NCA 2009 President's Award Recipient - The Progressive Rancher ...

You can’t make this stuff up!!!!! I have been listening and reading the comments
on the sage grouse impending doom for Nevada. The doomsayers
have more to gain by the conflict than a solution. The ranchers, miners, hunters and
the people are going to be the losers. The fern fairies convinced the Pacific Northwest
that tourism would replace logging and lumber mills. The spotted owl was the tool.
The result that no one wishes to speak of is the dead and dying forests. Diseases, weeds
and decadent brush are replacing multiple use and renewable natural resource concepts.
The only tourists are fire fighters to watch the huge destruction of water sheds
and wildlife.
Back here in Nevada the so called experts or more affectionately referred to as the
“fact less” scientists are decrying huge burns on sage brush eco-systems. After further
examination, these same experts said we must remove livestock to protect the same ecosystem.
The cattle and sheep were removed and the sage burnt up. For job security the same
folks don’t seem to remember they caused the problem in the first place with “fact less”
science to remove the livestock. Sagebrush is less palatable than grasses and other Forbes.
Sagebrush is like the rutabaga of most animals’ diets. They will eat it, but not as a first
choice. Also cheat grass is a non-native species so we must hate it rather than find a use or
a solution. No biologist has ever gotten tenure by solving a problem or admitting that their
idea is culpable in the problem. Being wrong is never discussed because all the little fuzzy
critters need their help. Help that is, unless they are non-native, then they are a reminder of
the evil human that may have on purpose or by accident introduced them.
We have studied the sage grouse for at least the last twelve years. We have meetings
and seminars to display the information collected. We have played what if and spoke endlessly
on what will happen if the little darling edible morsel is put on the dreaded endangered
list, yet no one wants to step up and cure the problem. We know that the number one
problem is that the raven eats the eggs of the sage grouse, and I have personally observed
a raven killing the chicks. Badgers, coyotes, and raptors all contribute to the demise of the
grouse. And the correct answer to the demise of the sage grouse is to stop livestock grazing
and mining? Also we must study the problem more, hire more biologists and have more
public forums to report on more studies.
For the last one hundred fifty years sage hens and livestock have lived side by side, and
as livestock numbers have been removed, the number of grouse has declined in tandem. If
blaming domestic livestock for the decline of sage hens and removing livestock is the cure
for the problem and if this cure makes sense to you, please get some professional help. The
real cure to the problem is to limit the number of animals that prey upon the birds and the
number of biologists that refuse to solve the problem.
Public Lands Council
Unveils Sage Grouse
Data Base
The Sage Grouse database is a library containing documents that support the
continued presence of public lands ranching on the range as Sage Grouse conservation
planning efforts unfold. Grazing is compatible with and beneficial to Sage
Grouse habitat conservation, and this library is intended provide members of the
public lands grazing community with the scientific, legal, and policy resources to
support that fact as plans develop west-wide. The documents provide a balanced
perspective and sound scientific information that should shape the policy decisions
and legal proceedings that are rapidly developing.
The library was funded by PLC and the Public Lands Endowment Trust and
developed under contract by Resource Concepts, Inc., a public lands consulting
group based in Carson City, Nevada. Find the database at www.GrazingForGrouse.
com or at www.PublicLandsCouncil.org. Please feel free to use and share this information
widely, and to send us feedback using this link: http://grazingforgrouse.
com/feedback.
Fumes From The Farm
by Hank Vogler
The big meeting in Elko was the bizarre twilight zone for me. People with college educations
in fuzzy critters, but zero math skills, had the nerve to stand before the world and
declare if you try to cure the problem by killing predators, “ravens” without the knowledge
of the area will move in and splinter the territory of the old regular established predator
“ravens” that know where all the nests are and splinter the area and make for more predators
in the area???????????????? HUH!!!!!!!!
Ok boys and girls, pull your shoes off, get you abacus out, fire up your confuser, grab
you calculator and we will begin. Agriculture contributes around four BILLION dollars to
the state of Nevada. Mining contributes BOZILLONS of dollars to the state of Nevada’s
economy and hunting as well adds a few million. The bird will curtail or eliminate these
activities if the “fact less” scientists prevail. So why not buy some insurance. Let’s poison
some ravens. Why is that so hard? Raven population is up six hundred percent. One suggestion
was to pick up road kill. Why not eliminate roads? Then you get two birds with one
stone. OR just maybe drive along the roads every morning and as the ravens congregate at
the road kill, throw out some poison eggs. The eggs are very specific. They are far more
lethal to ravens than other birds. When the ravens migrate around and concentrate in the
winter, put out some more eggs. You can get all the eggs you want for municipal dumps
now it is just the ravens out on the high wide and lonesome that are left to around three
thousand poison eggs state wide. This is not a solution. It is the equivalent of dipping five
gallons of water from the ocean and expecting the water level to drop. It is to perpetuate
the argument to remove mining and ranching and hunting.
The excuse that you can’t kill enough ravens is simply bs. You cannot kill three thousand
and do any good, that is for sure. Let’s look at this with common sense. A chicken
egg at the store here in Hooterville is around thirteen cents per egg. If you boil them, inject
them with the poison and distribute them, and for arguments sake, say the cost is fifty
cents per egg, for what the federal biologists will destroy it is well worth it. I say we start
by spending a million dollars in poison eggs. A million dollars won’t buy what it used to
but if you could deliver without cost-over-runs by the administrators, you could put out
two million eggs at fifty cents an egg. If
your kill ratio was four eggs to the raven,
I believe that would kill five hundred thousand
ravens. Anyone in this state that will
not eliminate enough ravens to save most of
the economies of Northern Nevada should
not be allowed around sharp objects or operate
heavy equipment. We spend millions
on a lot less worthy causes. So unless your
agenda is to hire ten more biologists at one
hundred thousand per copy to tell the world
that things are a changing and to protect
my job no solution will be found, or make
a bunch of ravens take a dirt nap here is a
quarter, call someone who has a strait jacket
in your size. Hang and rattle Hank
Call or Stop By!
GOOD LUCK
at the NV State 4-H
Livestock/Horse Judging/Skillathon
Contests
Sonny Davidson
Jason B. Land
2213 N. 5th St. , Elko, NV 89801
775-738-8811, 800-343-0077
www.edwardjones.com
PINENUT
LIVESTOCK
SUPPLY INC.
263 Dorral Way
Fallon, Nevada
Reno Highway across from
A&K Earth Movers
Stop by and
see us,
we look forward
to seeing you!
PHONE: 775-423-5338
john@pinenutlivestocksupply.com
www.progressiverancher.com The Progressive Rancher
April 2013 13