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Preface - Introduction - CHAPTERS: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8 - 9 - 10 - 11 - 12
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Chapter 9 - Other Public Ranchlands

Although comprising 85% of all grazed government land (excluding Indian reservations), BLM and Forest Service holdings are just 2 of the many kinds of public ranchlands, in the US. Various other agencies administer government land for stockmen's benefit.

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An ad we might see... If there was truth in advertising.

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*Wilderness

As an apologist for the ranching community, I believed that we environmentalists only had to explain "wilderness" to ranchers. Then we could unite to combat the common threat from mining dam construction and summer-home subdividers. But I was absolutely wrong.

--Randy Morris, Committee for Idaho's High Desert

Wilderness Areas are administered by 4 parent federal land managing agencies -- Forest Service, BLM, National Park Service, and US Fish & Wildlife Service -- under authority of the Wilderness Act of 1964 and FLPMA of 1976. Thus far, about 28 million acres, less than 4% of the 11 Western states, has been officially designated Wilderness. In the lower 48, about 32 million acres, or under 2%, is Wilderness. (USDI, GS 1987, US Dept. of Com. 1986) For every acre of Wilderness in the Lower 48 at least 2 other acres are under asphalt or concrete (Shanks 1984). Still, approximately 10% of the contiguous 48 states remains "wild," as defined by Section 2(c) of the 1964 Wilderness Act (Foreman 1989).

Unfortunately, this remaining relatively wild land is falling quickly to exploitation, including ranching. According to Howie Wolke in The Big Outside, wilderness on US public land is disappearing at the rate of at least 2 million acres per year. Outside Alaska, few places in the US are more than 10 miles from a constructed road, and no place is more than 21 miles. (Foreman 1989)

The National Wilderness Preservation System is this country's remaining wildest country -- a last refuge for wildlife and human interaction with Nature (see Driver 1985 for a thorough discussion of Wilderness significance). Yet, essentially it amounts to little more than a collection of the areas least desirable for human occupation and exploitation -- inaccessible areas, rocks and ice, steep mountainsides, rugged canyonlands and badlands, barren deserts, and swamps. Conversely, the most productive, level, accessible lands were taken as private property, mostly by ranchers and farmers, and are now the most abused. In short, public lands are the leftovers and Wilderness is the leftovers of the leftovers.

Cattlemen from Cochise and Graham counties have persuaded Rep. Morris K. Udall, D-Ariz. ["the environmental congressman"], to back down on his proposal to add 55,000 acres to the Galiuro wilderness northwest of Willcox.... Udall called the proposal "unwise" and added, "I recognize the importance of the cattle industry in Southern Arizona and I will not suggest passing a bill which would put obstacles in the way of a healthy cattle industry."

--Tucson magazine (9-1-77)

The Wilderness Act of 1964 was written and legitimatized largely under supervision of the ranching industry, opposition from powerful stockmen might otherwise have killed it. To gain the industry's support, wilderness advocates had to settle on the following language in the enabling legislation:

Section 4(d)(4)(2) ... the grazing of livestock where established prior to the effective date of this A Act, shall be permitted to continue subject to such reasonable regulations as are deemed necessary by the Secretary of Agriculture.

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Subsequently, regulations generally have not been considered "reasonable" if they conflict with ranching interests.

In other words, ranching has continued basically unhampered in most areas even after designated Wilderness. In fact, roughly half of Western Wildernesses are ranched; most of the remainder are essentially unranchable. And, as with nearly all public lands, trespass grazing in Wildernesses is rampant; especially since their remoteness makes detection unlikely.

The Wilderness Act also contains language allowing predator "control," even from helicopters, and the construction and maintenance of water developments, fencing, and all other range developments deemed necessary for the continuance of ranching at traditional levels. Regulations allow ranchers to maintain and in some cases construct ranching developments with heavy equipment, leaving many roads cherry-stemmed into Wildernesses. The Act also mandates continued possession of base properties; therefore many Wildernesses contain private ranchlands in, or cherry-stemmed into, their boundaries, and access to them -- with pickups, bulldozers, and whatever -- is assured. (Some ranchers have profited handsomely by selling excess adjacent private lands at inflated prices for addition to Wilderness Areas.)

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Cattle overgrazing an aspen-fir forest in Gros Ventre Wilderness, Wyoming. According to writer/ecologist George Wuerthner, in Wilderness "Livestock grazing causes far more environmental damage than all human recreation use combined." (George Wuerthner)

The main effect the Wilderness Act had on ranching was in prohibiting the use of motorized equipment within Wilderness, except as above and for "emergency purposes." Supplying feed to starving livestock, pumping water to thirsty animals, and rescuing endangered animals have been interpreted as emergencies, and some ranchers are known to drive into Wildernesses despite the law. However, the ban on motorized vehicles has had minimal impact on most ranching operations in these areas because most Wilderness is inaccessible to vehicles in the first place. Even so, many permittees vehemently oppose Wilderness ostensibly because ranching is not practical without the use of motorized vehicles.

. . . in some circumstances, the presence of livestock may even add to the wilderness experience.

--M. Rupert Cutler, Assistant Secretary of Agriculture for Conservation, Research, and Education (USDA, USDI, CEQ 1979)

Each Spring I pack up my gear and, with my burro, head for the trails... The map's [of Marble Mountain Wilderness, California] legend showed that pasturing my animal while visiting these sensitive meadows "might cause permanent damage, " so we carried fee& But upon arriving I found the meadows and surrounding forest permeated with cow dung. Every water source for miles was contaminated by the cows, which defecate and urinate as they wallow in the water through the heat of the day.

There were but few wildflowers in this area -- mostly poisonous species -- yet wildflowers were abundant and luxurious on the ungrazed ridge I found...

--Bill Lewinson, Hyampom, California, in a letter to a local newspaper

I have recently returned from a backpacking Pip to the Carson-Iceberg "Wilderness" Area, along the Pacific Crest Trail, south of Ebbetts Pass ... crawling with cattle .... wherever I went... there they were ... This is no Wilderness, but a Ranch.

--David Loeb, San Francisco, California, in a letter to the Toiyabe National Forest Supervisor

I have recently returned from an extended wilderness trip to southern Utah ... incredible amount of overgrazing .... During my two months of exploring Utah I did not find any canyon or Wilderness Area where cattle were not or had not been present.

--Michael Areson, Santa Cruz, California, in a letter to Utah federal agencies

Aside from commercial guide services, ranching is the only permitted permanent commercial general use of designated Wilderness Areas. In most of the areas where it occurs, ranching has degraded Wilderness and the Wilderness experience far more than any other factor -- in many areas more than all other human influences combined.

For instance, in the alpine Big Blue Wilderness of southwest Colorado, thousands of sheep graze through the summer, even above 13,000' elevation. The shepherds camp there for months at a time, as only stockmen are allowed to do. You can hear them shooting at coyotes and other "varmints" most nights, their shots booming out like cannons through the crisp, clear, high-mountain air. Irate hikers and backpackers have renamed the area "The Big Blue Barnyard."

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Sheep grazing alpine meadows in Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness, Wyoming. (George Wuerthner)

In much of America's first Wilderness Area, the Gila in southwest New Mexico, cattle grazing is so severe that the groundcover has been reduced to bare dirt. We lived in this area for a few years, only half a mile from the Wilderness boundary. In extensive foot travel in the immediate area, I found little difference in ranching impact between the designated Wilderness and the adjacent National Forest. During one walk, I discovered miles of new fence. A wide swath of trees and brush had been cleared, scores of trees had been cut for fence material, others were girdled with barbed wire, and waste materials were scattered about.

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Rutted cattle trails, Trinity Alps Wilderness, California. (Bill Lewinson)

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In northern Utah's Mount Naomi Wilderness, helicopters skim along the tree tops as gunners blast away at coyotes, as they have done legally for 15 years. In Arizona's rugged Superstition Wilderness east of Phoenix, cattle ravage what few riparian areas remain. In Northern California's Trinity Alps and Marble Mountain Wildernesses Areas, summer herds of cattle turn verdant glacial meadows into closely cropped, trampled quagmires. In most of Southern California's dozen scattered coastal range Wildernesses, ranching degrades what is left of California condor wild habitat. In many northern Rocky Mountain Wilderness Areas, sheep and cattle ranching harms high mountain meadows, competes with native wildlife, and destroys predators, including the wolf and grizzly. With unintentional ambiguity, Jerry Holechek relates in Range Management:

Because of esthetics and its fragility, large tracts of alpine tundra have been turned into wilderness areas. Presently, this area is grazed primarily by sheep that are herded. (Holechek 1989)

... that particular allotment is called the Bull Springs Allotment [in central Arizona's Mazatzal Wilderness]. A total of 160 cattle graze yearlong on approximately 32, 000 acres... We will in developing our management plan address these [riparian destruction] issues and fly to solve them within the guidelines that Congress has set for us concerning development of ranges found within Wilderness Areas. Hopefully we will solve some of these problems associated with cattle on this allotment without having to build too many new fences which in turn can be offensive to some wilderness users.

