Sunday, March 28, 2004
Grazing Restrictions Widespread
By Rene Romo
Journal Southern Bureau
LAS CRUCES— Rancher Kit Laney, who sits behind bars while the Forest Service rounds up his cattle in an overgrazed portion of the Gila National Forest, has come to personify the local conflict over private property rights and grazing on public lands.
But Laney and his ex-wife and ongoing partner Sherry Farr are not the only area ranchers who have had to cope with pressures to reduce grazing in drought-stricken forests.
Across the region, drought, environmental considerations and in some cases lawsuits, have led to sharp reductions in the amount of grazing on national forests.
The Catron County Commission last week issued a pro-Laney news release saying that county ranchers had lost grazing rights for more than 25,000 head of cattle over the previous decade, a reduction that cost the county millions of dollars in revenues.
Although Forest Service officials disputed the county's estimates, the agency's own figures showed the Forest Service reduced the number of cattle authorized to graze in the Gila National Forest by one-third from 1994 to 2003— a loss of 8,602 head of cattle.
The ceiling on the amount of grazing allowed for each allotment is dictated by a grazing permit, but the Forest Service each year can set lower limits on cattle numbers depending on local conditions.
Drought has precipitated reductions of cattle herds in other public lands as well.
In the Cibola National Forest, the herds authorized to graze amount to about 52 percent of the maximum numbers on permits.
"It's not going to be any great revelation to anyone that we are in a drought, and most people have made adjustments, and for the most part voluntary adjustments," said Bill Britton, range, wildlife and watershed program manager for the Cibola National Forest.
In northern New Mexico's Carson National Forest, authorized grazing of cattle and sheep is at 51 percent of the maximum amounts that permits would allow with healthy amounts of forage.
In the Sacramento District of the Lincoln National Forest, cattle are running at 51 percent of permitted numbers, said range and watershed staffer Rick Newmon.
"Ever since we got into this extended drought period, we've been going down due to either lack of forage production or lack of stock water, or both," Newmon said. "It's an extended drought. The longer you get into it, the longer it takes to get out of it."
Hardship in Arizona
Range conditions, and the impact on herds in national forests, have been even worse across the border in Arizona. In the Tonto National Forest, which stretches across 3 million acres, cattle grazing has been cut by 94 percent of maximum permitted levels since 1996. Only about 2,740 cattle now graze across the vast forest, said Eddie Alford, the Tonto's group leader for biological resources.
"Most grazing permittees, when they got into a predicament where they lacked water or forage, they basically took cattle off themselves, and they haven't restocked yet, because there hasn't been regrowth through the drought," Alford said.
In the Tonto, Alford said, the majority of ranchers pulled their cattle off the forest on their own initiative, but some "had to be persuaded to take their cattle off." Perhaps 10 percent of ranchers filed administrative appeals objecting to the reductions imposed by the Forest Service, Alford said.
"That small percentage is still very unhappy about having to take cattle off," Alford said, though he said no lawsuits were filed against the Forest Service in an attempt to assert grazing rights.
Last year, the Forest Service asked ranchers to remove all the cattle from five allotments out of the Gila National Forest's 138 allotments. One of the permittees chose to move his cattle to private land, and the Forest Service was able to move the cattle from the other four allotments to other, unused areas where the livestock could graze, regional Forest Service spokesman Jim Payne said.
Laney's neighbor Christie Forester said the Forest Service reduced the number of cattle she could run on her South Fork allotment from 236 head in 1992 to 212 last year. "You depend on a certain number of head to make your payments, and you need every one of them," Forester said. "It's a cut in my paycheck, the way I look at it."
Gila range staff officer Steve Libby, who was helping oversee the impoundment of nearly 300 of Laney's cattle over the past two weeks, expressed sympathy to the ranching community having to contend with drought and heightened environmental concerns.
"Our small and medium-sized ranchers are just breaking even. If these ranch operators paid themselves the salary that their work honestly deserves, they'd be losing money," Libby said. "For our small and medium ranchers, ranching is a way of life. It's a culture, it's an absolute love to do that kind of work."
Sympathy for Laney
According to Forest Service officials, Laney represents the exceptional case of a rancher defying a Forest Service directive, in addition to a federal court order, to remove his cattle from federal land.
Still, his case has elicited plenty of sympathy from other ranchers who are feeling his pain. A benefit barbecue and dance for the Diamond Bar Ranch was held at Uncle Bill's Bar in Reserve on Saturday.
"People are pretty upset about what they (Forest Service officials) are doing and how they are going about it— their bully attitude," said rancher Rufus Choate, a member of the Catron County Commission.
Laney was indicted last week on eight federal charges, including five counts of assaulting and interfering with federal officers or employees, stemming from his March 14 arrest for allegedly trying to tear down a pen holding his impounded cattle. A federal magistrate judge so far has twice refused to release Laney on bond, saying he could be a threat to the cowboys rounding up his cattle.
Catron County Sheriff Cliff Snyder voiced the mixed emotions some local people have about Laney's arrest.
"There are some people who think the Forest Service shouldn't have arrested him. There are other people who think Kit should have stayed out of the way, he shouldn't have put himself in a position to get arrested," Snyder said.
However, he added, "There are a lot of people upset that the federal government has assumed so much power over people."
The case appears to have highlighted polarized viewpoints about ranching on public lands.
Several ranchers said they didn't want to comment on the case because they feared the reaction of Forest Service managers.
One Gila National Forest rancher, who asked to remain anonymous, said of Laney's case, "We could all be in that situation."
While Forest Service officials consistently blamed the region's ongoing drought for necessitating cuts in grazing, Catron County Commission Chairman Ed Wehrheim put the onus on aggressive environmentalists who have pressured the Forest Service to strictly manage resources.
"I feel like the environmental community wants all the cattle off public lands, and they are just doing it in steps," Wehrheim said.
Meanwhile, Tom Lustig, attorney for the National Wildlife Federation in Boulder, Colo., said Laney was waging a misguided fight for grazing rights that he claims derive from his water rights. Laney's claims already have been rejected by federal judges, including a panel of the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals.
And, according to Lustig, far from being a champion for beleaguered livestock owners, Laney is only worsening the dialogue between the Forest Service and ranchers.
"What (Laney is) doing to ranchers is the same thing that environmental terrorists do to me," Lustig said, "... they give us (environmentalists) a bad name."