American Prairie loses grazing rights

[PLhunter]

Apples and oranges

Okay, where are the oranges? I presented apples. Present the oranges. There are limited locations with free ranging bison and I’d trade my hunting spot for every single one of them.

 

[PLhunter]

Went a little far out of the small grazing allotments didn’t you?

Well you went deer and elk are adapted to cows more-so than bison which required some addressing of its absurdity. I’ve seen more deer killed and elk killed in cattle fences and habitat loss from feed plots than from bull bison gorings.

Alas, let us never forget the Yellowstone deer massacre of ‘93 where bodies of deer and elk lay strewn across the Lamar Valley after the bull bison caught up to all those deer and elk. Viciously murdering them in a bloodlust. Leaving the land devoid of anything but the mighty terrifying Bison.

You do realize that the 1977 Charles Bronson classic “The White Buffalo” wasn’t a documentary right?

 

[Gila]

Are you trying to insinuate that cattle fencing infrastructure is a significant portion of the property value assessment used by municipalities when setting tax rates? If property tax rates are crucial are you also opposed to property tax breaks for ag producers?

Yes, absolutely! Not insinuating….asserting! County….not municipalities.

Case in point. I bought property in the middle of open range prairie that was fenced. The county assessed my grazing property at the higher improved value because of the fence. I appealed on the basis that the grazing property should be assessed the same value as the surrounding open range. I won the appeal but if it was a border or boundary fence I probably wouldn’t have won.

You can hunt the APR bison and elk and deer too. Do you realize none of this matters because we are talking about BLM leases?

BLM grazing leases are fenced…From what I understand there is about 80K in block management. Is there a goal to increase public hunting or not? Now that AP can’t graze their bison on BLM will they continue with the 80K for public hunting?

 

[Gila]

bison and human and elk can co-exist in the Yukon we are the proof it can works asks the alaskans what they think about the way we handdle it.

Whoever said they couldn’t?

 

[Gila]

Okay, where are the oranges? I presented apples. Present the oranges. There are limited locations with free ranging bison and I’d trade my hunting spot for every single one of them.

Sounds like you already have. One of your “famous” hunting heroes has stated in one of his podcasts that he didn’t care if AP allowed hunting or not.

 

[cuerro viejo]

Why?

If we are concerned with generating meat supply; how about mandate profit and a lack of profit and if there is not an average profit over 5 years, proven by paying taxes on the profit, then the lease owner is kicked off.

The more effective way would be to charge market competitive rates and let the market deal with the rest.



We could mandate easement access to public in exchange for the current cheap grazing access with preference to local owners. Arial shoot and leave authorization for any cattle on public land without grazing permits (no easement access). You can create an economy of helicopter shooting tours and get free enforcement. People like the Bundy's should be ran into the dirt like the thieves they are. (A joke, life is too complicated for it).

Why not? We don’t have a wild life system to support the masses but we do have a domestic system and federal land grazing is a large part of that system.

If it’s going to grazed for management's purposes it might was well contribute to our food supply. Management means grazing as a relief to dumb fire suppression, etc.

Bison do not yield the same as cattle and who knows if those bison would ever go into food system any way.

Bundy argument is a separate thread all together. His actions Foster’s nothing to an intelligent conversation of multi use land for mutual benefit of ALL parties, His principles of why he quit paying are legitimate complaint, but his action completely are over shadow he legitimate argument he had

BLM grazing allotments should be a closed bid process and all contacts terminated if AU’s are exceeded or grossing understocked(as in heifers). It’s simple, the price is only relevant to what improvements it has on it.

If I have the only water amongst x amount of BLM sections there is no reason, I should pay the same for BLM that has its own permit water sources.

I don’t post this to argue but more just if I was boss what I would do it.

I don’t think taking cattle out of BLM/NF is a good long term food security or land management ideology, especially with our continued anti-fire management practices.

 

[Axlrod]

Since people are putting words in my mouth, let me be clear. i stated that Elk, Deer and Pronghorn have learned to tolerate cattle better than they do bison. Rutting bull bison will chase down and attack just about anything in their path. Cattle bulls are aggressive but nothing like bison bulls. Cattle don’t run very far when they herd up.

Simply not true. Yellowstone has had up to 20,000 elk along with 5000 bison at the same time. Specifacally how could that possibly be, if the elk could not tollerate the bison? I won't wait for your answer, because you have completely avoided any questions to your agenda.

 

[PLhunter]

Case in point. I bought property in the middle of open range prairie that was fenced. The county assessed my grazing property at the higher improved value because of the fence. I appealed on the basis that the grazing property should be assessed the same value as the surrounding open range. I won the appeal but if it was a border or boundary fence I probably wouldn’t have won.

lol this is critical money for counties yet you appealed it as an individual in order to not pay. But the APR should have to pay extra for fences they don’t want to keep the county afloat? Do you hear yourself?

Sounds like you already have. One of your “famous” hunting heroes has stated in one of his podcasts that he didn’t care if AP allowed hunting or not.