--Stephen L. Gunzel, District Ranger, Tonto National Forest, personal correspondence

Ranching industry pressure usually is an important consideration in creating Wilderness Areas. Rather than protecting whole ecosystems, many Wilderness boundaries simply include "worthless" areas and exclude the more productive ranching areas. If not for opposition from permittees, the 90,000-acre Paria Canyon-Vermillion Cliffs BLM Wilderness Area on the central Utah-Arizona border could easily have contained the 100,000-acre Paria Plateau instead of only the rugged canyons and cliffs surrounding it. NPS's Craters of the Moon Wilderness Area in central Idaho might have encompassed large portions of the surrounding Snake River Plain, which is largely undeveloped and has no commercial use other than ranching. The boundaries of Arizona's Coconino National Forest's Wet Beaver, West Clear Creek, and Fossil Springs Wilderness Areas conform almost perfectly to the rims of deep, steep-walled canyons so as not to include any upland grazing areas; and, as with many Wildernesses, their boundary lines were carefully drawn to exclude heavily grazed riparian bottomlands. A million-acre Wilderness could probably be established in southwest Wyoming's Red Desert and southwest Idaho/southeast Oregon/northern Nevada's Owyhee country, among many other ranching areas. Dave Foreman writes in The Big Outside that "Vast areas of the Great Basin and Southwest could be designated Wilderness were it not for the livestock industry" (Foreman 1989).

With support from non-ranchers, the BLM has recommended several Wilderness Areas for the Owyhee; but bowing to pressure from local ranchers, almost all proposed areas include only the bottoms and sides of the major river canyons cutting through the plateau, leaving the flatlands out of BLM recommendations.

--George Wuerthner, "The Owyhee Mountains, Range Abuse and its Ecological Effects" (Wuerthner 1986)

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Wilderness Study Areas (WSAs) are large undeveloped areas of public land being considered for Wilderness. If found suitable, they are added to the National Wilderness Preservation System; if not, they are released to "multiple use" -- chiefly commercial exploitation. Their suitability is determined by the federal agencies after study of their natural characteristics and input from the public and commercial interests. In practice, Congress passes Wilderness legislation based largely on agency recommendations.

The hundreds of WSAs in the West encompass many millions of acres. Most are ranched, many heavily, and industry resistance has prevented and will prevent many from being designated Wilderness. Tens of millions of additional acres did not qualify for WSA status because ranching development spoiled their wild character.

Some ranchers intentionally blade roads into WSAs so they won't qualify for Wilderness. In southern Utah's Capitol Reef National Park, BLM is building new range developments with motorized vehicles in an area recommended for Wilderness. Charlie Watson, director of the National Public Lands Task Force, reports on ranching degradation in the glaciated, high-mountain Blue Lake WSA in northwest Nevada:

Startling photographic evidence was brought back this summer, by an expedition headed by Prof Ross Smith (Univ. of Nevada/Reno), showing that (1) Blue Lakes basin had myriad new "cow trails" over fragile slopes, (2) that Outlaw and Hollywood Meadows had been "trashed" by overgrazing cows, and (3) that vital Leonard Creek Lake's entire shoreline had been reduced to a mud wallow.

What about environmental extremists who want to steal your grazing land out from under you and lock it up as wilderness ... or a national park... or riparian area?

--from Idaho Cattle Association promotion letter

On the whole, ranchers have been the most vehement, persistent, and (along with the timber industry) powerful opponents of Western Wilderness. For instance, 6 Nevada permittees currently are suing the Forest Service, saying that plans for the Toiyabe and Humboldt National Forests call for too much Wilderness. The Idaho Cattle Association has a "formal policy of opposing all additional Wilderness," and fights bitterly any attempt to protect Idaho public lands as Wilderness. In October 1984, the Western states Farm Bureaus, Cattlemens Associations, and the National Wool Growers Associations met in Salt Lake City. Here are excerpts from a statement on Wilderness adopted by the delegates:

Any wilderness legislation adopted by Congress should include ... language that specifically authorizes timely use of motorized-mechanized equipment in wilderness areas to allow graziers and the management agency to care for livestock, range improvements, fences and to control predators.

Exclude wild and scenic rivers.

*Provide for increased grazing allocations whenever range conditions allow such increases.

*Provide control of noxious weeds, insects and diseases where they pose a threat to adjacent lands.

*In a good-faith effort, we will continue to work vigorously to modify these restrictions, and to minimize additional wilderness areas ....

The selection of wilderness is a necessary part of proper range use, but the selection must be made by reasonable, practical criteria, not by blind emotion, like a child running through a toy store with his father's credit card

--Jeanne W. Edwards, Nevada public lands rancher [Note: At the time of Edwards' quote -- 1988 -- less than 0.1% of Nevada was designated Wilderness.]

I don't think there is integrity to wilderness without addressing livestock grazing. It's antithetical to what wilderness is.

--Andy Kerr, Conservation Director, Oregon Natural Resources Council (Durbin 1991a)

Public lands ranchers often complain bitterly of how "the government is locking up all the land in Wilderness Areas." They grumble about Wilderness restrictions, some declaring with facetious machismo, "We'll end up having to put diapers on our cows." Many currently are clamoring for more vehicular access, new range developments, even Stocking increases in Wilderness.

Meanwhile, this group grazes 73% of all publicly owned land (41% of the West) and is subsidized with 2 billion tax and private dollars annually, continues ranching much of the 4% of the West now called Wilderness, degrades this land more than anyone, and is one of the main reasons America is forced to protect natural areas as Wilderness in the first place.

Range expert Randy Morris writes, what sort of wilderness do you have when the dominant ungulate of the ecosystem is the range cow?" A Wilderness Area with ranching is not a true wilderness.

A coalition of seven Oregon environmental groups has unveiled a proposal to designate 6 million acres in Eastern Oregon managed by the Bureau of Land Management as wilderness, national parks, preserves, monuments, and wildlife refuges... The main sticking point in the [proposed Oregon High Desert Protection Act] appears to be its suggestion that livestock grazing be phased out over a 1 10-year period on all federal lands designated as wilderness, preserves, national wildlife refuges, or wild and scenic river corridors.

--Kathie Durbin, "High Desert Wilderness Plan Offered" (Durbin 1991a)

Stockmen have also more than any other group blocked potential scenic and natural areas, state parks, Wild and Scenic Rivers, National Parks and Monuments, and other protective designation. And since (to maximize use of forage and browse) the West's thousands of base properties are strategically dispersed throughout the West, stockmen, by arguing for the "sanctity" of private property, have had great leverage to extinguish plans for protected areas. Similarly, as legal owners of 25% of the West, stockmen are the strongest voice against public acquisition of private land for environmental protection. And, if not for historic dubious acquisition by stockmen, many private lands in the West would now be public.

If public lands ranching was terminated and an ranching roads were closed, probably an additional 1/3 or more of Western public land (more than 100 million of over 300 million acres) could qualify for Wilderness designation. For example, roughly half of Nevada is public land significantly impacted only by ranching and, if not for ranchers' stranglehold, most of this could be designated Wilderness.

If private ranching in the West was ended, another 150 million or so acres, including many of the West's best riparian areas, could eventually be restored. In all, ending ranching could probably free about 1/3 of the West to become designated or de facto wilderness! Doing so would reduce US beef production by only about 10%, and only minimally affect other human use in that area.

Cessation of grazing on private land outside the 11 Western states could free an additional 200 million or so acres. Eastern pasture could then grow back into forest or grassland wildlife habitat; parts of it could be used for more efficient food production. Additionally, if all US livestock feed production were replaced by plant food production for humans, more than 40% of US cropland -- roughly 170 million acres -- could be restored to environmental health, with no reduction in US food supply. In other words, about 370 million acres of the most fertile land in the US could be released from food production -- with no loss of food or jobs. That is, the same number of workers could grow an equivalent amount of food on vastly less land. (Robbins 1987 and US Dept. of Com. 1986)

Approximately half of the former tallgrass prairie of the Midwest could be turned into immense Wildernesses or National Parks and restocked with native wildlife. Large portions of California's Central Valley could be returned (eventually) to its native vegetation, elk, pronghorn, fish, reptiles, insects, waterfowl, badgers, foxes, and grizzlies. Half of Utah's irrigated riparian bottomland could grow cottonwoods, willows, grasses, flowers, and other wildlife, rather than alfalfa, clover, and livestock grains.

In all, replacing livestock food production (including cropland used to grow livestock feed) with plant food production for humans conceivably could free about 620 million acres, or 33% of the US outside Alaska, for other use, or non-use, or Wilderness, again, with no reduction in US food supply. Not a likely scenario, admittedly, but the potential is there, and the means are available.

Throughout the West, public lands ranchers are the most vocal and militant lobby against environmental protection and wilderness designation.

--Dave Foreman, leading Wilderness expert, coauthor of The Big Outside (Foreman 1989)

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*National Grassland

When many years ago I first heard those words, they brought to mind vast open spaces where buffalo roamed free amid tall grasses blowing in the Midwestern breeze. I fantasized wildflowers in abundance, huge prairie dog towns, few roads and fewer fences. I envisioned National Grasslands as the grassland version of National Parks.

