In the Pacific Northwest, salmon are sacred. That’s no joke and there is widespread public support for environmental restrictions that protect salmon habitat.
I am not anti-rancher or anti-cattlemen. But a person who can’t run their operation profitably without using public lands, well, they had better change what they’re doing.
You can’t rely on the government, period.
You have to familiarize yourself with ranching that’s done in the NW. The leasing of summer grazing has been going on for many many years and it’s the only thing that has allowed the ranchers to stay in business. The enviros are using anything they can to get not only the rancher off the land but everyone, their arguments for the most part are bs.
You have a point but the real purpose of this isn’t to help salmon, its to hurt the ranchers.
SD
You are sadly mistaken regarding the public lands - ranching issue. Cattle producers do pay a rate for grazing albeit less than private lands. However, grazing areas are remote and sorely lacking in improvements. Production costs are subsequently higher.
Additionally, grazing allotments are regulated quite closely to prevent overgrazing. Moreover, they must deal with the exploding feral mustang and burro populations that are our lilly livered politicians refuse to address.
Consider that > 75% of Western US lands are federal “owned”. Many ranchers own small deeded properties adjacent to public lands be it BLM, Forest service, grasslands or what have you. Without cattle grazing, existing lands would be over grown with brush over time.. Post climax plant communities.
The day is coming when we will rely on beef mostly produced in South America.
MFO
“I am not anti-rancher or anti-cattlemen. But a person who can’t run their operation profitably without using public lands, well, they had better change what they’re doing.”
Give me a minute to clean up the beer on my keyboard.
You, sir, are a cretin. Most of those ranchers have been
ranching there for a hundred years and during those years, have been practicing conservation principles before the world “environmentalist” was even coined. Doesn’t it seem strange, that all of a sudden, after decades of taking care of their range, that someone stands up and starts screaming about the fish? Did the fish just suddenly decline after
100 years of ranching?
Get a good NF or BLM map and look at the government owned
land vs the privately held land up in the Blue Mountains.
The privately held land is scattered into small islands,
totally surrounded by fed and state land that has been
leased to these ranchers for decades. A lot of these ranches were operating before statehood, and yet, over the
years, the feds have been slowly squeezing the ranchers
with arbitrary and capricious rulings that are the result
of political pressure from city and urban dudes that wouldn’t know what a cow unit was in the field.
Top of my list is the BLM and F&G, with their heavy handed
ruling, based on who knows what, about what the ranchers can or cannot do.
You seem like a good case for SSS.
Just picturing that makes me laugh
FYI: SSS stands for Sears Service Sucks.
the problem is the west coast cities of Seattle and Portland...where they think their food comes from some food plant that doesn't use water, fertilizers or electricity....
the problem is the west coast cities of Seattle and Portland...where they think their food comes from some food plant that doesn't use water, fertilizers or electricity....