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Post by dave on Dec 2, 2019 23:33:43 GMT -6
Considering the Federal government shouldn't own it in the first place, they should be grateful to have anywhere to hunt for free. If the government didn't own the land some rich, liberal, anti hunting pos probably would. No 80+ years ago before the BLM was created the ranchers who were using it back then would have somehow taken ownership. There just wasn't a way back then for the government to sell it or ranchers to purchase it.
This county alone (which is bigger than the state of Delaware) has over one million acres of federal land. The vast majority of it has public access. When there is over 900,000 acres with access there are people who complain about the 100,000 acres that happen to be land locked. It is human nature to want to go where they can't even if there is a lot available for them.
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Post by randy on Dec 3, 2019 6:29:34 GMT -6
Considering the Federal government shouldn't own it in the first place, they should be grateful to have anywhere to hunt for free. If the government didn't own the land some rich, liberal, anti hunting pos probably would. Might be Grit but they would be paying taxes on it. |
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Post by Deleted on Dec 3, 2019 11:23:21 GMT -6
If the government didn't own the land some rich, liberal, anti hunting pos probably would. Might be Grit but they would be paying taxes on it. I'm a little late to this thread, maybe it was covered, but don't the ranchers who use this BLM land pay for the use of it? |
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Post by dave on Dec 3, 2019 14:17:11 GMT -6
Might be Grit but they would be paying taxes on it. I'm a little late to this thread, maybe it was covered, but don't the ranchers who use this BLM land pay for the use of it? Yes they do. The point that people try to make is that the rent is real cheap. What they don't seem to understand is the other cost associated with running on that type of ground. |
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Post by M-5 on Dec 3, 2019 14:51:41 GMT -6
I'm a little late to this thread, maybe it was covered, but don't the ranchers who use this BLM land pay for the use of it? Yes they do. The point that people try to make is that the rent is real cheap. What they don't seem to understand is the other cost associated with running on that type of ground. Most people try to apply the way things are done in the east to the west. IDK how many acres a cow there but for shits and giggles let's say 25 acres per pair and you pay 1.00 and acre and I can do a pair on 1 acre and pay 25 an acre for rent. |
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Post by randy on Dec 3, 2019 17:00:06 GMT -6
Way cheaper to let cattle graze it than pay government firefighters to put out wildfires.
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Post by dave on Dec 3, 2019 19:59:08 GMT -6
Yes they do. The point that people try to make is that the rent is real cheap. What they don't seem to understand is the other cost associated with running on that type of ground. Most people try to apply the way things are done in the east to the west. IDK how many acres a cow there but for shits and giggles let's say 25 acres per pair and you pay 1.00 and acre and I can do a pair on 1 acre and pay 25 an acre for rent. It is about 5 acres per cow per month on the BLM. I know neighbor B has a rented pasture over by Baker. Flat irrigated ground that runs 150 pairs. I helped haul the calves out at weaning. It took them maybe an hour to have all the cows in the corral. He also has 168 pairs on BLM range east of here. I helped haul them over there in the spring. In the last month and a half 3 of them horseback with 10 good dogs have ridden 7 times that I know of. There are still cows they haven't found yet. With this snow the last week they will start showing up. The question is where and when? Some will show up down in the valley. Some will show up at a neighbors which could be 30 miles away. And some will never be seen again. |
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Post by the illustrious potentate on Dec 3, 2019 22:33:48 GMT -6
As an outsider looking in from my hunting ventures out west, a BLM lease is good for the adjacent land owners, and not the general public. Restricting the taxpayers from public property because of no access isn't right. IMO But I'd be doing the same thing if I could. Considering the Federal government shouldn't own it in the first place, they should be grateful to have anywhere to hunt for free. Your 100% correct, the federal government shouldn't own it per the Constitution. With the grazing permits and how that all came about, I dont know how it should be handled and I'm pretty ignorant on all the legal details of grazing rights other than what I think I learned from the Oregan and Utah situations. Maybe Dave or someone else will correct me, but seems people have secured the future right to graze the ground in at least some situations, or have at least paid an increase in the value of the private land from which to operate from. I dont know how to proceed to make it all right, but think at minimum, the land should be transferred into the hands of the state with grazing permits intact at least for a period of time if no other solution existed. States should be the beneficiary of the natural resources, not the federal government. Only problem I have is giving the leftist state governments in the west any more ammunition than they already have at this time. |
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Post by dave on Dec 4, 2019 8:41:10 GMT -6
Gosh don't give it to the state. How about giving it to the county government. If the governors in California, Oregon, and Washington were in charge of grazing, there would be no more grazing. The best I can explain how it came about was in the 30's people were grazing what was considered free grazing on land nobody owned (federal land). This was resulting in over grazing. So state boards with locally elected representatives were formed. Over a period of time all the land was divided up into units which made sense geographically. Then grazing rights were awarded to people using those units. Ownership of private land was one of the standards used decide how many rights a rancher got. The more you owned the more rights you received. Ranchers with money hurried to buy out failed homesteads to increase their deeded land base. Land locked areas went to the person who owned the surrounding land. In some cases there might only be one ranch surrounded miles of BLM. They might get a huge amount of BLM because they were the only one there. Some allotments are shared by more than one ranch (both of the ones I have are shared). Some have sole ownership of grazing rights. Over the years allotments have been sold. BLM has reduced the AUM's allowed. I know for certain the the forest service has eliminated grazing rights in some areas. I imagine that the BLM has done that too. Any and all improvements are at the expense of the operator. That includes miles of fence, developing springs and other water sources, and access roads (although the feds are getting picky about even maintaining access roads). |
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Post by the illustrious potentate on Dec 4, 2019 9:22:09 GMT -6
Gosh don't give it to the state. How about giving it to the county government. If the governors in California, Oregon, and Washington were in charge of grazing, there would be no more grazing. I know that's probably right Dave. And that's why I'm not in a hurry to see anything done at this time. But Constitutionally, it shouldn't be federal. And as you say, they've been eroding the grazing rights as well and that's not counting all the other nefarious actions. Lot of people dont know, but the feds were trying to take land along the Texas/Oklahoma border under Obama. www.breitbart.com/politics/2015/10/17/abbott-blm-end-unconscionable-land-grab-texas/A property owning federal government inside of states outside of the constitutional allowance is a danger that was foreseen a couple hundred years ago. |
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Post by the illustrious potentate on Dec 4, 2019 9:23:58 GMT -6
BTW, thanks for explanation. But the timing of 1930's is for Washington correct?
