Public lands ranchers, many of whom decry the federal government while happily accepting federal grazing subsidies, continue to defy Bureau of Land Management (BLM) restrictions on livestock grazing. Emboldened by Cliven Bundy, who owes the federal government millions of dollars in grazing fees and whose trespass cattle are still illegally grazing on BLM land in southern Nevada, ranchers continue to thumb their nose at federal authority. As in the Bundy situation, the BLM continues to back down. While the agency has threatened to arrest wild horse advocates for the simple act of videotaping, it takes no action against lawless ranchers who flaunt grazing restrictions and offer up threats of violence in the form of armed militias. The BLM”s lack of action against these violators is an affront to law abiding citizens and American taxpayers whose drought-stricken, western public lands are rapidly being turned into a dust bowl, courtesy of welfare ranching. Please read on for the latest examples.
BLM allows grazing on closed allotment to avoid confrontation
During the first week of June, 2015, two Elko County Commissioners joined welfare ranchers Dan and Eddyann Fillippini in breaking federal law by turning out cattle in a drought stricken area of public lands where livestock grazing has been prohibited by the BLM. In response, the BLM did nothing. Instead the agency “negotiated” with these ranchers, who feel entitled to graze their livestock on our public lands and receive taxpayer-subsidized grazing rates that are a fraction of market rate. In a settlement dated June 5, 2015, the BLM agreed to allow the Fillippinis to leave their trespass cattle on the public lands that have been closed to livestock grazing because of the drought. In exchange, the Filippinis admitted to “willful” grazing trespass and will have to pay less than a week’s worth of “enhanced” grazing fees, which are still a fraction of market rate, thanks to our taxpayer subsidies Since the settlement, the grazing fee has reverted to $1.65 per Animal Unit Month, which is at least 1/12th of the fee they would pay to graze their livestock on private lands and far cheaper for the Filippinis than keeping their cattle on their own private lands and feeding them hay. So, once again, the BLM rewarded welfare ranchers for illegal behavior and the destruction of our public lands.
Exposing the Big Game 
Fire the Wildlife Agencies: (USFWS, Interior, state agencies, USDA Wildlife Services, BLM), and Canada which has killed thousands of wolves in name of ungulate farming:
The US government, Canada and other nations (The march of civilization and rancher-hunter war on wildlife) have long been in the wildlife killing business. They have offered bounties on predators, poisoned and gassed prairie dogs, allowed the near extinction of bison, prairie dogs, black footed ferret, the wolf (wolf bounties), wolverine, and marginalized the grizzly, lion, and many others. The war on coyotes has been unrelenting. Wildlife services kill wildlife by the millions to appease the fishermen, hunters, ranchers and farmers and others. Hunters and ranchers, fishermen and hunters, bedfellows of the wildlife agencies nearly wiped out most wildlife. With the advent of wildlife agency hunting regulations, the hunter has been somewhat contained; and now even count themselves as “conservationists” because they have essentially farmed game sport (recreational killing opportunities) animals and marginalized predators on the erroneous rationale of less predators to share game with the more game (recreational killing opportunities). Instead of an emphasis on wilderness and wildlife ecology, USDA Wildlife Services kills nearly over 3 million animals a year and state agencies millions more in recreational killing opportunities and “management”. State wildlife agencies use hunters to “manage” (“sportsmen”) game and predators. It is very doubtful that state or federal wildlife agencies or their biologists know enough about wildlife ecology to “manage” wildlife balances. Ranchers may tolerate big bird and other sport game birds, elk, and deer and antelope; but are very hostile to predators. Wildlife agencies, state and federal, are not friendly to predators and defer to hunters, ranchers, conservative state legislatures, and their ilk and their interests in development and extraction and leases. Ranchers and farmers destroy wildlife habitat with the plow and grazing not only on private land but ever more and more on public land facilitated by the US government in leased grazing, leased farming, and leases to extraction industries avenues. Encroachers on public land often, in turn, adding insult added to injury, asks the federal government, such as Wildlife Services, to kill animals that are “encroaching” on their leased public land. Conservation efforts and new agencies such as ESA and EPA and private conservation agencies have and are battling for balanced ecologies, the predators, and many animals of no concern to sportsmen, ranchers and farmers, and extraction industries and development interests. Agencies, like the USFWS often cave into ranchers hunters, state wildlife agencies, conservative state legislatures, a government tradition of really prioritizing those interests. The arguments that threatens remaining wilderness and wildlife is as old as civilization, making a buck by the traditional enemies of wildlife. What is not appreciated enough is what little is left: In the US roughly 2.6 % in the lower 48 and another 2.5 % in Alaska; and this is under continuing and unremitting pressure from, guess where, the traditional enemies of wilderness and wildlife, still too often facilitated by the wildlife agencies. Private conservation agencies often find themselves in conflict with wildlife agencies who should be on their side and the side of preserving wilderness, balanced wildlife ecology, and the predators who are essential to the balanced wildlife ecology. The wildlife agencies, state and federal, need firing and revamping to emphasize wildlife preservation, wildlife viewing, and a heritage of wilderness and wildlife in what is left of the available habitat. There is something terribly wrong when we see wildlife agencies aligning with ranchers, farmers, “sportsmen”, conservative state legislatures. It is time for major upheavals of them, their agendas, their protocols, their heads and replacing them with priorities on preserving, recovering, protecting what is left of wilderness and wildlife, not siding with the traditional enemies of wildlife and wilderness (ranching, hunters, conservative state legislatures and predator hating and fearing parochials, extraction industries, and development and such parochial ilk that echoes their sentiments).
USFWS, the very agency that should be out front protecting wolves is not. USFWS turned wolves over to state management (2012) in the midwest (recently re-listed by courts in WY and midwest), but still politically delisted in ID and MT. Since state management, hundreds have been killed by state agencies’ management by hunting and trapping. Federal judges have returned wolves in WY and the midwest (MI, MN, WI) to the protected list where they belong indefinitely. Wolves do not need to be “managed” by general hunting and trapping seasons; that is a anti-wolf myth and a state wildlife agency myth that goes along with a state level management of wildlife by hunting and trapping. State management means turning wolves over to about 6 percent of the population that hunts and and and traps and their buddies in the state wildlife agencies that sell them licenses, an unholy alliance of hunters, trappers and agencies. Wolves do not need to be managed in the way state wildlife agencies do; they will manage their own populations. Maybe particular wolves or wolf packs need to be “managed” but managing them by general hunting and trapping seasons is likely counter productive. Ranchers would be better off with nonlethal management and managing their livestock better vis a vis predators.
The intrinsic predator-hating mindset that the livestock industry exhibits, (even if there are a few ranchers here & there who claim they are “predator friendly”), does not seem to be changing. In fact, as witnessed by last Saturday’s New Mexico “Game Commission Hearing” in Taos, they are even more entrenched in their antiquated 1880′ s mentality. The only way I can see any hope for wolves, coyotes & other native wildlife, is for as many groups & individuals as possible radically working to End All Public Lands Grazing. Whether there are any groups out there who are willing to take this battle on, is the question. How many of us have the will and stamina to be in this War Against the Wild for the long haul, refusing to compromise, standing our ground?
http://www.foranimals.org
No doubt all these welfare ranchers say that “libruls” have a sense of entitlement.