Posted on 05/12/2014 1:08:13 PM PDT by jazusamo
In what some are calling a replay of the standoff with Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy, a New Mexico county board agreed Monday to instruct the sheriff to remove the Forest Service gates blocking thirsty cattle from reaching water, setting up a clash with federal agents over state water rights and endangered species.
The Otero County Commission voted 2-0, with one commissioner absent, to immediately take steps to remove or open gates that are unlawfully denying citizens access to their private property rights.
Ranchers became alarmed earlier this year when Forest Service officials refused to open gates allowing cattle in the drought-stricken region to reach a creek in the Lincoln National Forest. Local rangers have said that they are trying to protect the riparian area, which is considered habitat for the New Mexico meadow jumping mouse.
The mouse is expected to be listed as an endangered species in June. The proposed listing, which would include as much as 193 miles of critical habitat in Arizona, Colorado and New Mexico, comes after a 251-species settlement with WildEarth Guardians in 2011.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
We
proposed to designate approximately
310.5 kilometers (km) (193.1 miles (mi))
(5,892 hectares (ha) (14,560 acres (ac))
in eight units as critical habitat within
Bernalillo, Colfax, Mora, Otero, Rio
Arriba, Sandoval, and Socorro Counties,
in New Mexico; Las Animas, Archuleta,
and La Plata Counties, Colorado; and
Greenlee and Apache Counties, Arizona.
snip
approximately 99 percent of the total
proposed critical habitat designation,
are currently unoccupied by the species,
but are essential for the conservation of
the species.
snip
Critical habitat designation for the
New Mexico meadow jumping mouse is
unlikely to generate costs exceeding
$100 million in a single year. The total
incremental section 7 costs associated
with the proposed designation are
estimated to be $19,000,000 over the
next 20 years, or $1,100,000 on an
annualized basis (seven percent
discount rate) for both administrative
and conservation effort costs.
http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2014-04-08/pdf/2014-07629.pdf
(the 193 miles of habitat means 193 miles of river confiscated in geographic areas where water access is few and far between - but wait. there’s more! taxpayers get to pay a million a year for administrative costs for a rat. Of course, we shouldn’t mention that rats benefit from cows, since, like the turtle, it eats grasses and forbes that grow in Cow Patties)
Just how endangered could this mouse be if it’s found over a 193 mile stretch of land?
http://www.wildearthguardians.org/site/PageServer?pagename=about_staff
“We focus on getting livestock out of rivers and streams”
merged with wildlands CPR in 2013
http://www.wildearthguardians.org/site/PageServer?pagename=priorities_wild_places_WCPR
from wiki:
WildEarth Guardians is a non-profit grassroots environmental organization best known for its decade-long legal action against the US Fish and Wildlife Service, which culminated in 2011 with the Fish and Wildlife Service agreeing to move forward with protection for more than 800 species under the Endangered Species Act.[2][3]
Quite true. If the ranchers had half the money that the environmentalists do, it’d be a different story...
The meadow jumping mouse (Zapus hudsonius) is the most widely distributed mouse in the subfamily Zapodinae. It may be found from the Atlantic coast, to the Great Plains, as far north as the arctic tree lines in Canada and Alaska, and as far south as Georgia, Alabama, Arizona, and New Mexico.[2]
Don't have the slightest idea how the enviro-nazis are getting this rodent pest on the ESA when its habitat extends for literally millions of square miles in North America. Seems these groups have access to more money to waste than 0bama.
Courage is fear holding on a minute longer. ~ General George S. Patton
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