Arizona Ranchers Reeling Under
Yet Another Assault On Grazing

Arizona ranchers who may have thought the other shoe had dropped in a recent court order dealing with U.S. Forest Service grazing allotments are reeling under a third blow.

The U.S. Bureau of Land Management said earlier this month it will remove cattle from 15 Arizona river areas to protect 15 officially "endangered" or "threatened" animals and plants.

"Somebody wants cows gone — that's the bottom line," said C.B. "Doc" Lane, director of grower affairs for the 2000-member Arizona Cattlemen's Association.

The action, expected to be undertaken within the next few months, is a result of a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service opinion dealing with what's necessary under the federal Endangered Species Act.

The BLM leases nearly 1.6 million acres of public land to ranchers for grazing 12,128 head of cattle in 288 separate allotments.

Jim Rorabaugh of the Fish and Wildlife Service's Phoenix office said the action includes a portion of the San Pedro Riparian National Conservation Area.

Bill Brandau of the Safford BLM office said the other 14 grazing allotments are on the Gila or San Francisco rivers, or on Bonita or Aravaipa creeks. He said some fencing will have to be installed.

The opinion also requires BLM to limit cattle crossings of rivers on three other grazing allotments and requires it to evaluate and monitor the several thousand livestock watering on the grazing lands, he said.

Though the initial BLM action will affect only 24 ranches, the opinion also identified 36 river areas that don't require removing livestock but "need special management to recover so they can provide habitat" for the Southwestern willow flycatcher, said David Hogan, rivers coordinator with Tucson-based activist group Southwest Center for Biological Diversity.

The center filed the 1996 lawsuit that led to the Fish and Wildlife Service study of 42 "endangered" species throughout southeastern Arizona.

Arizona ranchers were feeling beleaguered even before the latest announcement.

The Forest Service has said a recent court order requiring application of management rules adopted in 1996 to the about 1400 ranching operations on national forests in Arizona and New Mexico will require removal of livestock from about half them.

Sens. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., and Pete Domenici, R-N.M., have attempted to block that order through an amendment to the Interior Department's 1998 funding bill.

Meanwhile, the Arizona Land Department is under court order to open its grazing lease bidding to greater competition, a move livestock producers say will increase their costs and could drive some of them out of business.

Lane discounted the environmental claims giving rise to the BLM announcement.

"If the intent was to figure out some way to improve the habitat, people can work around that," Lane said. "But from what we've seen so far, the species really don't count. It's just to get rid of the cattle."

Predictably, environmentalist activists weren't satisfied with the severity of the ruling.

Hogan claimed the study was flawed in having inadequately assessed the impact of grazing on 11 threatened or endangered species.

Examples include the masked bobwhite quail, which needs tall grasses to survive, and the bald eagle, which needs river forests in which to nest and hunt, he said.

Hogan noted the Fish and Wildlife Service opinion didn't say any of the endangered or threatened species were in "jeopardy," a classification that would force the two federal agencies to produce joint plans for "major" actions to protect them. Yet some of the species involved do need such major action, he contended.

Rorabaugh said that without jeopardy findings, his agency requires only "reasonable and prudent measures" to reduce losses of listed animal species but none to protect the five rare plants listed.