Thomas Mitchell
While Bunkerville rancher Cliven Bundy was grabbing national headlines with an armed confrontation with agents from the Bureau of Land Management, dozens of other ranchers across Nevada have been quietly wrestling with decisions by BLM agents that are jeopardizing their very livelihoods.
The BLM has been demanding reductions in the number of cattle allowed to graze on public range land, often using rationale that seem arbitrary, capricious and arguably without sound scientific support.
Eureka area rancher Kevin Borba, for example, said he called the Ely and Battle Mountain offices of the BLM to make sure what his allotments would be before he purchased his ranch in 2012. He said he was assured the AUMs (animal units per month) would remain the same — 415 head on one allotment and about 500 on another.
With those assurances, the lifelong cattleman from California purchased his 330,000-acre ranch and named it the Borba Land and Cattle Co.
He was getting ready to turn out cattle this past fall when the federal government was shutdown by a budget impasse. He was told by a BLM official he could put his cattle on the allotment but there would be no paperwork done until the shutdown ended.
“A couple days later the office opened, the government’s back on, and I get a call from them,” Borba recalls. “‘You didn’t turn out them cattle did you?’
“I go, ‘No, in fact, as we speak I’m throwing them hay.’ …”
“’You can’t turn out the 415.’”
He was told he could only turn out 140 head on his Little Smokey Valley-Duckwater allotment.
He has hired a lawyer and is appealing to the U.S. Department of the Interior, Office of Hearing and Appeals.
He also hired a range specialist from Winnemucca who looked at his vegetation and declared he could easily graze more than 415 head. He said the range specialist knew far more about the plants and their nutrition value than his then-assigned range con. (Some ranchers joke that “con” is short for conservationist or con man.)
“My number is 415 head of cattle. Now, if the feeding isn’t there, I don’t want skinny cows, I’ll run less cattle,” Borba said. “But if I sign that paper and reduce it to 140, and then next year comes around, ‘You know your permit is for 140 but I think you could run 20.’ They’ll never give us the numbers back. … I’ll run 140, but I just want to keep the 415 that the permit says.”
Borba said he was later told by the BLM he also could graze sheep. “I’m not in the sheep business. I don’t want no sheep.”
Oddly enough, Borba said that when he first got to Nevada he was called by a prominent sheepherder who asked if he could buy his allotment. Borba declined. During the conversation the man told him, “Listen, your allotment, you can only run 140 head of cattle and the remainder should be sheep.”
Though what the BLM was telling him matched precisely what the sheepherder told him, the BLM officials denied any collusion.
Several ranchers in the area were planning to meet this week to discuss their options, said Jim Baumann, vice chairman of one of the local grazing boards. He said ranchers are told to cut their AUMs because of drought, sage grouse and wild horses. Baumann thought it odd that the BLM could issue a $1 million contract to remove Bundy’s cattle but claims they can’t afford to roundup the wild horses that are overgrazing the range.
Borba said the herd management area on his ranch calls for 78 wild horses but a recent helicopter survey counted at least 1,600. “They tell me, ‘Write your congressman because it goes higher up than us. Yes, we agree there are too many horses.’”
Baumann also noted that sage grouse populations actually increased after the introduction of cattle.
A notice inviting ranchers to this week’s meeting said, “As ranchers we have faced and survived severe weather and fires and other challenges provided by Mother Nature. Every day we face these challenges and meet them head on. Now, we face an increasing kind of challenge which we are not having much success with. This problem and increasing threat is the heavy handed policies and bureaucracy of BLM and certain BLM employees that seem intent on putting ranches out of business.”
Appealing BLM decisions is expensive, Baumann said, noting the grazing board is funded by a portion of grazing fees, which are, of course, decreasing as fewer cattle are allowed on the range.
Thomas Mitchell is a longtime Nevada newspaper columnist. You may email him at thomasmnv@yahoo.com. Read additional musings on his blog at http://4thst8.wordpress.com/.
Stay at it and get in touch with Cliven Bundy. United is stronger.
Cliven Bundy isn’t an asset anymore but I would like to hear more and help if I can.
Why isn’t Cliven Bundy an asset anymore?
Got news for you Thomas Mitchell in case you are rusty on your history lessons ! It was the cattle and sheep ranchers who pushed for the passage of the Taylor Grazing Act in 1934 precisely because the prevailing lack of management had caused vast areas to be overgrazed and destroyed: what you are always holding up as your concern “the health of the range” (in fact it is profit !). It gave the BLM in 1946 the right to withhold leases or manage reduction in cattle when they are overgrazing – especially in drought conditions like now ! But welfare cattle ranchers for whom you are the voice have hypocritically pushed only for reduction of wild horses off public lands although in fact you know quite well who is responsible for systematically destroying public lands. Here is a clue : there are twelve million cattle and sheep overgrazing now on public land which they have exhausted from sheer numbers but less than 20,000
wild horses left free running on public lands. Cattle are the invasive species who have devastated public land, not wild horses !
Why shouldn’t cattle graze? If he has proof from an expert, why should he be cut?
Shane: I’m very curious, you seem well educated in history, but where do you LIVE now and what us your knowledge of “on the ground” issues ifcrange mngmnt? Myself….I live 60 miles from eureka, have grown up around the ranches and range mngmnt my whole life. Your WAY off in your assessments…. just saying.
@Shane — What you describe that caused the 1934 act is commonly known in scientific and economic circles as a “Tragedy of the Commons” where good people who share a resource, tend to overuse the resource until no one can use it. Your response was somewhat condescending. When he purchased his ranch he was assured of an allotment. His allotment is being reduced. Ha she been given qualified proof that it is being reduced for a certain reason that is in the public good? Sounds to me like that is what this battle is over. This situation is very different from Bundy who didn’t want to pay for something he was supposed to.