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DENVER — Environmental activists are turning to the free market in their quest to end grazing in the West. A coalition of wildlife groups, led by the National Wildlife Federation, paid Betty Walton, a rancher in Wyoming, $250,000 for a 137-section cattle grazing permit in the Bridger-Teton National Forest just outside Grand Teton National Park that they say is prime bear and wolf habitat. Another group in California paid $7.2 million for the 1700-acre Joughin Ranch in Simi Valley, Calif. The ranch and an adjoining property of about 400 acres that the group bought earlier sit between the Pacific Ocean and San Fernando Valley. The Grand Canyon Trust bought out a 256,000-acre grazing lease in the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in Utah. Defenders of Wildlife and the Foundation for North American Wild Sheep bought a 20,000-acre domestic sheep grazing lease for land that contains grizzly bear habitat on the Caribou-Targhee National Forest just outside Yellowstone National Park. The National Wildlife Federation retired a 2400-acre grazing lease in the Gallatin National Forest, also near Yellowstone. National Wildlife federation officials say activist groups are turning to buyouts as a tool to stop grazing, rather than fight court battles. |
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