When I first visited a National Grassland, I couldn't figure out where it was. Where the map indicated National Grassland seemed no different than the rest of the overgrazed prairie we had been driving through. They are National Grasslands in name only, for they closely resemble the overgrazed, overmanaged, intensively fenced and developed private land around them. A more appropriate name would be Special Federal Ranchlands.

National Grasslands are administered by the US Forest Service, and are largely Dust Bowl lands "rescued" by USDA and added to the USFS System in 1954. Nineteen NG's cover 3.8 million acres, mostly on the Great Plains; well over a million acres are in the 11 Western states. Most National Grasslands are a confused patchwork of federal, private, and state lands, making administration and enforcement of permit conditions and grazing regulations difficult.

Moreover, administration, permit issuance, and recordkeeping on National Grasslands are all formulated by grazing associations; they sign "agreements" with the Forest Service, which has "oversight" responsibilities. In essence, National Grassland permittees are even more selfregulating than BLM and FS permittees, though no less heavily subsidized.

National Grasslands never had an established grazing fee; each grazing association pays a different fee. In 1987, 1479 NG permittees paid from $0.46-$2.74/AUM. Through the Conservation Practices outlined by Title III of the Bankhead-Jones Farm Tenant Act of 1937, National Grasslands permittees are allowed to deduct the claimed value of their contributions to range developments and even administration from their grazing fees. (Tittman 1984) The situation invites corruption, taxpayer ripoff, and land abuse.

The grasslands are rich and varied ecosystems. But when all the average tourists see is miles of grazed land with miles of cows and cowpies, they think -- how boring!.... We get sick and tired of driving all over the National Grasslands and the thing we see most of is cows and cowpies!

--Mr. & Mrs. C.J. Bishop, Littleton, Colorado, in a letter to the Forest Service

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*National Wildlife Refuge

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Cattle grazing in Red Rock Lakes National Wildlife Refuge, Montana. (George Wuerthner)

National Wildlife Refuges (NWRs), administered by the US Fish & Wildlife Service (FWS), are the only federal lands in the US where wildlife has officially been given higher priority than recreational and commercial activities. Federal law states that no recreational or commercial use shall be permitted on these lands unless the Secretary of the Interior determines that these activities are compatible with the primary purposes for which Refuges are established. Though most are basically waterfowl refuges (commonly known as "duck factories"), NWRs are nonetheless the most important system of wildlife reserves in the US.

Still, 156 of the 368 NWRs in the 17 Western states and the Pacific Islands allow commercial livestock grazing and/or haying (Mollison 1989). A report from a comprehensive study conducted by Cornell graduate student Beverly 1. Strassmann reveals that in 1986 about 1400 permittees grazed cattle on 2,432,300 acres and harvested hay (sometimes using irrigation) on almost 30,000 acres, mostly in the West (see Strassmann 1983 and 1983a). About 70% of this acreage was in 3 states -- Montana, Nevada, and Oregon. Additionally, during drought years FWS sometimes opens ungrazed Refuges or portions of Refuges to "emergency haying!' for livestock.

Though ranched lands represent only a small portion of the 88 million acres in the National Wildlife Refuge System, they comprise 77% of all Refuge land that can be used for ranching. The remaining ranchable land is protected by constraints of laws like the Endangered Species Act or by economics. Strassmann reports that total AUMs grazed in 1980 were 374,849, or 41% more than reported by FWS. (Strassmann 1983)

As you may have guessed, many Refuges have ranching problems. At Sheldon NWR in Nevada, a portion being grazed produced 72% fewer pronghorn fawns than when cattle were excluded. At Bosque del Apache NWR, New Mexico, crane populations nearly tripled after cattle were removed from most of the Refuge. At Red Rock Lake NWR in Montana, the leading cause of moose calf mortality is entanglement on livestock fences.

Predator "control" occurs, often covertly, on some Refuges. More than 800 coyotes have been killed, ostensibly to benefit wildlife, in the past few years at Malheur NWR in Oregon; the Refuge plans to continue predator "control" for at least another 5 years. Hunting and trapping, often by or for the ranching industry, is encouraged on 256 out of 435 NWRs in the US. On some Refuges, native hay meadows are flood-irrigated to increase livestock forage, often flooding nests and nesting areas. Hay mowing machinery kills many birds and other wildlife; the animals often crouch and remain motionless when the mower approaches. Haying also decreases the long-term productivity of Refuges by repeatedly removing organic biomass. Ranching activities spread alfalfa and other exotic plant species which compete with native vegetation and harm native animals. Livestock diseases and parasites are transmitted to Refuge wildlife. Other documented ranching detriments to NWRs are too numerous to mention here, but many are detailed elsewhere in this book. Even though probably most Refuge managers are ranching advocates, a recent GAO report states that more than 60% of the managers of Refuges grazed by livestock consider ranching a major problem.

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Refuge scam: Ranchers farm crops, most of which go to livestock. Riparian bottomland is transformed into crop monocultures that benefit only a few (mostly hunting) species. Stockmen pay little or nothing. Here at Bosque del Apache NWR in central New Mexico, 1400 acres are farmed by local ranchers.

Almost any excuse is used to expand or continue livestock grazing. For example, on my refuge, my range con would like to allow cows to graze wet meadows down to stubble to provide goose browse -- even though we have only a dozen geese on the whole refuge. Never mind that an ungrazed meadow is far more valuable to most of the refuge's wildlife.

--Rock Lakes NWR manager Barry Reiswig (Wuerthner 1991)

Strassmann's report documents extensive environmental damage, including overgrazing of riparian habitats, wildlife mortality due to collisions with fences, and mowing of migratory bird habitat during breeding season. It states that a few wildlife species may benefit from grazing management, but most do not. Those that do "could be served equally well or better by prescribed burning." The report concludes that livestock grazing and haying, as currently implemented "does more harm than good," and notes that "This conclusion is strengthened when one considers that for the majority of wildlife species there are no data indicating that even controlled grazing can be beneficial, while numerous studies report that grazing adversely affects these species."

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Grazing at Fish Springs NWR, Utah, eliminates cover for ducks (George Wuerthner)

Refuge grazing fees are figured on a Refuge-by-Refuge basis. FWS doesn't keep track of all figures, but Strassmann found they averaged about $4.44/AUM in 1980 -- roughly half of fair market value at the time. She also found that Refuges chose permittees overwhelmingly by tradition, lottery, or negotiated sale rather than truly competitive bid.

According to the results of a questionnaire sent out by Strassmann, National Wildlife Refuge managers reported spending $919,740 to administer cattle grazing and haying in FY 1980. According to FWS, Refuge grazing (@$4.44/AUM) and haying permits in 1980 brought the federal government $973,431. So, superficially it appears FWS broke even on its ranching program. But this is not the case. Nineteen percent of Refuge managers refused to answer the survey question on expenditures. The costs of degraded wildlife habitat and restoration efforts were not counted, nor were related general administrative costs. And, as always, numerous other significant indirect and obscure costs were not included in reported figures. For example, ranching roads on NWRs are not financed by ranching funds; FWS spends thousands of dollars annually to feed elk on Wildlife Refuges so they won't compete with livestock in nearby areas; and NWRs must pay to fence out livestock from adjacent public lands. It is safe to assume that National Wildlife Refuges lose well over $1 million annually to public lands ranching.

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Refuge managers have wide discretion for issuing permits, setting permit conditions, and managing ranching activities. However, stockmen's inordinate influence over the management of many NWRs is apparent. For example, Hart Mountain National Antelope Refuge in southeast Oregon allots 7 times more herbage to cattle than to pronghorn. At many Refuges, livestock matters consume more than a third of Refuge funds and staff time. Sheldon NWR in Northeast Nevada and several others spend most funding and staff time on ranching. In order to protect their jobs, managers and staff understandably tend to portray their ranching programs in a favorable light. Strassmann's report sum it up well, stating that "refuge programs primarily accommodate the economic needs of permittees rather than the ecological needs of wildlife."

Nearly all of the refuge funding goes toward managing cattle owned by eight permittees. What little is spent on wildlife is mostly damage control. It's not making things better for wildlife, unless you call mitigating livestock making things better While I have people to build and maintain fences, stock ponds, water pipelines, and other developments for the permittees and a range conservationist to oversee the grazing program, I don't even have one biologist on my staff — and this is supposed to be a wildlife refuge!

--Barry Reiswig (Wuerthner 1991)

There has been a general trend toward reducing livestock numbers and use on NWRs in recent years, largely as a result of lawsuits and Congressional actions. Nevertheless, FWS plans future livestock increases. For example, a 1983 memorandum from FWS Director Robert Jantzen stated that "Refuges with potential for increasing grazing activity should immediately initiate plans for increasing grazing in accordance with guidelines outlined in the Refuge Manual." Ranchers and managers at many NWRs, including Malheur, one of the largest ranched NWRs, are pressuring for more livestock.