Aldo Leupold is back!?

 

[PLhunter]

This thread highlights a unique absurdity among hunters. A significant portion of us are too full of fertilized dirt, cow shit, sheep shit, and mine tailings from bootlicking to even eat the game we hunt.

We call ourselves Hunters, in a way that signifies it’s our identity. It makes us who we are. Supposedly, it’s how we get our food, it’s how we live, and it’s how we interact with wild places. We slaughter these animals. We should owe them everything in return.

If we had the advocacy and conviction for ourselves and the wild places we hunt that we waste on behalf of Chilean mining companies, ranchers, sheep herders, and corporations we would have freezers full of wild sheep, bison, deer and elk. Some hunters have the audacity to also call themselves conservationist but simply take from wild places while meekly giving them away for exploitation for reasons wholly incompatible with the self reliance and love of nature they proudly present to the world.

I assure you the ranching, farming, mining et al. lobbies are not paying you back for your selfless advocacy on their behalf. We should be equally selfish with ours. Yet, we lose more habitat each and every day, lose more wildlife each and every day, lose more access, we accept new normals like the lack of wild sheep and bison on landscapes as inevitabilities. To not fight back tooth and nail would be bad enough, but instead all too many of us stand up as champions for the powers of wildlife diminishment and exploitation. In doing so establishing by definition those hunters as the antithesis of a conservationist.

 

[KurtR]

Grazing APs “Zoo” bison on public lands is a big deal because it sets precedent for the entire country. Providing bison to feed predators and scavengers instead of feeding humans is net less than zero! Grazing cattle on BLM land isn’t a subsidy. Reasonable rent with a 10 year contract is more like it. Comparing AUM dollars is non sequitur. Cattle grazing provides the Government with more than just the rent. The intrinsic value to the economy: jobs, taxes, price of domestic beef, grain consumption, exports etc. is in the tens of billions of dollars.



Don’t understand your 3% of something.



Re-wilding three million contiguous acres in Montana isn’t small potatoes. All of those fences are being removed. Those private ranches don’t need “restoring”. They can use the Clarence Mortensen methods (and often do) like South Dakota does to restore the natural prairie and reap the benefit of grazing more cattle without using bison.

How much hunting or public access at all, do you think AP will allow once they get the brown bears and Gray wolves in place? Make no mistake about it: AP is trying to break the cattle grazing “system’ so they can acquire the BLM lands within that contiguous three million acres. The land that is being leased to neighboring cattle ranches has very strict conditions and rules. Do those land leases allow public access and hunting?

I have been on his land. You want to see people that know how to manage land thats the place to go. I havent seen many true 200" mule deer but saw 2 in one day out there and the amount of wildlife is astounding along with the grass. We had a gravel pit on there land and when done the reclamation was immaculate. I got to ride around with Clarence in his suburban one day and the stories he had about the early days of ranching were fun to hear.

 

[Marbles]

We don’t have a wild life system to support the masses but we do have a domestic system and federal land grazing is a large part of that system.

Federal land grazing doesn't support much. Even if just compared to BLM land in general.

Excluding eastern states and Alaska (no grazing land).

Grazing supports 23,129 jobs and generated an estimated 1,674.6 million per BLM data.

BLM land supports 359,086 jobs and generates 245.1 billion.

So, as a percent of BLM economic value for states with grazing; grazing supports 6.4% of the jobs and generates 0.07% of the economy value.

The economic value of grazing on BLM is a rounding error compared to the current value generated by BLM land in general at present.

 

[PLhunter]

Why not? We don’t have a wild life system to support the masses but we do have a domestic system and federal land grazing is a large part of that system.

The federal land grazing system isn’t a large part of supplying the masses. That is many people’s complaint with public land grazing and fee schedules. We could and do provide adequate protein to the masses without counting that portion of meat. Why use limited land available for public use and wildlife specifically for one use case that makes up a tiny part of the whole? I’m not saying no public land grazing at all but I wouldn’t mandate minimum stocking rates on it. People forget the season to season impact of cattle and grazing pressure. An area that can 9/10 years support 1000 head of cattle takes just one drought year for permanent damage to take place at that stocking rate.

If I were boss I’d take a much different approach. I hunt for my food and don’t need the beef. Hardly anyone I know does actually. Including non hunters. It’s not a mandatory food item especially considering that only 3% of our meat comes from public land grazing. I’d open the bidding for grazing rights to anyone, highest bidder wins. You don’t meet grazing health standards on your allotments you’re out of bidding for 10 years after a warning. If you don’t want to graze it or want to graze bison or whatever you just have to meet the health standards. The subsidized industrialized production of food is not the goal for the public land. As for fire I drive past plenty of scorched earth rangeland that is grazed by cattle year in and year out. The fire argument alone isn’t compelling to me. Sure land grazed to dirt doesn’t burn, but it doesn’t grow Muleys or elk worth a damn either.