hello tweets,

here is another message from the original author of the sage
grouse message that i forwarded to you. i am passing on your
comments to the author and will send his replies to you all,
unless he decides to join this list to answer your questions
in person (so to speak .... )

i left stan's email address in the message so any of you could
send messages to him, however, i think this topic is relevant
enough to this area that perhaps such messages should be directed
to the general tweeters membership.

please note that i did some basic formatting to the following
message so it will fit on your screens, otherwise, no words
have been changed in any way.

regards,

Deborah Wisti-Peterson, Girl Scientist nyneve at u.washington.edu
Department of Zoology, University of Washington, Seattle, Wash, USA
Visit me on the web: http://students.washington.edu/~nyneve/
<><><>Graduate School: it's not just a job, it's an indenture!<><><>


---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Tue, 18 Jul 2000 22:45:07 GMT
From: stan moore <hawkman11 at hotmail.com>
To: nyneve at u.washington.edu
Subject: some followup information about grazing issues

Hi Deborah --

If you know of individuals who are interested in learning more
about the devastation of wildlife and habitat caused by grazing
on public lands of the west, you might be interested in checking
out the posting I sent recently.

Here it is:


Hello --

I do not have all the quantitative answers to your questions at
my fingertips, but I can point you to some resources and I can
say without question the following:

western cattle grazing produces less than 4% of the total beef
production in the US (less than the state of Vermont produces
by itself)

western economies would be barely affected by a ban of public
lands, in fact over $100,000,000 is spent by the Federal
government annually in subsidies to grazing, which far outweigh
the income received by grazing fees

fees for public lands grazing rights are often as little as 10%
of the fee for private land grazing rights

A few, very wealthy ranchers control a hugely disproportionate
number of grazing allotments on the western public range

Grazing interests hold political clout far in excess of their
numbers and have controlled government agencies that supposedly
"regulate" them, and even university range research programs



For documentation, here are some resources:


1) A very important book -- "The Western Range Revisited -
Removing Livestock from Public Lands to Conserve Native
Biodiversity" by Debra L. Donahue published 1999 by
University of Oklahoma Press

2) website http://www.rangenet.org

3) website http://www.rangebiome.org

4) website http://www.onda.org (look in archives section for
excellent scientific papers on livestock influences on riparian
areas, weed invasions, juniper invasions, etc. by Joy Belsky)

also, look for information from George Wuerthner's upcoming book
on cattle grazing -- it is extremely compelling

5) website http://www.wocnet.org Wyoming Outdoor Council -- working
on habitat issues regarding grazing and oil/gas exploration in
Wyoming

6) another very important book "Waste of the West: Public Lands
Ranching" by Lynn Jacobs privately published 1992


7) RangeNet at egroups.com -- listserver contains daily dialogue
on range issues with commentary by experts and interested
parties contact Larry Walker at lwalker at rangebiome.org to
inquire about joining

This ought to get you started!


Stan Moore San Geronimo, CA hawkman11 at hotmail.com