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Ranching is not only the greatest detriment to Western National Wildlife Refuges but also the foremost hindrance to the creation of new NWRs. For example, the Animas Mountains in extreme southwest New Mexico are a "biological melting pot" of even greater potential, where wolves, jaguars, thick-billed parrots, and much more could re-establish, and where 22 Endangered species currently live. A private 321,000 acre ranch encompasses most of the mountain range and adjacent valleys. During the late 1980s plans by FWS to purchase 200,000 acres of the Gray Ranch and establish the Animas National Wildlife Refuge met hostile opposition from nearly all local ranchers, even though, according to FWS, livestock grazing would continue unhampered as a "wildlife management tool." Said one, "The federal government has no business owning land." Scoffed another, "You don't hire cowboys. You hire left-over hippies." And, according to Denny Gentry of the New Mexico Cattle Growers Association, "We're opposed to any purchase of private land by a government entity unless an equal amount is put back into private [ranchers'] ownership." (2-7-88 The New Mexican) Answering the ranchers' wishes, Secretary of the Interior Manuel Lujan, Jr., a former New Mexico congressman, and then-New Mexico Governor Garrey Carruthers, a public lands rancher, helped block State Senator Jeff Bingaman's proposal to appropriate funds to buy the ranch. (Current Governor Bruce King is likewise a wealthy public lands rancher opposed to the proposed Refuge.)

In January 1990 The Nature Conservancy closed a deal to buy the entire 321,000 acre ranch for $18 million in what is thought to be the largest private land acquisition in "conservation" history. The Nature Conservancy's idea was to eventually transfer title to most of it to FWS for the Wildlife Refuge. However, to try to gain area ranchers' approval for the Refuge, both The Nature Conservancy and FWS have pledged to lease the vast bulk of the "refuge" for livestock grazing and said that they have no plans to reintroduce wolves. Indeed, there is speculation that pressure from local ranchers will force a livestock increase on the land, and that the ranchers will never allow it to become a National Wildlife Refuge. Currently 15,000 head of cattle roam the ranch, and -despite reports that it is in "excellent" condition -- much of the ranch is in fair or poor condition after a century of overgrazing. (Wolf 1990) Late word has it that a group of surrounding ranchers have threatened to chain off all roads leading into "the ranch."

*National Park Service

Grazing on park land is permitted where authorized by law or permitted for a term of years as a condition of land acquisition. Grazing and raising of livestock is also permitted in historic

zones where desirable to perpetuate and interpret the historic scene.

--National Park Service Guideline NPS-53, Special Park Uses

America's National Parks are world famous for their beauty and grandeur. Since the late 1800s Congress has been setting aside these lands as the most unique and impressive examples of untrammeled Nature in this country. Today they comprise the most extraordinary system of natural preserves on Earth.

Naturally most Americans think their National Parks and Monuments are protected from commercial exploitation. And generally they are, outside of certain heavily visited locations where concessionaires are permitted to operate stores, gas stations, lodges, and other services deemed necessary for tourists. However, ranching is once again the glaring exception. A little history:

As with FS, BLM, state, and other public lands, most lands in the West chosen for the National Park Service (NPS) system were open to ranching before such designation. More so than any other group, the stockmen holding permits to graze these lands and owning strategic inholdings influenced their ultimate fate.

In some cases, the federal government was able with generous offers to buy out grazing permits, base properties, and/or private ranchlands or make special deals with stockmen to establish ranching-free Parks. Many ranchers increased their wealth and power as a result; some left the livestock business, others expanded their ranching operations elsewhere.

In many instances, however, stockmen (supported by their political representatives) refused to relinquish "their" grazing permits to proposed Park lands, even though usually most of their forage and browse needs were met by other lands. They used their substantial influence to force the government into special agreements that allowed them to continue ranching the new Park lands, either in perpetuity or for a period of years. Consequently, some Parks (Sequoia, for example) have over the years paid off ranchers and phased out ranching, while others (Great Basin, for example) plan to continue ranching indefinitely. Currently, a bill to expand Craters of the Moon National Monument in southern Idaho and turn it into a National Park contains language mandating continued livestock grazing at neartraditional levels. A proposal by the Hell's Canyon Preservation Council to turn Hell's Canyon National Recreation Area into a National Park is shackled with wording designed to continue ranching indefinitely. New Mexico's newly designated El Mapais National Monument also plans to continue ranching.

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Cattle in El Mapais National Monument, northwest New Mexico. (Dale Turner)

Some stockmen owning base properties and/or other ranchland within proposed Park boundaries required that as a condition of acquiring these private lands the government allow them to continue traditional ranching in the new Parks. Others refused to yield their private lands, and as a consequence some Parks, such as Zion and Black Canyon of the Gunnison, still contain private ranches within their borders.

Some ranchers even convinced the government to allow them to maintain ranching operations in new Parks under guise of "preserving the historic Old West" for the benefit of tourists; Pipe Springs NM in northern Arizona is a disgraceful example. These and some other NPS units actively promote ranching. However, ranching in many Parks proceeds only under the ardent objections of Park supervisors and staff.

In the 11 Western states the National Park Service currently administers 23 National Parks, 47 National Monuments, 11 National Recreation Areas, and 17 National Memorials, Historic Sites, Historic Parks, Battlefield Parks, Seashores, and such. These 98 NPS units cover about 17 million acres, or 2.3%, of the West. Somewhat less than 3 million acres of this land is open to commercial ranching, including 7 National Parks, 7 National Monuments, 5 National Recreation Areas, and 7 National Memorials, etc. Many NPS units outside the West also allow ranching -- even Haleakala National Park in Hawaii.

Livestock production on NPS lands, which is by far mostly cattle ranching, is administered by the National Park Service or, in several cases, adjacent federal land management agencies. Ranching impact generally is less severe than for any other public or private ranchland category in the West. However, some NPS units have serious problems and in most units historic ranching damage lingers (Yosemite, Canyonlands, and Petrified Forest, for example). Some NPS and even some non-NPS ranchers are granted permission to trail livestock across NPS lands.

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Sawtooth National Recreation Area, central Idaho.

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A down gate and deteriorating fence on the south boundary of Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona.

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Most NPS stockmen pay the same micro-fee charged other federal permittees under the PRIA formula. As with BLM and IS permittees, the government sponsors nearly all of their range developments and guarantees construction and maintenance of any range "improvements" deemed necessary for continued ranching. NPS reports indicate that NPS spends millions of tax dollars each year on or because of ranching -- at least several times what it takes in from grazing fees. Many of these reports complain of fiscal waste on ranching management, personnel tied up with ranching matters, overgrazing and structural damages to Parks, as well as cattle in campgrounds, visitor centers, picnic, recreation, and other tourist areas.

... there is no authorized cattle grazing in the park... There are inholdings of private land and many acres of private and public land along Zion's boundaries where grazing is permitted. Maintaining fence along the boundary is a large task Although we have a very good fence crew, it needs to be bigger to completely exclude cattle. We also badly need additional managers to patrol for cattle trespass and other violations.

--Harold L. Grafe, Superintendent, Zion National Park, Utah, in a 8-18-89 letter

Rivaling and perhaps surpassing permitted ranching as a problem on National Park Service lands is trespass grazing. The Parks' relatively lush vegetation is a magnet for hungry livestock, which commonly break through fences or come through open gates, perhaps with a little help from their owners. Ranchlands border nearly all Parks in the West, and the thousands of miles of protective fences in often rugged terrain are difficult and expensive for NPS to maintain. Thus, the job descriptions of many NPS employees, even in "ungrazed" Parks, include patrolling for trespassing livestock; closing gates; chasing cattle, sheep, and horses out of tourist areas and off Park land; rounding up, moving, and caring for trespass animals; repairing developments and mitigating environmental impacts; dealing with permittees; and building and mending fences.

Most Western Parks report problems from trespass livestock. A 1986 project statement by Kings Canyon National Park in California, for example, states that impacts from trespassing cattle include "trampling of wetlands, conversion of grass to feces, formation of cattle trails, extra erosion, fecal deposition in streams, and destruction of sedges ...... The statement requests $300,000 for the first year and $20,000/yr thereafter for increased patrol and fence maintenance." A similar Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument (Arizona) statement requests $195,000 for fencing, patrol and other management due to "serious" trespass problems "which could multiply manifold" if protective measures are not taken. At world-famous Grand Canyon National Park, officials state that trespass grazing has caused changes in soil, native wildlife, and vegetation; they likewise request more protective fencing. In northwest California's Redwood National Park, 117 cattle and horses were reported to have trespassed 1170 acres in 1984 (the latest figures available); recently $22,000 was expended there to modify 4 miles of the boundary fence because elk were dying on it.

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Roughly half of all Western National Parks are trespassed more or less regularly by livestock from adjacent public and private lands, or from NPS allotments themselves. The Rocky Mountain Region of NPS reports in its Summary of Livestock Grazing for 1987 that livestock trespassed 11 of its 14 grazed units and ate 8% as much herbage as permitted animals. However, as with other federal lands, officially recorded amounts probably represent only a small fraction of actual trespass. I have several times witnessed trespassing cattle or sheep which were undiscovered, ignored, or chased out of Parks without official recognition.

