Gold Butte Range War

We saw (illicit?) bovines at our camp, near Little Finland. Callie had great fun charging after them. They were nonplussed.
I had no idea they were not supposed to be on the range. It does seem like the native plants and animals could do without them, since the cattle were competing for minimal feed or water in the sparse ecosystem.
 
They run cattle on FS land that I camp at regularly. Its amazing the amount of damage they do to the soft soils.
 
I spent 30 years dealing with those types of problems, but it is not just cattle and sheep overgrazing, throw in horses, ATVs, timber cutting and things like that-then go the other way- to many deer, antelope, trees or what ever- over running the carrying capacity of the land-to many things for only so much land-and you can easily see why there are problems out there!! In this case it is more political than anything else, local vrs state vrs feds-a problem that has existed since the start of our republic-and the way things are going it will not end anytime soon! This is just like those two sisters in Nevada, or our local car magnet/rancher here (many other examples)-they both broke the grazing regs intentionally and refused to pay to graze on public land--and yep they lost. Never ending, seems like you start to get things under control (multi-use-LUP's -that's why there is a special thread here on public lands) and some new pol comes in does something that throws everything back to step one! I don't miss those days at all!

Not to many years ago our political masters in order to appease certain political groups, told us during one of the regular outbreaks of the "Sagebrush Rebellion" in Nevada to not resist when state LE tried to arrest us while we were working on Public Land-even created "a get-out of jail free" card for us to carry in case someone tried to really arrest us-only 24 hours in jail. This wonderful idea lasted until the physical memo reached the first BLM/FS or other fed cop-no way that's gonna happen buster! All you can do is attend those government planning meetings, say your peice and hope for the best!

Smoke
 
Amen brother smoke! We support ( on a limited basis) cows not condos, as long as it's not too many cows. But there is always too many cows it seems. Having worked in Nevada a couple of times doing vegetation monitoring, i always wondered what do they eat. Grass other then an annual brome is scarce indeed.
 
I have to laugh about the part about 500,000 hamburgers. Like the Bundy's cattle
are going to make a difference in beef prices. Less than 2% of beef production
comes from rangeland and his scrawny cattle hardly have enough meat on them to make a couple of streaks.

One of the Bundys was arrested yesterday. Hope this will be resolved soon. I spend
a lot time wandering around the Arizona Strip. The old ranching families out there do march to a different drummer.

Dsrtrat


http://www.mynews3.com/content/news/local/story/Son-of-rancher-in-public-land-dispute-arrested-by/saisWvjFk0uuzq70psP4Zw.cspx
 
It's that dadburn 'gubermint'. Bundy's just takin' back our 'merica.

You know, I want to see people succeed in places like this, but I'm not in favor of them ruining it for everyone else. They may have lived there for generations, but the government lands belong to all of us.
 
Reno news talked about him today, and hey, he may be a "rancher" but he isn't a real one , this is all politics, if he had a point in his favor, the "Sagebrush Rebellion " bunch would be yelling--and they are not , so maybe some more of our land will be open to our "wandering the west"; fewer cows, means more grass and bigger cows and more $ for those cows that remain-their choice, not ours!

Smoke
 
It is not his land, it is Public Land! Well, we just had a protest here in front of the BLM office by the Tea Party in support of the rancher, yep something about Mom's protecting their access to public lands. He broke the law, then for the last 20 years used the law to fight in court against his loosing his grazing privileges-not rights, they are owned by the government and Clark Country Nevada, not him. Counter suits by the government to get him off-which they won, more suits, and lesser political will led to this mess. Now the environmentalists started a suit to get if him off again, and BLM/Clark Country/NPS tried to do their job-a bit late-politics in this case made things allot worse!

When we trespassed someone in the old days, we did not rope off a section by the corrals for the protesters to yell from, we did it fast, but again, this thing has gone on for 20 years, and today anything the government does is wrong according to certain groups like the Tea Party and these militant right wing anti government groups. And the BLM backed off to save people from getting killed-did you see that picture with the guy and the sniper rifle aiming at the BLM.Today all you need is a face book picture and it looks like the whole world is on your side-sometimes maybe that's good, not in this case, all of us who use the Public Land loose, including all those ranchers and others who do pay to use those land and follow the laws, when things like this happen!.

Bah Humbug! Sorry guys I just got upset, I'm tired of seeing those talking heads on TV talking about something they know nothing about and expounding on the poor rancher-or all the other way-liberty etc., -don't even understand the problem-just makes good TV-the facts don't count!



Smoke
 
X2 Smoke...Those "folks' are lucky here in Los Angeles the one who kicked the dog would have been shot for assaulting a police officer and all the dogs would have been released on the idiots. Sunday we stopped in Mesquite for gas on our way home from our AZ Strip /Toroweap/ Utah trip unaware of the goings on. My thoughts when filling up our tank was that the town is full of of low life trash so my apologies go out to the fine people of Mesquite as it was just the wackos who came in from out of town to cause trouble. One of the wackos pulled up in a not so new pick up that was covered in signs ( the usual anti government slogans, racist attacks and conspiracy theories) got out and put up a sign on the Nike store calling on all to rally up in support of the Bundy's to face down the BLM. A local LEO pulled up while I was reading the sign and we chatted a while and it seams that Bundy has been a pain in their back side for quite a while.
Cheers
 
It should concern very one how stupid the average person has become. I scares the **** out of me that 1/2 the the population is stupider than the average person. That bottom half showed up to support Bundy.
 
Brought to you by same people who don't know where the Ukraine is but still want to bomb it, but hey, I can't spell either! Stupid is stupid does!

Smoke
 
While I understand the reasoning of not wanting this to escalate is why the BLM backed down, I am concerned about the long term effect of doing so. Mr. Bundy has fought this battle for 20 years and in several courts and lost. Yet he will now continue to graze his cattle on Federal land and there are apparently no repercussions. The BLM currently manages 18, 000 grazing permits whose ranchers do pay the fees. Based on what has happened at Gold Butte, I can't imagine why any one of them would continue to pay.
 
Ted said:
While I understand the reasoning of not wanting this to escalate is why the BLM backed down...
Click to expand...
Yeah they're probably afraid of a worst-case outcome, like "Ruby Ridge" or "Waco"...even though they were just doing what they had to do to rein in criminals or crazies or both.
 
Me thinks one of the political masters made the final call and despite everything, there are allot of unhappy and embarrassed BLM, Clark Country and other law biding folks right now- unhappy and embarrassed for not being allowed to do the jobs they were hired for--I know I am-and I'm retired!

Smoke
 
Ted said:
While I understand the reasoning of not wanting this to escalate is why the BLM backed down, I am concerned about the long term effect of doing so. Mr. Bundy has fought this battle for 20 years and in several courts and lost. Yet he will now continue to graze his cattle on Federal land and there are apparently no repercussions. The BLM currently manages 18, 000 grazing permits whose ranchers do pay the fees. Based on what has happened at Gold Butte, I can't imagine why any one of them would continue to pay.
Click to expand...
I have no concerns at all that the law abiding grazing permit holder will take this as an indication that anything goes. I also believe the BLM did the right thing in defusing a situation that could have easily escalated to bullets flying. As much as we would want a decisive finish with the bad guy getting his due, the real world is not like that. This will be resolved and Mr. Bundy will face his day in court. Give it time.
 
I wonder why local law enforcement left the wackos alone? That guy on the overpass? Think his rifle was unloaded?
 
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