Brutons Worried Eco-Radicals
Will End Century Of Ranching

SAN ANTONIO, N.M. — Wesley Neil Bruton had to miss his daughter's 12th birthday. He was clear across the country, testifying on Capitol Hill in hopes of saving a family ranch that has survived for more than a century.

With his parents, Neil and Pauline Bruton, Wes Bruton ranches on private, state and federal lands in Central New Mexico. His great-grandparents settled along the Rio Grande in 1880.

"I've been here a lifetime," the elder Bruton says, sitting at his kitchen table a couple of miles south of San Antonio. "I was raised up on a ranch southeast of here."

He says he's going to try to remain, despite some tough odds.

"I don't know how long we're going to stay in the cow business," he acknowledges.

The senior Bruton says not knowing what's going to happen to the public lands places his future and the future of others like him in question. It also places into question the future for Neil Bruton's sons. In addition to his son Wes in New Mexico, another son, Neil Junior, ranches in Arkansas.

The Arkansas operation was the result of Neil Bruton's fear for the future of public lands in the Southwest. The Brutons also have a deeded ranch on the Arizona line just west of Quemado, along with deeded land here in Central New Mexico that adjoins grazing permits he's managed to acquire on public land.

Neil Bruton explains that a person doesn't just go down to government offices and ask for a grazing permit. The permits have value, and are bought and sold.

"The only way to get a permit is to inherit it or purchase it," he says. "You don't just go up to the BLM office and say, 'I want to run some cattle out there.'"

Permits have value, he says, but in many cases that value has eroded. Financial institutions are afraid of getting involved in lending money to buy permits. Even with a 10-year permit, rules can change, causing the rancher loss in the value of a permit, not to mention the expenses tied up in improvements on the permit.

Some permits sell for as much as $2000 per animal unit, though problems such has the Brutons face have caused that value to fall.

Here, the Brutons' grazing permits are on Bureau of Reclamation Land, managed by the Bureau of Land Management. One of them borders the Bosque de la Apache Wildlife Refuge.

"We have that river bottom as well as some private land adjoining the river allotment," Neil Bruton says. "That river allotment is the north portion of the Elephant Butte Reservoir."

Neil Bruton has leased this land from the government 10 years at a time since the 1960s. In April 1997, with about two years left on his 10-year lease, he received a letter from the Bureau of Land Management telling him that he had to move his cattle off the permit by April 15.

Normally, Wes Bruton says, when such steps are taken, there is at least a period available for appeal.

"There's 10 sections that we have in that grazing permit," Neil Bruton says.

The Brutons usually run cattle year around on the river bottom, but the nutrition from plants during the growing season — from about April 1 through the end of October here — has become an integral part of their cow-calf operation.

By the time they got the letter telling them to move their cattle, they had fewer than six days to accomplish the feat.

The permit adjoins their deeded property, but there is no fence. The Brutons began moving their cattle onto the deeded property and trying to hold them there until they could find some place to put them.

"There were no fences on the north end," Wes Bruton says. "We were putting them on our private land. You'd go back the next day, and the cattle you'd put on the private land were going back. There was nothing we could do about it."

Some of the ground was across the water. Part of the cattle had to be gathered on foot because they couldn't get into some areas on horseback. One bred cow was taken out by boat.

"That was a wreck," Wes Bruton recalls, shaking his head.

"You couldn't get a horse across. You had to get off and go in afoot," Pauline Bruton says. "We worked day and night."

"We had to move those cattle," Neil Bruton says. "Find a place for pasture for them."

Bruton figures it cost about $30,000 for pasture and moving the livestock.

"That's not including attorney's fees," Neil Bruton adds.

They had to lease more pasture where they could find it.

"We were fortunate enough on some of these ranches to have had some rain," Neil Bruton says, "and we were able to put more cattle on them than what the permit called for."

"We increased our numbers for a period of time just to help us through the crisis," Wes says. "Whenever we did go back, we leased more pasture."

"It's a unique operation, this river down here," Neil Bruton says. "It's not a grass country. It's tamaracks and willows and all kinds of wheats. The best use of that is when it's green in the growing season. It disrupted our normal operation tremendously."

They had to move 175 head of cows plus their calves.

"This straddles the Rio Grande River," Neil Bruton notes. "We had lakes involved there, the river, very dense vegetation. It's very difficult to get in there."