Wyoming's U.S. Senator Clifford Hansen held, in the Tetons, the largest grazing permit in all the Park Service -- for 569 cattle. The permit had originated as trespass grazing in clear violation of federal law years before. The record was clear -the Park Service would have to enforce its own laws and regulations and cancel Hansen's permit and others like it... The chief ranger was a tall, experienced man who carefully read my memorandum before he called me into his office. He clapped a fatherly hand on my shoulder and looked both concerned and sympathetic. "Young man, " he said, "I don't care what you find in those records, as long as Cliff Hansen sits on the Senate Interior Committee, we ain't going to fuck with his cows."

--Bernard Shanks, This Land Is Your I-and (Shanks 1984)

Let's examine the ranching situation on several NPS units:

In Wyoming's Grand Teton National Park, 24,000 acres are grazed by 1600 cattle owned by 8 permittees. Most of this is in the beautiful, grassy, and profitable Snake River Valley; political string pulling secured continued ranching here. Park visitors are encouraged to view the overgrazing cattle, fences and other range developments as part of the natural scenery.

Southern Utah's Zion National Park is world famous as a land of spectacular, steep-walled canyons and colorful rock formations. Though none of the Park is legally grazed, Zion hosts a private cattle ranch within its boundaries and provides it with guaranteed access. One adjacent permittee drives herds of cattle through a portion of the Park each spring. Reports show that in 1987 200 trespassing cattle grazed 1200 AUMs on 5400 Park acres, upsetting fragile riparian corridors and desert ecology. Herds of sheep also trespass Zion's verdant high country, but little of this is officially recognized or challenged. Other than visitor use and related development, ranching is Zion's most serious threat.

Throughout the grazing season, we assisted permittees with livestock management on the Park as often as possible. This fostered good working relations with the permittees.

--Resource Management Plan Updates, 1989, Great Basin National Park

The recently created, largely overgrazed Great Basin National Park in east-central Nevada would have encompassed hundreds of thousands of acres of basin and range if it were meant to truly represent the basin and range province. Under pressure from stockmen the proposed Park's size was reduced until all that remained was 77,100 acres -- all in the steep mountains, which are of course the least livestock-productive rangeland. Thus, Great Basin National Park contains no basin! Language in the Park bill -without which the bill probably would not have been passed -- allows grazing to continue at more or less pre-existing levels indefinitely. A Park brochure assures tourists that "cattle grazing [is] an integral part of the Great Basin scene." It fails to say that visitors will see hundreds of cattle en route to the Park and will hardly wish to see more, especially in the campgrounds, where they now graze. On the sides of the Park's 13,000' Wheeler Peak, you may (as I have) find cattle above 10,000'.

Big Bend National Park in southwest Texas is a designated World Biosphere Reserve. Historic ranching there was so destructive that even now, several decades after ranching was banned, much of the Park bears little resemblance to prelivestock times. And though most of the Park is making a gradual recovery, trespassing livestock, mainly from Mexico, so heavily degrade the Rio Grande canyon that in many areas riparian systems are trashed and cottonwood regeneration is virtually non-existent. (Wuerthner 1989)

Even Channel Islands National Park off the Southern California coast has livestock problems. Ranching there is scheduled to be phased out over the next decade; however, officials report that, largely from past and present overgrazing, all the islands have high rates of soil erosion. Other problems include vegetation destruction, disturbance of archaeological sites and loss of artifacts, trail damage, and sloughing of sea cliffs.

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Cattle-caused gully erosion, Big Bend NR (George Wuerthner)

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Cattle in Capitol Reef National Park, Utah. (George Wuerthner)

Until a few years ago, 1800 to 2500 cattle grazed more than 145,000 acres between October and May in southern Utah's fantastic Capitol Reef National Park. A century of grazing had stripped off native vegetation, caused serious soil erosion, dried up springs and creeks, severely harmed the few remaining riparian areas, destroyed most of the cryptogamic layer, and helped extirpate bighorn sheep and other wildlife. Cattle and numerous ranching developments disturbed Park visitors and degraded the fragile desert scenery.

When the Park was created from Capitol Reef National Monument and surrounding public lands in 1971, the 30-some existing permittees agreed to phase out grazing by 1982. However, that year Utah Senator Jake Garn and other ranching-advocate politicians introduced legislation to extend grazing in the Park for the lifetimes of the permittees and their heirs. Congress compromised by extending grazing until 1994. The Park Supervisor recently attempted to buy-out the permits, but the politicos pushed through a provision extending grazing for permittees who don't want to sell; it will extend ranching for their lifetimes and even for those of sons and daughters living in 1971. Today, negotiations and generous pay-offs have induced most stockmen to sell "their" permits, but several permittees still ranch the Park. (Zuni Reincarnation 1986 and Sierra Club publications)

Ranching in northwest Colorado's 200,000-acre Dinosaur National Monument has also been reduced in recent years, from about 120,000 acres on 22 allotments to about 80,000 acres on 11 allotments. A phase-out program similar to Capitol Reef's allows permittee family members to retain grazing privileges for their lifetimes, or to cash them in. And like Capitol Reef -- though ranching in the Monument is waning -- its legacy will remain for decades or centuries: grasslands converted to sage and bare dirt, devastated wildlife (bighorns, for example, were extirpated mostly due to ranching by the early 1950s), depleted soil and waters, ravaged riparian areas, increased flooding (which damages the Monument's dinosaur fossil beds), and many road cuts and sacrifice areas.

Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Monument in west-central Colorado encompasses a 20-mile portion of the rugged Gunnison River gorge and some rangeland above it. Several permittees run nearly 1000 cattle on about 7000 acres (the remainder is inaccessible or dominated by cliffs). The owner of one ranch inholding has threatened to bulldoze an access road, clear brush, build stock ponds and ranch structures, harvest Christmas trees, and generally create as big an eyesore as possible unless the Park Service makes a lucrative offer for a scenic easement on his 600 acres and allows him to retain actual title. Another Monument rancher recently was paid a generous $2.1 million for his 4200-acre ranch inholding and given grazing privileges within the monument for 20 years.

Glen Canyon National Recreation Area spreads across 1.25 million acres in southeast Utah. Its infamous Glen Canyon Dam entombs some of the most wonderful river canyons on Earth under the dead waters of "Lake" Powell. Nearly 1 million fragile, and to semi-arid NRA acres are included in 38 grazing allotments that supported only 554 cattle in 1987/88 (about 1800 acres per animal). Most of the remaining 1/4 million acres is under water. Several government agencies presently are conducting tax-sponsored studies for a management plan for long-term livestock grazing on Glen Canyon NRA.

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The 1.5-million-acre Lake Mead National Recreation Area of southernmost Nevada, northwest Arizona, and southwest Utah is host to the largest National Park Service ranching operation of all -- about 1.1 million acres. Aside from the Colorado River and "Lake" Mead itself, the entire NRA is low-elevation, hot, arid, and sparsely vegetated. An Eastern livestock producer might think of turning cattle out on this burning desert as a cruel joke. But the joke is once again on the public and its land, as well as the livestock. BLM resource area offices in Nevada, Arizona, and Utah provide ranching administration and assistance on the NRA for 20 permittees and their cattle. The huge bovines trample and erode the fragile desert soil, crush the cryptogams, and consume the scant greenery. They congregate around the area's few water sources and along the "Lake" Mead and Colorado River shorelines, where they invade campgrounds and foul beaches. We pay to fence them out of the locations popular with tourists and a few of the most environmentally sensitive areas. Aside from the usual seasonal grazing, in much of Lake Mead NRA stockmen are allowed to bring in their cattle whenever wet weather produces a "surplus" of forage or browse -- what is termed "ephemeral grazing." Hundreds of miles of ranching roads degrade the area and provide for vastly increased human impact.

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This gate has 2 locks -- one for the Park Service and one for the rancher. Three allotments cover most of the 5000-acre Coronado National Memorial in southeast Arizona. Staff complain of overgrazing, fiscal waste, and cattle disturbing picnic areas, the visitor center, trails, residences, and a maintenance yard.

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A water development and corral for cattle in Coronado National Monument.

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Point Reyes National Seashore north of San Francisco is largely a livestock operation. Eighteen permittees graze beef cattle, dairy cows, and sheep on about 25,000 acres, and cultivate an additional 2000 acres for oats and rye -together, roughly 40% of the Seashore. This includes the most sensitive portion of the Seashore, with 23 rare plant species and 4 animal species targeted for protection (due partly to ranching impacts). Ranching roads, fences, outbuildings, and resident ranch headquarters mar recreational use, and harm and preclude wildlife. Overgrazing strips native vegetation, spreads "pest" species such as thistle and poison hemlock, and increases flooding. Herbicides, pesticides, and livestock wastes pollute fresh and salt water. These influences, and increased soil erosion calculated at 110,000 tons annually, threaten the health of the Drakes and Limantour Estuaries, the last 2 estuaries on the California coast in a semi-natural state. NPS currently is throwing hundreds of thousands of tax dollars at the problem, rather than simply halting livestock operations.

