Posted on 03/17/2006 8:22:02 PM PST by george76
Sheep don't mix well with grizzly bears and wolves.
Now they won't mix at all on more than 70,000 acres in the Absaroka-Beartooth wilderness.
A 74,000-acre sheep grazing allotment south of Big Timber in the Gallatin National Forest has been permanently closed and the ranchers who used it for generations have been paid to move their sheep elsewhere...
The agreement is the eighth -- and second-largest -- in the greater Yellowstone ecosystem in recent years that has led to the retirement of about 300,000 acres from grazing.
The latest involves the Ash Mountain and Iron Mountain allotments used for generations by the Allestad family of Big Timber.
The decision wasn't an easy one.
Elaine Allestad said the family had been grazing sheep in that area since the late 1920s. In recent years, the family had been permitted to have a maximum of 1,200 sheep on the allotment.
But wolves and grizzlies took a heavy toll on their ewes and lambs. A few years ago, grizzlies killed 60 sheep, she said.
While it made sense to take their sheep somewhere farther from wild carnivores, it was difficult to say goodbye to a tradition several generations old of raising sheep in the backcountry.
"It was a very sad decision to make because of the history," ...
The latest allotment retirement ends an era for sheep grazing in that area.
"The history of sheep grazing in the Absaroka Mountains is a storied one that will be missed by many but not forgotten," Ken Britton, district ranger for the Gallatin National Forest, wrote in a letter to the Allestads.
(Excerpt) Read more at casperstartribune.net ...
I detest mutton and don't wear wool clothes or use wool blankets.
They are also "vacating" allotments for cattle.
Soon much more of our food sources will only be feed lots.
No more free range food.
I even like "farmed salmon". BTW, you'll still have your free range food, but you are going to have to start eating wild dogs ~ and I've heard they aren't all that bad once you get used to the stringiness.
We will get to see open range fires burn for months though.
Feel better?
Once the family loses its summer grazing allotment, then they will leave ranching soon thereafter.
The math is that the families can not grow enough food to feed the live stock all year.
They need to get some rest for their winter ranges in the valley. While the grass grows in the valley in the summer, the sheep or cattle are in the mountains eating on their rented allotments.
It is too expensive to buy hay and too expensive to buy the extra, replacement land to grow extra hay. Thus they have to cut the herd in half or go out of business all together.
Yes.
That is the point. Kick the family farmers and ranchers out.
Here's another govt. tidbit
More Federal Support on its Way for Ivory-bill Habitat Lynn Scarlett, Deputy Secretary of the Interior, has announced that the Bush administration is seeking $2.1 million for the 2007 fiscal year to restore and protect the bottomland forest in Eastern Arkansas, including funds to aid in the monitoring and recovery of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker.
I suggest you get this book: Native Indian Wild Game, Fish & Wild Foods Cookbook ... includes squirrel, possum, venison curry, venison meatloaf, etc.
Are all farmed Salmon mushy ?
The free range fish seem to taste better.
IMHO
"Are all farmed Salmon mushy ?
The free range fish seem to taste better.
IMHO"
When first tasted the farm raised, the word mushy immediately came to mind, brought me to do some research, on them.
There was no other known fiber that could do that until the development of synthetics.. and I'm not sure there are any synthetics that can make that claim..
As for mutton, you're one up on me there..
I've never tasted it..
The "pink salmon" thing is a fetish. It proves nothing. Old timers who worked in canning factories up and down the PAC NW in the 20s and 30s have told me that at one time "pure white" meat was favored, and the red went to the cats.
Squirrel is exceptionally good. This area has a major stand of white oak, and squirrels raised on acorns are something else. The new ones are already out stirring around.
However, lamb is quite nice. Since I work with wool, I don't want to see the price rise. I get mine from an Amish mill located in Pennsylvania, and the cost is comparatively low. I doubt this will affect my supplier.
OTOH, meat and wool animals are often two different operations. Many meat sheep grow hair, not wool.
I object to this sort of thing because it is manipulative and aims to clear humans and human activity out of places the Greens have decreed must remain "pristine".
Sheep eating animals are not, in my world, competitors.
I think part of the problem here is that when the various parts of that area of the world were carved up for different uses they simply didn't realize how big a range bears need.
Oh, yes, I stay AWAY from the bears. They really are dangerous.
Around here the enviros planted the Oplamato Falcon and then started telling the ranchers what they had to do. The stupid ranchers accomodated them and then they just became more shrill and demanding. They had to move their cattle off the range when the birds started mating. The funniest thing of all is when they moved the cattle the birds abandoned their nests and followed the cattle.
Not sure where you got your information, but it is incorrect on all counts.
But something had gotten there before him. Everywhere he looked, it seemed, there was a sheep that had been attacked and bloodied.
"It was terrible," he said. "Some of them just had a chunk of flesh tore out, in some cases clear to the bone, the size of an orange.
A few were bit in the neck."
A few of the sheep could be doctored, but many of them died... of the 60 that were attacked, 21 died and 39 were injured.
On top of that, the percentage of ewes with twins dropped from a typical 45 to 55 percent to around 20 percent, which will mean a serious blow to his business.
"I think that trauma had a lot to do with it,"
http://www.billingsgazette.net/articles/2006/03/17/news/state/20-sheep.txt
The associations representing salmon farmers emphasize this sort of thing ~ so that "wild" salmon stocks are not allowed to breed with "farmed" salmon.
I presume that was the part where you had a problem ~ but, alas, I have that reference and a whole lot of others (358,000 of 'em) to look at.
Little short guys, too, and they know fish ~ and they all have more than their fair share of scars from cutting up salmon.
Lived in Alaska for years, commercial fished a bit, (salmon troller and even longlined for halibut) been around canneries, flash freezing operations etc and know about iron *hinks replacing the Chinese and Filipinos. Never heard anyhing such as you state.
Atlantic salmon farmed raised in the Atlantic or Pacific are still Atlantic salmon. (anymore, the shrimp one gets are often farm raised in fresh water hundreds of miles from the ocean)
Farm raising Pacific salmon for the reasons I stated, are not a viable commercial venture. They simply do not take to being caged up, fed an artificial diet and put on weight.
If you were about 125 years of age you could possibly have been there (as were my informants).
Atlantic farmed Salmon in BC are not going to breed with the Pacific salmon, now, are they?
Uh, farm raised, as in raised in captivity, if the salmon escaped, not much profit in that. Salmon return to the rivers and creeks where they were hatched at to spawn.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.