At 02:55 PM 7/24/96 +0100, Kelly wrote:
So, why not order the cows off, right now? Well, look at it from the
>ranchers side (I grew up with Roy Rogers and Dale Evans and I worship them).
>The rancher and his dad and his dad's dad have been raising livestock
>forever.....(snip)

This is true, and I can certainly understand that they may be put out by
being asked to remove their cattle from public lands. But that's just the
issue. It IS public land that they are using/renting for a nominal fee.
It's just like any rental situation, if the landlord wants to boot you off,
they have the right to do so.

Unfortunately, many of the old time ranchers feel that because they've used
the land for so long, they have the right to continue that use for all
eternity. Many of them claim they cannot make a living without the use of
that public land. I feel badly for them, but many people earn their living
on land they own and nothing more. So why should they be given special
privledges? Perhaps those that make this claim have overdepended upon that
extra land in the belief it will always be there. Who knows?

The point is, the land is public and it should not be up to the ranchers to
decide what will be done with it, irregardless of whether the grazers
interact positively with the rabbits and other wildlife, or not.


"Because these rabbits evolved in the absence of large, grazing
>ungulates. The cows are competing with the rabbits and probably collapsing
>their burrows." To the rancher, the government is shutting down the
>enterprise that sustained generations for what appears to be speculative
>reasons.
>
This just reinforces my argument.

>
>The rabbits may have been there for millenia, but they have also been there
>for a century or more while domestic livestock have also been present. In
>fact, we know for sure they have occupied the site during the livestock
>period.


This doesn't change the fact that the land is publically owned and,
therefore (as Don pointed out in a different thread) so are the wild animals
who live upon it. We can't control where those animals move as they forage
and, I agree we have no right to ask people to remove their livelihood from
their OWN lands.

>
>I believe that it may be determined that cattle should not graze pygmy
>rabbit habitat. If this is true, however, we have probably lost pygmy
>rabbits in Washington, independent of Sagebrush Flat. Lacking any economic
>uses of the land which are compatible with the rabbits, there will be no
>possibility of managing most private lands for the rabbit.


But, does every piece of land have to be economically feasible?


.......ecosystems are of little value when applied to a 3,000+ acre fragment of
>shrub-steppe surrounded by roads, homes, and wheat fields.

3,000 acres is a pretty sizable fragment, to my mind.
>
Peggi



Peggi Rodgers
Oregon Research Institute
Eugene, OR
peggir at ori.org
prodgers at efn.org
"A bird does not sing because it has an
answer, It sings because it has a song"