Several miles south, just across the bridge from San Francisco, commercial cattle and horses graze more than 2000 acres of Golden Gate NRA.

Through the years ranchmen have been foremost among those working to prevent establishment of new National Parks. In some cases they halted them altogether, and often they were able to limit their size. At present, in California's Mojave Desert a half-dozen permittees are fighting toothand-nail to prevent the transformation of BLM's East Mojave Scenic Area into Mojave National Park. The ranchers graze only about 3000 cattle on the and 1.6 minion acre expanse -- roughly 1 cow per square mile -- but their opposition is a formidable barrier to Park designation. On the 210 million acres in the Midwest that were once tallgrass prairie, there are no National Parks or Monuments, and less than 3% of original grassland remains (though in degraded condition). Ranchers there have thus far beat back serious attempts to establish a Tallgrass Prairie National Park, first in Kansas and then in Oklahoma.

And of course, many potential Parks will never be realized because stockmen own outright about 1/4 of the rural West, including many locations that might otherwise have become Parks.

Nearly every NPS unit where ranching has been banned shows significant recovery: Grand Canyon, Petrified Forest, Rocky Mountain, Yellowstone, Yosemite, Sequoia/Kings Canyon, Canyonlands, Arches, Bryce, Natural Bridges, Wupatki, Devils Tower, and many more. In 1978-79 livestock were removed from Organ Pipe National Monument in southwest Arizona. Previously most of the expansive 500-square-mile Monument was desolate due to decades of ranching abuse. Today, even this and desert is relatively verdant. (Schultz 1971 and Warren 1987)

Where grazing is permitted and its continuation is not in the best interest of public use or maintenance of the park ecosystem; it will be eliminated....

--National Park Service Guideline NPS-53, Special Park Uses

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Wupatki National Monument in northern Arizona is beginning to recover from a century of ranching.

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Recovery from ranching in Arches National Park, Utah. (George Wierthner)

*Military and other federal

The United States Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard, Corps of Engineers, Bureau of Reclamation, Department of Energy, Agricultural Research Service, Department of Transportation, and other federal entities also lease lands for livestock ranching -- roughly 2-3 minion acres altogether. On the whole ranching administration on these lands is conducted more responsibly than on most government lands, and ranching's impact here generally is less harmful.

Grazing fees charged for most of these federal lands are determined largely by competitive bid and average roughly $4-$10/AUM -- usually about 1/3 to 3/4 fair market value *in the local area. But bidding here rarely is truly competitive; as with all public ranchlands, traditional permittees enjoy many covert favors and special arrangements that help them retain control. Newcomers are discouraged and thwarted in various ways.

The US Army's expansive Fort Hunter-Liggett is nestled in the beautiful hills and valleys just inland from the central California coast. Prime annual grassland/oak woodland, about 110,000 of its 165,000 acres are open to ranching from November through June. Competitive bidding for 4 leases is administered by the US Army Corps of Engineers, while on-the-ground administration is conducted by the Army, which employs a full-time range conservationist. Competitive bids recently have averaged about $6-$7/AUM, but in the past reached as high as $18/AUM. A sergeant at HunterLiggett refers to the lessees as "a few big shots" who "control all grazing."

Three other nearby central California coast military reservations also lease ranching via similar competitive bid and administration. About 10,000 acres at the Army's Fort Ord are open to sheep ranching, as are portions of Vandenberg Air Force Base. Cattle ranching is supervised by the Corps of Engineers on 20,000 acres of Camp Roberts, a former Army base now leased to the state for National Guard use. And, 2 sheep ranchers graze 31,000 acres of California's south coast Marine Corps Camp Pendleton, while cattlemen ranch the adjacent Fallbrook Naval Weapons Station and even the Seal Beach NWS in the midst of Orange County's metropolitan expanse.

Under BLM administration and grazing fees, one permittee ranches 35,000 acres of Nellis Air Force Base in southern Nevada, in addition to "his" 300,000 BLM acres. Ranching on the US Department of Energy's Hanford Reservation in Washington is administered by the Washington Department of Natural Resources. In 1988, about 50,000 acres here were divided between 4 lessees, while the remaining 300,000 acres were used as a buffer zone for DOE's radioactive activities. Lessees pay $4.65/AUM -less than half fair market value. A few miles west, the US Army administers 6 ranching leases on 194,000 acres of the 264,000-acre Yakima Firing Range. Competitive bid fees for cattle and sheep grazing there average $5.62/AUM.

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Perhaps the most widely publicized example of superior public lands ranching administration is the US Army's 271,000-acre McGregor Range in southern New Mexico. Grazing fees on the Range's 15 grazing units are determined by competitive bid and average about $7/AUM, while the

fee on adjacent BLM land was, of course, only $1.81/AUM in 1990. Additionally, BLM, which administers ranching on the McGregor Range, annually sets minimum bids which ostensibly finance all administrative costs (the falseness of this claim is detailed elsewhere). Further, the Army controls access and assumes no responsibility for safety or damages, while BLM allows no subleasing, maintains "only" wells and pipelines, retains ownership of all permanent structural "improvements," requires prompt and full bid payments, monitors cattle movement on and off the range, and enforces (relatively speaking) strict penalties for violations. Interestingly, even with the "high" fee and all these restrictions, there is no lack of prospective graziers. Range condition on the McGregor Range, though not excellent, is much better than on comparable surrounding land. (Johnson 1987)

• State

Nothing in history suggests that the states are adequate to protect their own resources, or even want to, or suggests that cattlemen and sheepmen are capable of regulating themselves even for their own benefit, still less the public's.

--Bernard DeVoto, The Easy Chair (DeVoto 1955)

As Western states were added to the United States in the 1800s, they were granted land, primarily as compensation for loss of sovereignty to the federal government (to placate the states and minimi e their opposition to federal annexation). Texas, essentially an independent nation before statehood, had much greater leverage and was able to transfer almost all of its land from federal to state and eventually to private ownership. Thus, today 98% of Texas is privately owned, mostly by ranchers, and almost universally overgrazed.

Originally, land grants to the Western states constituted about 5% of their area; the states received the 16th and 36th sections of each township, except Utah and New Mexico which each received 4 sections. Nevada, which received the smallest grant area, got just under 3 million acres, or an area about the size of Connecticut, while New Mexico received the largest, a 10-million-acre portion (twice the size of Massachusetts). As the years passed, ownership patterns changed. Some states sold holdings for revenue. Some bought or traded land for various reasons. Today, some states own more than originally and some less; all except Nevada retain about 2 million acres or more.

Most state land was established for the purpose of supporting education, including state colleges, while smaller land grants were provided for state institutions, internal improvements, and other purposes. Typically, Western states passed laws around the turn of the century requiring state lands to be used to return the highest possible revenue to state school systems. Subsequently, they have developed a wide variety of revenue-gainers and administrative procedures. State lands are leased for logging, mining, farming, rights-of-way, billboards, movie-making, recreation, and many other commercial purposes -- and, of course, most of all for ranching. All imaginable forms of natural resources are sold from state land. And each year thousands of acres of Western state land are sold outright, usually to the highest bidder.

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In their economic self-interest, the Western states have interpreted their school trust laws as strict mandates to -above all else -- generate maximum profit from state lands. Consequently, states have shown little inclination to protect land under their administration from reckless exploitation, and state lands generally are the most abused of all government lands in the West. Had the Sagebrush Rebellion been successful in its avowed goal of transferring federal lands to the states, it would have made the longstanding ranching disaster on these lands even worse.

State land leased for grazing purposes (nearly all) carries no stipulations concerning the number of livestock to be grazed, season of use, or length of grazing period. These matters are entirely within the discretion of the lessee.

--Wesley Calef, Private Grazing and Public Lands (Calef 1960)

In telephone interviews with officials of various Western state agencies (a hellish ordeal!!!), the great majority of the 60 or so contacted -- even range managers -- told me they had no idea how much of their land was ranched, how many AUMs were consumed, what grazing fee was charged, how much tax was spent, or even how much land was under their jurisdiction! For example, of the 60 only 1 (in California) could tell me how much land was owned by the state. Some officials were reluctant to share what little information they had; others were openly hostile (Washington and Colorado particularly). This is understandable when you consider that many state officials are ranchers or tied to the ranching industry. Yet, despite all the ignorance and resistance, I was able to compile the following:

The 11 Western states presently own approximately 46 million acres -- roughly 6% of the West. About 36 million acres, or nearly 80%, is used for livestock ranching.

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State land departments administer more than 90% of all state land and state lands ranching. In 1988 they charged a weighted average fee of $2.26/AUM -- about 30% higher than the federal fee, but less than 1/4 fair market value. As with federal fees, state land department fees are consistently low and generally vary little from year to year.

State departments of wildlife, parks & recreation, and occasionally others also administer significant amounts of Western state land. These agencies usually charge $6 to $12 per AUM, sometimes more, as one official told me "making one wonder why state land departments and the federal government are not doing the same." Lesser amounts of state land -- totaling perhaps 2-3 million acres -- are administered by state departments of forestry, highways, agriculture, corrections, state military, state universities, and other state entities. Some of these lands are leased for ranching, usually for most of fair market value.

