We like to say that we raise cattle, sheep, horses, dogs and children. We are a multi-generational ranching family, who also raise elk, deer, bald eagles, sage grouse, cutthroat trout, and many less glamorous wildlife species. We actively manage for conservation and have placed conservation easements on our mountain ranchlands. Our vision is to keep our landscape intact and healthy. Our goal is to continue raising food and fiber, and to allow our family to remain on this land.
Agricultural producers are being told to raise twice as much food for the growing world population. The ideal is to feed the world in a sustainable manner — a goal very much in keeping with our practices of rotational grazing on a large landscape that includes our private land, private leases, and leases on state, Forest Service and BLM pastures. Every piece of it is crucial to the health of our operation.
Recently the Laramie, Wyoming-based Biodiversity Conservation Alliance (BCA) filed in Federal Court to remove our domestic sheep from their summer grazing allotments on the Medicine Bow National Forest. Since such extreme environmental groups use bighorn sheep as a tool in their crusade against grazing, we ere not totally surprised.
We were astonished, however, at the argument made by BCA's Duane Short. The Casper (Wyoming) Star-Tribune reported:
" 'Since (a proposal in the last Forest Plan to eliminate domestic sheep grazing in the western part of the Medicine Bow was overturned), the BCA has been trying in vain to negotiate a deal with Pat O'Toole, the owner of the domestic sheep herd. With the deadline for a lawsuit imminent, Short said his group had to act.
"For years, we have tried to negotiate with the rancher" said Short, "but the clock ran out ....We had to file suit.
"Every attempt was made by BCA to encourage a win/win situation for the rancher."
We were astonished because such negotiations never ever took place. "The phrase 'made out of whole cloth' means 'utterly without foundation in fact, completely fictitious.' "
However outrageous this tactic is, it is minor compared to the real damage — to wild sheep, to domestic sheep operations, to natural resource management, and to rural communities — that would come about if BCA were to prevail.
The issue is the evidence of disease transmission from domestic sheep to bighorns. Many experts agree that separation of wild and domestic sheep is the best solution.
BCA representatives said they proposed switching sheep and cattle allotments, but these are not BCA's to trade. The U.S. Forest Service (USFS) is the lessor, and even if it were feasible, the USFS would have to agree, after years of NEPA, EA's, studies and inevitable lawsuits.
The people at BCA know this, of course. The real agenda is using the bighorn to remove domestic sheep production from the West. Their sister organization, Western Watersheds, got a court order to remove 70 per cent of domestic sheep from allotments Idaho forests where bighorns had been reintroduced. This profoundly affected several multi-generational ranching families, and their local rural communities.
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