the job.
Third, he said, it's the middle of calving season.
"To move cows that are having labor pains, to hurt them for the
sake of environmental weirdos, it's not going to happen," he
said.
Moving the livestock "would result in significant weight loss,
health problems and animal deaths," said a legal document
prepared by his attorney, Karen Budd-Falen of Wyoming.
Desert ranching
The argument over whether raising cattle in the arid Southwest is
a legitimate use of public lands has been simmering for years.
But now, cattle ranchers in California's Mojave Desert feel the
threat to shut them down is real.
"There's no question that all across the West we're seeing a
reassessment on which acres should be grazed," said Charles
Wilkinson, a natural resources law professor at University of
Colorado, Boulder.
"For generations, grazing was effectively the only reason we had
public lands. Now we are seeing many competing uses for that
public land, and we're seeing many adjustments."
The lawsuit filed last year by the Sierra Club, the Center for
Biological Diversity and Public Employees for Environmental
Responsibility already has led to the closure of many off-roading
areas and placed limits on new mining.
The environmentalists felt that 24 desert species protected under
the Endangered Species Act were getting shortchanged, and
they sought to limit actions they felt hampered the recovery of
the plants and animals.
The Fish and Wildlife Service will have the final say on whether
the closures and limits will stay in place.
"This whole case is about getting on-the-ground protection and
conservation," said Daniel Patterson with the Arizona-based
Center for Biological Diversity.
In the case of the cattle ranchers, environmentalists feel that the
lumbering and pint-sized desert tortoise needs protection from
hulking cows.
The cows, they say, can out-compete tortoises for food, crush
them with their hooves and trample their burrows. The tortoise
was listed as a threatened species in 1990.
"Grazing is one of the top impacts to the tortoise," Patterson
said. "The way they (the cows) move across the landscape, their
impacts are very widespread."
Ranchers shake their heads at such talk. How can the cattle be
so harmful to the tortoise if land they've been grazing for as long
as 150 years is still considered crucial to saving the threatened
reptile?
And some scientists wonder that as well. They say, for the most
part, the cattle's impact on the tortoise hasn't been studied
enough to know for certain.
"I don't think you can pin it all (the tortoises' demise) to cattle,"
said U.S. Fish and Wildlife biologist Ray Bransfield, who will be
among those deciding whether the grazing restrictions stay or
go.
The Fish and Wildlife Service has in the past several years
issued opinions that cattle don't jeopardize the survival of the
tortoise, but the agency isn't ready to simply rubber-stamp that
idea in this case.
"We've got to get the emotion out of this," said Bransfield, "and
look at some new science."
The competition for plant food between the two animals depends
a lot on the amount of rain that falls on the region, and thus how
many plants grow, said Hal Avery of the U.S. Geological Survey.
"We found the diets of tortoises and cattle overlap greatly in
early spring when there are annuals out," said Avery, who has
conducted studies in Ivanpah Valley in the eastern Mojave since
1991.
Avery also found that 50 percent of the shallow, springtime
burrows that tortoises use were trampled by cows while the
reptiles were in their deeper, hibernating winter burrows.
However, no tortoise carcasses were found in those trampled
burrows, said Avery, who also found evidence of cattle avoiding a
burrow in their path.
Bransfield pointed out there are a slew of other threats to the
tortoise -- off-roading, military tank training, disease, urban
sprawl -- that chews up their habitat. And ravens, golden eagles
and dogs prey on the reptiles.
"If people said, `Ray, if you had a choice of eliminating
off-roading and tank training or grazing appropriately managed,' --
man, I would go for the vehicles every time. There's no question,"
Bransfield said.
The range battle
Inside Daggett's community center, with its rows of rectangular
tables and an American flag hanging limp in the corner, ranchers
gathered last week to talk about the lawsuit and how to raise
money to defend themselves.
Fisher, president of the High Desert Cattlemen's Association, sat
at the front table along with former San Bernardino County Sheriff
Floyd Tidwell and his son, Boone.
Over the next four hours, the ranchers aired their frustrations over
the federal government, the changes they've had to make to
accommodate endangered species, and environmentalists who
try to tell them how to take care of the land they live on every
day.
"We got us in a situation," Fisher told them.
Fisher urged the ranchers to get their elected officials involved,
much as he did with Sheriff Penrod and state Assemblyman Phil
Wyman, R-Tehachapi.
"There's no way in hell that the BLM can take a man's
livelihood," he said.
In an April 19 letter to BLM State Director Mike Pool, Wyman
and 27 other state lawmakers said the federal agency was
engaging in "extra-legal activities."
In an interview, Wyman said Fisher "epitomizes what is the best
of the tradition of the desert."
"To me, this is just the world turned upside down. It's
unconstitutional," he said.
BLM officials say the "possible range disputes" predicted by
Penrod aren't about to happen.
"This is a misunderstanding," said Roger Bruckner, the BLM's
chief law enforcement officer in California. Bruckner said he and
Penrod will meet Wednesday to straighten it out.
Going onto the ranches and herding away cattle "was never the
intent of the agency," Bruckner said.
The BLM isn't saying how it will persuade the ranchers to comply
until the Thursday hearing before U.S. District Judge William
Alsup in San Francisco.
The environmentalists feel the agency, which agreed to have the
tortoise habitat cleared March 1 under the more environmentally
friendly Clinton presidency, may be stalling under the more
conservative Bush administration.
The desert tortoise ends up being the big loser, said Jay
Tutchton, attorney for Earthjustice, which is representing the
environmentalists.
"We wanted relief for the desert tortoise," he said, "in the form of
relief of livestock pressure."
The ranchers, meanwhile, plan to stand strong. They are hosting
a booth at the San Bernardino County Fair in Victorville, running
through Sunday, to help get the word out. They also will raffle off
one side and two quarters of a cow donated by Fisher to raise
money for their legal battle.
"I don't know if we're going to win," Fisher told the other
ranchers, "but by the time the dust settles, they're going to know
we were here."
Jennifer Bowles can be reached by e-mail at jbowles@pe.com or
by phone at (909) 782-7720.
Photos online at: http://www.inlandempireonline.com/de/environ/cows051501.shtml
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~`
Annie Lancaster
Director-TortoiseAid http://tortoiseaid.org
Apple Valley, CA USA
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Desert Tortoise Listserve:
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Keeper of the TortAid Listserve:
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http://turtlestuff.com
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: To: Fort Irwin, Department of Defense, Senator Barbara Boxer, Senator Dianne Feinstein, Rep Jerry Lewis
: CALIFORNIA'S MOJAVE DESERT UNDER ATTACK BY U.S.ARMY TANKS, ENDANGERED DESERT TORTOISE WILL LOSE!!
: This proposed legislation is a lose/lose proposition for the desert tortoise. It will lose over 110 square miles of its critical habitat. It will lose one of its strongest remaining populations in the West Mojave.
: The tortoise is already under severe pressure in the West Mojave and the loss of the Superior Valley will be devastating. The public will lose out because ever larger amounts of money and more and more restrictions on desert users will be needed to try to nurse the tortoise back from the brink.
: The Superior Valley is a magnificent public resource that will be lost for good once the Army moves in. An entire species of plant, the Lane Mountain Milk-vetch, may be lost forever.
: Taking the Superior Valley away from the public is too big a decision to be made by adding a rider onto another bill. Decisions on public resources should be carefully considered -- not decided on at the last minute. Without an adequate opportunity to provide informed local input the public loses out.
: SO DO ENDANGERED SPECIES OF ANIMALS AND PLANTS!
: Sincerely,
: The Undersigned
: http://www.petitiononline.com/TAICDT/petition.html