The figures I was able to obtain indicate that in 1988 the 11 Western states sold approximately 7 million AUMs on 36 million acres for roughly $15 million. This represents roughly 1/3 of the AUM use and fee return of Western federal land.

Interestingly, though states have a supposed mandate to maximize income from state land, raising grazing fees to near fair market value seems out of the question due to ranchers' clout. So the states partially compensate by allowing extremely heavy stocking under the assumption that more livestock = more fee revenue. Nevertheless, because state ranching produces such a tiny percentage of livestock, yields so little revenue compared to total expenditures, and degrades the environment and competes with other land uses, terminating state lands ranching would greatly benefit the economies of Western states.

State lands ranching is unbelievably diverse and confused. Ownership patterns often are a mosaic or checkerboard. Each state has its own regulations and administration procedures, and numerous state agencies sell ranching under an array of long and short-term leases and permits, rental agreements, and other legal arrangements, mostly stipulated lease agreements. Regulations and lease conditions are scarce and enforcement is lax or nonexistent. For example, in Arizona restrictions are few and the state "monitors" ranching mainly by mailing lessees questionnaires.

Though state land administrators often pretend otherwise, state grazing leases are renewed virtually automatically. Wesley Calef notes in Private Grazing and Public Lands that "Only unusual circumstances will cause a state land administrative agency to refuse a lease renewal requested by the lessee (and the lessee almost invariably does want it renewed)" (Calef 1960).

Consequently, ranchers utilize state land -- even more than federal -- like private property, likewise without having to purchase property or pay property taxes. According to Chuck Griffith, Northern Rocky Mountains state regional executive for the National Wildlife Federation:

Since these school lands were first established, the average grazing permittee has considered them "his," not unlike the attitude of the federal grazing permit holders. Such grazing leases are treated by banks and other lending agencies as tangible, privately owned assets.

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One Washington private lands rancher told me he was amazed to hear a neighbor say that their ranch was "handed down" through the family for generations. He knew that "their ranch" consisted almost entirely of a few thousand acres of Washington State land.

Technically, most state lands are off-limits to people without commercial permits or special permission. But in practice state land generally is administered as public domain in New Mexico, Arizona, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Utah, and Nevada. However, stockmen exercise de facto control over much of this land with warning signs, fences, locked gates, threats, and physical assaults.

The other Western states more actively prohibit public access, though widespread enforcement is impractical due to the huge areas involved and to insufficient personnel. Some states give ranchmen the power to control access to the state land they ranch. For example, Montana's state land department traditionally has allowed grazing lease holders to control access; much of the state land there is posted and the public is literally locked out. Recent legislation in Colorado gives lessees complete access control. The Utah state wildlife agency attempted unsuccessfully to draft a similar bill in 1987. In Wyoming the state education department director has recently reinterpreted the law to prevent ranchers from denying access to hunters and anglers, though they may deny it to backpackers, rockhounds, and other "recreationists." In most states where public use is permitted, if you wish to obtain a permit to use state land for camping or some other purpose, the state land department will first "check with" the local ranching lessee.

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Various state parks, state-operated regional parks, and state land trusts are ranched, often as a condition of their establishment. Many of these lands are purchased and set aside for the expressed purpose of preserving their natural character for the enjoyment and use of the people. Others are acquired with the intent of protecting Threatened or Endangered species, outstanding scenery, or some other natural attribute. Livestock grazing detracts from their original purpose, sometimes resulting in heated conflicts between graziers, other users, and administrators. Here are excerpts from a letter by John O'Donnell, one of the directors of California's East Bay Regional Park District:

The East Bay Regional Park District is comprised of 65, 000 acres of land.... We intend to buy 20, 000 more ... 55% of our acreage is leased to cattle ranchers .... When I drive one of my constituents along our property fine and ask them if they've ever been on the land, their answer is always the same, they look at the barbed wire and the herd of cattle and say no, that's private land . . . I would rather see Tule elk or pronghom on the land ... The Park District even has it's own Rangeland Manager, but we do not have a wildlife manager

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State ranchland in west-central New Mexico. By far most vegetation ends at fence.

In Arizona, less than 1000 ranchers graze livestock on 8.8 of the state's 9.7 million acres -- 12% of the state. They produce less than 1/1000 of US livestock. The Arizona State Land Department brings in an average of about $1 million per year from these lessees, yet the various governments spend many times this amount on or because of state lands ranching. (In contrast, the state lottery nets $120 million/yr.) The current 1990 fee is "way up" from years past -- to $1.40/AUM, or less than 1/5 what private herbage goes for in the state. Grazing fee income accounts for roughly 1% of state land revenue. According to Extension Service Range Specialist Don Floyd, stocking rates on state land are the highest of any public lands category in Arizona -- about 9 cattle per square mile. Overstocking and trespassing are customary. Accordingly, most Arizona state land is tremendously overgrazed.

In Oregon, only 43 lessees graze 536,000 acres -- more than 75% of Oregon's state ranchland -- and altogether less than 200 lessees graze 700,000 acres. At $2.50/AUM, they contribute only a few hundred thousand dollars a year to state school funding, while expending far more state funds under various program .

Washington's less than 200 lessees control most of the state's 1.2 million acres of ranchland. At $4.50/AUM, its grazing fee is the highest of any Western state. Yet, in 1988 from all lessees Washington collected only $582,120 -about 0.3% of the state's total $193 million state trust land revenue. At least $2-$3 million of its $32 million state lands budget is expended on ranching, for fire management, insect and disease control, riparian restoration, roads, maintenance and supplies, range personnel, general administration, and more. (WA St. Dept. of Nat. Res. 1988 and 1989)

In Montana, 4.1 of 5.6 million acres of state land are leased to ranchers for $2.59/AUM. Like most state land, most of Montana's ranchland has suffered greatly from overgrazing and range development. Additionally, the state has tentative plans to sell large portions of its land to wealthy ranchers. In response, the Montana Coalition for Appropriate Management of State Land sued the Montana State Land Department for mismanagement, failure to actively implement the existing multiple use law, and to discourage sale of state land.

New Mexico's state land i-s among the most devastated anywhere, mostly by ranching. Stockmen there run livestock on more state land than in any other state -- 8.9 of 9.5 million acres, or 12% of the state. Their average $2.59/AUM grazing fee provides only about 2% of the Land Office's annual revenue. In 1985, in a bold move to increase state school revenue, State Lands Commissioner Jim Baca attempted to raise the fee to near fair market value. His plan was promptly crushed by the ranching establishment; a Santa Fe district judge threw out the proposed fees, saying in effect that grazing fees should be based on how much ranchers say they are able to pay, not on what the ranching is actually worth.

Most of the Great Plains states conduct ranching on state lands, causing similar environmental and economic problems. For example, on a large state-land ranch in Texas, 22 lawyers, owners of the base property, are known to have each received about $50,000 in subsidies in 1987.

Even Hawaii, about 1/3 of which has been cleared of tropical and sub-tropical forest and is now pasture, leases livestock grazing on state land. Ranching there is dominated by big-time stockmen. Ranchers on the Big Island currently are battling state biologists and environmentalists over the fate of the nearly extinct 'alala, or Hawaiian crow. Experts agree that the 'alala's only hope for survival is for state biologists to capture the few remaining wild birds and add them to the 10 already in a captive breeding program. The state had planned to do just that, but backed out when the owners of the McCandless Ranch, who hold a grazing lease for the state land where the birds live, refused to allow researchers or biologists into the area. Some speculate that the owners don't want scientists on the ranch because they might find other Endangered species, a situation which might result in the government curtailing ranching operations. Experts say that destruction of food sources and habitat by livestock grazing and forest cutting for ranching, timber, and development have decimated the 'alala.

The 36 million acres of ranched Western state land are of great environmental importance and potential. Yet as a whole they are the most severely overgrazed public lands, monopolized by a small number of powerful stockmen who don't produce enough livestock to begin to justify ranching them. To my knowledge, there has not been one serious, comprehensive study of the utilization and administration of state lands with regards to ranching. In sum, the secretive, often-corrupt state lands ranching industry is an even bigger rip-off than the federal.

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State land behind this sign is treated essentially as private property.

*County

Western counties also own millions of acres as public parks, nature reserves, flood control and watershed protection areas, and so on. Many of these lands, larger parcels especially, are ranched under a wide variety of arrangements, often as a result of contract stipulations when the land was sold by ranchers to counties. Grazing fees generally are substantially higher than for federal land, though still well below fair market value. Ranching damage here is also extensive, though usually not so bad as on state lands. Land use conflicts are common.