It was even harder to get the cattle out.

"If you have a deal like this, you can normally go in with the agencies, the BLM, and sit down and work things out, but the way they did it, the Fish and Wildlife Service didn't give them time," Wes Bruton says.

They demanded immediate compliance. The Brutons were to remove their cattle from April 15 through July 31.

"We're just fearful that they may say no more grazing," Neil Bruton says.

Reportedly, the Bureau of Reclamation initially wanted to cancel the grazing permit, but BLM officials pointed out that there were contractual agreements that had to be abided by.

"There is a value there, our income is there," Neil Bruton says.

A right of appeal and the rules set up in the grazing program saved the Brutons. Otherwise, the permit might have been canceled.

"We applied for a stay, which would have been a period of just a few days, to remove the cattle," Wes Bruton says. "We didn't receive any information on the stay until the end of July."

The judge denied it then, because the cattle were already removed.

Although they had to remove the cattle, the government allowed them to come back and made allowances for the animal unit months not used on the permit.

"We were allowed to run more cattle during the winter months," Neil Bruton says. "They did allow that."

Unfortunately, the forage is most nutrious during the time they had to pull the cattle out. The best grazing is from about the first of April through October.

Despite the problems with government agencies, Bruton doesn't blame the local government officials.

"The personnel with the Bureau of Land Management have been very, very good," Neil Bruton says. "They're good people to work with and have been with us. We just live by our rules and regulations and abide by what's expected of us on our permits. Also, the people with the Bureau of Reclamation have been very cooperative with us."

He does blame what he calls radical environmentalists.

"It looks like the whole thing in a nutshell is that the Forest Guardians have threatened the Fish and Wildlife Service as well as the Bureau of Reclamation and the Bureau of Land Management with a lawsuit over the willow flycatcher," Neil Bruton says.

According to environmental activists, grazing cattle attract cowbirds. The cowbirds then take over the Southwest willow flycatchers' nests, destroy the eggs, lay their own and let the flycatchers hatch the cowbird eggs. Consequently, the flycatcher population has dropped. The theory is that removing cattle will eliminate the cowbird and save the flycatcher from extinction.

"I'm like so many other people who've been victims of circumstances," Neil Bruton says. "We're all environmentalists. Ranchers are the best environmentalists, I think. But then we have radical environmentalists, and I definitely see that the Forest Guardians are radical environmentalists. I think their objective is to eliminate grazing on all public lands."

Bruton says he has no objections to protecting endangered species, but not at the expense of human beings.

"I think endangered species should be protected, " Bruton says, "but what I don't think should happen is that the landowners, farmers, ranchers, be the victims and have to suffer and bear the expenses of what's imposed upon us. I think there should be fair, reasonable compensation for the damages and additional expense that the victims would be faced with."

In the beginning of the problems the Brutons face, biologists came onto the Brutons' private land and started trapping cowbirds, Neil Bruton says.

"They were trapping the cowbirds, and we weren't aware of it," he says. "We weren't notified. When they told us they found the birds, the nests, it was on our private land.

"That sounds ridiculous in a way for us not to know what's going on, but when you're familiar with all the activity of the fishermen, the bikers and the general public, the Rio Grande Valley's been a playground. There's so much activity, you really don't know what's going on. You try to watch your livestock and take care of them. We have had cattle shot down there. I guess that goes when you have a lot of people in and out."

"The cowbirds have always been here," Wes points out.

"They think the cattle attract the cowbirds," Neil Bruton says.

"That's the government's side of it," Wes Bruton interjects.

He says he isn't aware of any hard evidence to back up that contention, however.

Wes Bruton testified to such in Washington, D.C., before the National Parks and Public Lands Subcommittee of the House Resources Committee on Sept. 30, 1997.

He explained to the congressmen at the hearing that it was his intention to pass the cattle operation he and his father have on to his son, who was then four years old, and to his daughter, who turned 12 the day Wesley testified. He asked Congress to do something about the Endangered Species Act before many more ranchers are put out of business.

Neil Bruton worries that he's been a cowboy too long and doesn't have eloquent enough speaking skills to make his point.

"The thing is, you have to hire your attorneys and everything to represent yourself because we appeal the decisions," Bruton says.

Even when he is right, he admits, it's expensive.