Ranchers the Real Ecoterrorists

By George Wuerthner

In 2008 at a Bureau of Land Management Oil and Gas lease auction Tim DeChristopher bid on 14 parcels of land (totaling 22,500 acres) for $1.8 million that he had no intention of buying. The FBI arrested him and charged him with a two-count felony indictment. DeChristopher was branded an “eco-terroist.”  Even though the very leases he bid upon were later canceled because of their inadequate environmental review of impacts, DeChristopher nevertheless served 21 months in prison for his act of “terrorism”...

A good example of the opposite federal government reaction is how the BLM and FBI responded to Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy. Bundy has repeatedly thumbed his nose at the federal government by refusing to pay minimal grazing fees for more than 20 years (he now owes more than a million dollars), and his failure to remove his cattle from federal property (our property). Instead of being arrested and taken off to jail as DeChristopher was, Bundy is still living free in Nevada, enjoying life as a celebrity...

One doesn’t have to instigate an armed insurrection to do damage to our patrimony and many acts of eco terrorism are not illegal, yet that doesn’t make them acceptable. Rancher Bill Hoppe, who lives outside of Gardiner Montana, began to run sheep on his ranch in retaliation for wolf reintroduction in Yellowstone which he has vocally opposed. Hoppe is President of the “Friends of the Northern Elk Herd” an anti-wolf organization that has resisted wolf recovery.

Hoppe openly admitted that his domestic animals might jeopardize nearby wild bighorns...

Is this an act of “eco terrorism?” It is my book.

...Rancher Frank Robbins of Wyoming who had his federal grazing leases canceled a number of years ago after more than a dozen violations including overgrazing the public’s grazing lands as well as trespass grazing of other people’s federal leases. Robbins is threating one of Wyoming’s largest wild bighorn sheep herds by purposely running domestic sheep on his property adjacent to occupied wild sheep herds...

 Some forms of “eco terrorism” are more subtle and more wide-spread—and unfortunately quite legal. When a rancher’s livestock overgrazes the range, it harms many other creatures dependent on that grass...

Mr. Wuerthner goes on to say other subtle forms of "eco terrorism" committed by ranchers and their livestock are: the trampling "of biocrust by the hooves of livestock damages soil, and permits the establishment of cheatgrass, an exotic alien weed";  "the draining of our rivers and streams for irrigated hay and alfalfa"; and the killing of "thousands of predators from grizzly bears to wolves to coyotes to 'protect' private livestock that are grazed on public lands."

He then concludes:

But do we hold ranchers accountable for these acts of eco terriorism? Hardly. Indeed, many politicians, media representatives, and others laud ranchers as the “true conservationists”.  These acts of “eco terriorism do far more damage to our collective heritage than bidding on oil and gas leases that are canceled. Yet while environmental activists like DeChristopher are arrested by Federal Agents and jailed, ranchers and other “eco terrorists” are pampered, and even allowed to continue destroying public property for their private gain. These different approaches to violations of the law demonstrates the blatant inequities in justice in our government’s willingness to fairly protect the public’s natural patrimony.

You can read his entire column at Wildlife News

There's a lot here to ponder, along with Actually, Raising Beef Is Good for the Planet .

Most importantly, it gives you a peek inside the mind of a committed enviro.  I believe his opinions about livestock grazing are shared by the vast majority of the enviro community.  The only difference is he has the cajones to say it and put it in writing.