*City

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Many Western cities own surprisingly large amounts of undeveloped land in outlying areas, some of which are leased for livestock grazing. Ranching here usually is loosely regulated; consequently, these lands are often badly abused. Some cities also own large parcels of land far removed from their geographic locations, often for the purpose of procuring or protecting watersheds. The City of Los Angeles, for example, owns hundreds of thousands of overgrazed acres hundreds of miles north in the Owens Valley for water purposes (ironically, it could create more water by ending ranching there). The City of Scottsdale, Arizona, owns a large ranch in Mojave County, more than 100 miles away. Happily, the Scottsdale City Council recently voted to end sheep grazing on the ranch to prevent the possible transmission of life-threatening diseases to bighorn sheep in the area.

*Other

And some quasi-governmental bodies administer ranchlands -- various commissions, directorates, land trustees, and other semi-official entities. Ranching arrangements on these lands vary greatly.

*Indian Reservation

Indian reservations, supervised by the Interior Department's Bureau of Indian Affairs as "federal trust" lands, are not public land except to Native Americans. They encompass roughly 55 million acres in the US, 44 million in the West. About 40 million acres are grazed by livestock, perhaps 35 million in the 11 Western states -- nearly all that can be.

One-fourth of reservation livestock are owned by nonNative Americans under joint agreement between the Bureau of Indian Affairs and Native Americans. Most of the remainder of reservation grazing is controlled by a relatively small number of influential Native Americans, similar to the US public lands ranching establishment. Of course, many poor Native Americans do own a few cattle, sheep, goats, and/or horses for meat, milk, wool, transportation, and/or "tradition," but the commonly held notion that profits from reservation livestock are shared equitably among all is false, and most land damage is caused by commercial animals.

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Goats eat nearly anything; they have stripped the foreground bare and the lower branches from the bushes. Navajo Reservation, AZ, between Tuo-noz-poz and Tus-naz-eye. (Katie Lee)

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The Bureau of Indian Affairs is notoriously corrupt, as are many tribal councils and chairmen (former Navajo Chairmen Peter McDonald, for example, who was recently convicted and jailed on conspiracy and fraud charges, including those related to the purchase of a 491,432-acre ranch). Consequently, on most reservations influential stockmen maintain much power and receive special favors and obscure subsidization.

About 10 per cent of the Papagos [Indians, Arizona] own 90 per cent of the cattle. These local sheiks and politicos call the shots and maintain the status quo. Even drought is to their benefit, since it tends to weed out some of the smaller operators.

--Arizona Daily Star

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Fort Apache Indian Reservation, Arizona.

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Sheep and goat grazing on the Navajo Indian Reservation, Arizona.

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According to the photographer, this winter range exhibits "drastic abuse" from livestock. Wind River Indian Reservation, Wyoming. (George Robbins photo, Jackson, W.)

Ranching impact on most Indian reservations is severe, and has virtually ruined the environmental health of many. For instance, in Desertification in the United States David Sheridan identifies the 15-million-acre Navajo Reservation in northeast Arizona as one of the 3 areas of severe desertification in North America -- a "badly eroded land base with little of its natural grasses and low shrubs intact and vigorous" (Sheridan 1981). The Navajo are perhaps the most livestock-dependent tribe in North America. Also among the most degraded reservations are the Hopi, Apache, Papago, and Hualapai in Arizona (all almost entirely grazed, which along with the Navajo encompass 1/4 of the state), Fort Hall in Idaho, Crow in Montana, and Yakima in Oregon. Combinations of cattle, sheep, goats, and horses on some reservations, such as the Navajo, are especially destructive. Much reservation land formerly serving many uses and providing natural resources is now practically worthless for anything but grazing livestock, if even that.

Though ranching has ravaged their reservations perhaps as thoroughly as all their other land uses combined, few Native Americans would consider abandoning their supposed "traditional means of livelihood." Those with longer memories recall that Spanish and Euro-American conquerors introduced them to cattle and sheep to help pacify ("civilize") them and settle them onto reservations. They understand that their ancestors gradually lost their natural relationship with the Earth as their domestic animals gutted the land that once provided them with physical and spiritual fulfillment.

* Private

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The widespread overgrazing of private lands in Texas, and throughout the West, is as disturbing to me as the overgrazing of public lands.

--David D. Diamond, M.S. in botany, Ph.D in Range Science, Austin, Texas

Finally, while 41% of the West is public ranchland, an additional 25% is private ranchland. (Including Indian reservations, 70% of the West is commercially ranched.) Nearly 40% of the West is privately owned, and 62%, or about 184 of 295 million acres, of this land is used for grazing livestock. Most of the remaining 38% is used for private residences and businesses in cities and towns; therefore, private land is even more dedicated to ranching than is public.

Indeed, it is truly amazing how much of our private property we Americans devote to 4-legged grazers. Visit a typical rural Western settlement. Most people who own several to several hundred acres have fenced the boundaries and turned them into barren pastures with cattle, sheep, goats, and equines. Nongrazed land is restricted to fenced homes and yards, businesses, and vacant lots. Out on the open private range, almost the only ungrazed land is that which cannot be grazed.

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Private range in California.

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Not having even the scant protection provided by government supervision, many private lands are wrecked by ranching. An SCS appraisal of the 1982 National Resources Inventory data indicates that 71% of non-federal ranchland in the West is being "inadequately managed," mostly as pertaining to livestock numbers and duration of grazing (Atwood 1990). Conversely, lack of government influence allows some ranchers to practice lighter stocking and more benign ranching management. On the whole, however, private ranchlands are probably in worse condition than are public lands; percentage-wise, more private range is accessible to livestock, is more highly developed for ranching, and has been ranched longer. The 1975 BLM survey report concluded that about 68% of private rangeland was in fair or poor condition (Ferguson 1983). This seems to indicate that the ranching industry is managing the land it gained ownership of as poorly as the public land it is permitted to ranch. SCS (under) estimates about the same percentage of private rangeland in "unsatisfactory" condition as does BLM (under)estimate for its rangeland. In 1987 SCS reported the condition of private range in the contiguous US as 4% excellent, 31% good, 47% fair, and 17% poor, with range conditions stable on 69% of this land, improving on 16% and declining on 15% (Willard 1990). In other words, nearly 2/3 of private range -- more than 270 million acres -- is functioning at less than half its potential, and about as much of private range is declining as improving.

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Private ranchland. As always, note the fenceline contrast.

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Perhaps most of the 30,000 or so Western public lands ranching privately owned base properties are located in or near riparian areas, most of which consequently have been severely degraded.

OTHER PUBLIC RANCHLANDS

In Livestock Grazing and the Livestock Industry, Frederic H. Wagner estimates that cattle numbers in the West are now at an all-time high, that forage demand for western livestock today is at an alltime high, and notes that "it seems possible that they [private rangelands] are experiencing some of the heaviest pressures they have received in the history of the West" (Wagner 1978). Even so, in the 1989 USFS publication, An Analysis of the Range Forage Situation in the United States. 1989-2040, Linda A. Joyce concludes, "…the supply of forage from private lands in 2040 is projected to increase by 52% over the 1985 levels" (Joyce 1989).

Because, aside from farmland, private ranchland generally is the most productive land in the rural West, it often appears (even to range professionals) to be in better condition than it actually is, especially compared to the relatively rugged, dry, barren, public rangeland. The more productive private ranchland should support more wildlife than public ranchland does, and in some cases, such as pronghorn in Wyoming, it does. Yet, throughout most of the West more wildlife survives on public land where it is afforded a higher degree of protection from ranching and attrition from ranchers and others.

California's private ranchland is the worst. Even SCS, which generally is protective of ranching, says that 46% of the state's non-federal rangeland is in poor condition -producing (primarily for livestock) at 0%-25% of its present potential; Idaho is second with 29% (USDA, SCS 1981). This is largely a reflection of California's overall longer history of ranching; early Spanish settlers began overgrazing its lush grasses in the 1600s. Additionally, although California rangeland receives less summer precipitation than any other state's, ranchers nevertheless often graze it through summer. According to a major interagency study of California's San Joaquin Valley, of the 4 million acres of grazing land there, 3.2 million, or 80%, "have problems."

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Demarcating his private ranching domain, a Utah stockman has spray-painted "THIS IS PRIVATE PROPERTY NO TRESSPASSING [sic]" on a rock face directly over an Anasazi pictograph. (Kelly Cranston)

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Worth special mention here are the Western "railroad lands." To speed colonization of the West, the federal government very early on encouraged construction and westward extension of railroads by means of large land grants. These grants initially totalled more than 94 million acres, consisting of alternate sections extending in a checkerboard pattern 10 to 40 miles on each side of the right-of-way.

Because checkerboarded railroad sections alternate with sections of BLM, FS, state, and/or other private lands, stockmen usually exercise de facto control of ranching on these lands as well. In this way stockmen have been able to block up huge tracts of public and private land. Many ranchers consider and manage these parcels, especially state and BLM lands, as their own. Because these lands usually are unsurveyed and unmarked, administration is difficult and the public and government generally defer control to stockmen.

Over the years most railroad lands were purchased by stockmen. Today, less than 20 million acres are still held by the railroads, and most of these are leased to stockmen. Railroad lease agreements generally don't restrict the number of livestock, period of use, etc., so these lands are among the most overgrazed in the West. Due to past and present ranching abuse, some are so wasted that they are considered virtually worthless even by ranchers.