Doesn't some of the Utah rights go back into the 1800's?
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Post by dave on Dec 4, 2019 9:42:16 GMT -6
BTW, thanks for explanation. But the timing of 1930's is for Washington correct? Doesn't some of the Utah rights go back into the 1800's? The 1930's was when the BLM was formed and the Taylor Grazing Act. Before that rights were based on right of possession. In don't know that there were formal rights back then. Of course water rights are dated back to first use. In my case the water rights go back to 1873. |
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Post by the illustrious potentate on Dec 4, 2019 9:53:42 GMT -6
BTW, thanks for explanation. But the timing of 1930's is for Washington correct? Doesn't some of the Utah rights go back into the 1800's? The 1930's was when the BLM was formed and the Taylor Grazing Act. Before that rights were based on right of possession. In don't know that there were formal rights back then. Of course water rights are dated back to first use. In my case the water rights go back to 1873. That's exactly what I was thinking of, water rights that went to that time period. I was trying to mix the two up. |
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Post by greybeard on Dec 4, 2019 10:04:24 GMT -6
BTW, thanks for explanation. But the timing of 1930's is for Washington correct? Doesn't some of the Utah rights go back into the 1800's? Probably correct. Some of the states were US territories for a long time prior to being admitted as a state. Utah is one of them. I do not personally have much knowledge of how the lease arrangment worked back when this county was open range and everyone (except us) ran cattle and hogs in the National Forest (and alongside the roadways and anywhere else not fenced off), but I believe prior to the mid 70s, there was no fee and no real restriction re the number of acres any stockman was awarded...........everyone just ran their stock with everyone else's but I do know there were yearly community roundups, where everyone rounded up as many cattle and hogs as they could, sorted them in temporary pens, earmarked and branded and shipped or turned them back loose. It was a sight to behold. The Nat Forest as far as I ever saw, was not fenced off in any way, either by the Govt or by people running stock. The general unwritten rule was that if you gathered and penned someone else's stock along with yours, you marked them as was proper according to the rightful owner, but for every 10 you gathered that weren't yours, you could mark one calf or 1 hog as your own..for payment for the trouble you went to in gathering them. It was not easy gathering them in this kind of thicketed forest. It was dogs and horses..mostly dogs. It was only after USFS began announcing changes to the goal of enacting policy to "protect" the Natl Forest, that the county voted the stock law in and ended free (open) range here. (can't count the number of times in the mid-late 60s that we found our fences cut and other stock in with ours. This river bottom produced some of the best grass in this end of the county, and had been open and unfenced by the previous owners for decades, and many stockmen found it "unfair" that we fenced our paltry 124 acres offSome were pretty angry about it, which seemed strange since there were 166,000 acres of forest for them to run on) I do know tho, that the Natl Forest has degraded a LOT since the end of open range. It's now a mass of vines, brush and everything else, virtually impenetrable, and a big wildfire risk. I was on pins and needles all of 2010 and 2011's drought because the forest brush was so dry and fire risk was high. I've seen govt land and Nat Forest in Western states where grazing is still allowed and it looks nothing like the one around my place. Mostly wide open out there, but here? You can barely walk thru it and can't even see into it more than a few yards. This time of year, the forest floor has a deep mat of dried leaves and pine needles on it...a disaster waiting to happen. That's govt land in the background of both these pictures...a far cry from what it looked like when I was a teenager and coon hunted the forest many many nights. 
(Don't ask.....)  One of the auspices of public land is that by congressional mandate, the 'public' is supposed to get some use from the 'protected' land. In all these decades since the end of open range, I've never seen a single member of 'the public' in the Natl Forest around or near my property, and only once, did I ever see any govt people in there and they were a contractor re-marking the property line. |
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Post by the illustrious potentate on Dec 5, 2019 4:10:54 GMT -6
I almost asked, but then saw the (don't ask), lol.
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