Posted on 08/03/2009 11:45:58 AM PDT by jazusamo
More often than not I worry that our elected representatives in Washington DC have completely lost touch with the common man.
They spend money like there is no limit to the amount that can be provided by the American taxpayer and when we complain, they treat us like we are idiots. They talk down to us and with a smile and a pat on the back tell us not to worry they are looking out for our best interest.
So far I have had to exempt Lynn Westmoreland from this criticism. Maybe he hasn't been inside the Beltway long enough to be corrupted. Maybe, just maybe, he's the actual personification of "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington."
By in large the problem in Washington can be laid right at the feet of the thousands of paid lobbyists who make their living (and very good ones at that) by convincing the members of Congress that some bill their clients want passed is the best thing since sliced bread.
In years past I have made trips to Washington as part of a delegation representing the Farm Bureau Federation of Georgia.
During our three-day jaunt we visit with the representatives and senators from Georgia who represent us in our nation's capitol. In all honesty we are lobbyists. But we are grassroots lobbyists - unpaid volunteers who attempt to get the message across to congressional members that agriculture is as important to the welfare of this nation as defense. Maybe more so. For without food and clothing, all the armies in the world won't do us any good.
Allow me to get back on subject here.
I'm a horse person. Have been most all of my life. I don't care who you are, or who you think you are, there's no one in this country who cares more about Equus Caballus than me.
In recent years, however, a few fringe groups have attempted to hijack our Congress into passing bills that are loosely designed to protect the horse, but actually do more harm than good.
There are the various bills designed to prevent the harvesting of horses for meat. That's a hot issue in many animal-lover circles. But I won't go into that.
Today's topic is the so-called wild horse that roams the lands in our nation's west. The trouble is that the likelihood that there actually are any wild horses out West is problematic. Sure there are some horses running wild, but they aren't what we call truly wild horses.
Suppose some cattle got away from a herd and wandered freely across the rangeland in the Western United States. Would they be wild cattle. If they had calves, would the calves be wild? No, they would be feral cattle, and their offspring, that had escaped from domestic herds.
That is the case in most all of the "wild horse" herds that roam on federal land. The herds are destructive. They over-graze the range land. They take food out of the mouths of cattle that are raised to feed our nation's population.
Moreover, they take food that would otherwise be available for the real wild animal population, animals that are truly wild and have been living in this land long before the humans and the horses came.
I'm likely as much of a romantic as any one out there reading this. That's just a part of the cowboy makeup. There is something to be said for seeing a herd of "wild horses" running free. But there's just as much to be said for a herd of buffalo (bison), elk or antelope.
There are too many "wild" horses on our federal lands. Efforts by Congress, conservationists and animal lovers to control the population and lessen the damage to our environment by these free-ranging herds have largely been unsuccessful.
Now there is a move afoot to put more land under federal control so that even more "wild" horses can live in the West. For more than 40 years the wild horse and burro population has been federally protected. But the herds have grown unmanageable.
So, the answer, according to a bill that has passed the House and is headed for the Senate, is to spend $700 million to acquire more land -- more land that will eventually lead to even larger unmanageable herds that will eventually need even more land. People are out of work. They are losing their houses. The country is deeply in debt. Congressional leaders and the Obama Administration are spending billions of dollars on programs that some politicians think are unnecessary.
And now a bill comes along and passes the Democrat-controlled House to spend millions more acquiring land so more and more feral horses can roam the western United States just so some animal lovers can one day say, "I saw this magnificent herd of wild horses running free while I was on vacation out west."
If they were truly wild horses, those who are direct descendants of the ones brought over the Spanish in the 1500s, then maybe I could see. But they aren't. They are feral horses. There is a difference. And they aren't worth another $700 million of our tax money.
And that comes from a person who loves horses and has for more than 50 years.
(Kerlin’s family roots go back generations in southwestern Fayette County. He’s a regular columnist for this newspaper)
Geld the stallions and you control the breeding. I also own horses and if memory serves correctly, it’s pretty tough to increase the size of your herd without a stallion. I may be wrong but I don’t think so.
Serious failure of logic here: if the wild horses are over-grazing the federal land, then why is the federal government leasing the land to ranchers so that they may graze their cattle?
Horses are on the land 12 months of the year and cattle are on lease land about 6 months of the year.
I don't really have an affinity for one over the other . . . I just see ranchers paying, what, $12/year to graze a cow and a calf? BLM is probably the most corrupt federal agency in existence for that reason.
The "damage to the environment" claim is the worst, coming from people with big, fat dollar signs in their eyes. If they paid anything approaching fair market value to lease that federal land, maybe they would start taking care of it.
the wife of T.Boone Pickens is behind this mess and Pickens is supporting her.
I don’t know the ranches you seem to know, but ranchers and farmers are much better “stewards” of the land than the GOV or cityslickers who want to roar allabout tearing up the land with RVs!
The rancher that leases the land has a vested interest in keeping it in good condition so he can grow his cattle on it for years to come.
Yes, that is so. Many ranches large and small grow hay and alfalfa in the growing season to feed their cattle in the winter months in pens. Believe it or nor they still go out and round them up in the fall.
The lease money that’s paid for grazing cattle is 100% more than what the government gets for feral horses grazing on federal land. In fact these horses are costing the taxpayers millions every year to control them and feed them in BLM pens because they double in numbers about every 4 years.
Something has to be done about them and as is pointed out in the article just increasing land they can graze is not the answer because they’ll continue to grow in numbers. They have no natural predator so that leaves it up to man.
Ranchers not only pay the fees for grazing cattle they improve the federal lands at their expense. They put in section fencing and water holes, guzzlers and truck water to different areas in dry years that also benefit wildlife.
Thanks, I guess that doesn’t surprise me.
Exactly!
For the ranchers who use lease land they have the greatest incentive to keep that land in good condition there is, that's his survival as a rancher.
It's not his land, he doesn't care. He's leasing it. Do you understand the difference?
Because cattle cannot range over the winter months, and need large amounts of food to survive. Yet (most of) the wild horses survive the winter on limited supplies. So clearly, the horses are more destructive. Like I stated, it's a failure of logic.
Oh, and wild horses have natural predators. Where did you come up with the idea that the opposite is true?
If the Federal Government would just get the hell out of the way, and allow the states to manage the populations, it would cost next to nothing to deal with it. Hunters will actually pay for the privilege of managing the population for the state.
My friend, you asked where the cattle were the other six months and I aswered you. You keep moving the goal posts and it’s clear you know not of what you speak.
Here’s a novel idea, why not sell large swaths of federal land to help with the deficit rather than buying up a bunch more?
I’m not the guy who assumes that cattle do less damage to land than horses because they aren’t on it year-round. To me, it sounds like you’ve never seen what a herd of cattle can do in six months.
I agree this should be left up to the states but I believe the biggest cause of the current problem is due to enviro and animal rights nuts. They believe the heritage of having “wild” horses to see, even though they’re not native horses is more valuable than having ranchers lease the land to raise cattle, it’s an excuse to put the ranchers out of business.
One more thing, tell me the part about wild horses not having natural predators, again.
“Range cattle are more destructive to the land than wild horses, by the way”
Sorry, but I think this a very wrong statement. I could get into the design of cattle hooves (split = good for the earth) compared to the design of horse hooves. We could talk about the different grazing styles of cattle and horses (horses pull much more of the plant out of the ground).
I don’t disagree with your overall post, but horses are much more destructive to grasslands and pastures than cattle!
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