LMD January 2014

Livestock

Riding Herd

MARKET

“The greatest homage we can pay to truth is to use it.”

Digest T

by LEE PITTS

A Bone To Pick

– JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL JANUARY 15, 2014 • www. aaalivestock . com

Volume 56 • No. 1

Heard The Word?

A

by Lee Pitts

very dangerous word is slowly creeping into the vocabulary of mainstream America. It’s a pleasant sounding word and you might even feel flattered if someone used it in describing your ranch.

And I’m sure we’ll be criticized for suggesting that there is an ulterior motive behind those who would use it to take away your freedoms.

The word is “sustainable”.

Who can argue with such a nice sounding word? Sustainable.

How nice. It has become the latest buzzword of liberals, enviros and bureaucrats. It’s hip, identifies you as being well-educated and who doesn’t want to be sustainable? You might say that sustainability is the next “paradigm”, another popular overused word the politically correct use in every other sentence. Sustainability is supposedly all about saving people, animals and the environment from ourselves. But the day is fast approaching when “sustainable” will be the dirtiest word in the English language. In a word, it is the next global warming, endangered species and biodiversity, all rolled into one.

If you’re ridin’ ahead of the herd, take a look back every now & then to make sure it’s still there.

Talking In Code when the United Nations called for a “more sustainable world” in a document called Agenda 21. It is a 40-chapter book of rules socialists first envisioned at the U.N.’s Earth Summit in Rio. Just like the word “sustainable”, at first everyone thought Agenda 21 was harmless; it was just a document that addressed how we as humans might improve our plight. Sustainability was just about ensuring “intergenerational justice” and “a future

world fit for children so they might be able to grow up healthy, educated and culturally sensitive. Who could argue with that?

As always, the devil is in the details. Much like another recent liberal disaster, no one bothered to actually read what was in Agenda 21 either. Nancy Pelosi might have easily said about Agenda 21 what she said about ObamaCare, that we had to pass it before we could find out what’s

According to the U.N., “Since 1990, the international community has convened 12 major conferences which have committed governments to address urgently some of the most pressing problems facing the world today. Taken together, these high profile meetings have achieved a global consensus on the priorities for a new development agenda for the 1990s and beyond.”

The most pressing problem as the U.N. sees it, is that the world simply can’t continue the way continued on page two

A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing: Re-introduction of the Mexican Gray Wolf

BY ALICIA ALLEN

The Devil Is In The Details

FOR ENGLISH 101, TOMBSTONE HIGH SCHOOL,

The folks who make a living creating disasters began promoting sustainability in the 1990s

TOMBSTONE, ARIZONA

NEWSPAPER PRIORITY HANDLING

in it. Now we know, and it isn’t pretty. Turns out that Agenda 21 is a playbook on how the liberal progressives can take away your Constitutionally granted rights, freedoms and property. It was written by one-worlders who want to elevate third world countries to our level by bringing us down to theirs, all under the umbrella of sustainability.

nvision yourself on a large, beautiful ranch at the base of a mountain, one that your family has passed down for generations.

You are riding your horse, mending the fences, and checking on the cattle. As you ride by, you notice two of your weanling calves dead in the wash. While you are trying to think about what could have gotten to them, a huge gray wolf comes out from behind the brush and stares you down. You spin your horse around and take off to the barn. This sounds like a bad horror movie, right? Unfortunately, this scene has become a reality due to the re-introduction of the endangered Mexican Gray Wolf in the Southwest. The wolf has become a grave threat to the people of the Southwest and their livelihoods.

The protection and re-introduction of the Mexican Gray Wolf is nothing new to the area.

The re-introduction program started in the 90s.The reason for the re-introduction is to repopulate areas in the Southwest where the wolves previously lived, before European immigrants began settling in the area. In 1976, the

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Mexican Gray Wolf was marked an endangered species, making it a federal issue. The Arizona Game and Fish Department, along with other government agencies, have been trying to reintroduce the Mexican Gray Wolf in the areas of central Arizona and western New Mexico since 1990. (U.S. Fish and Wildlife). Recently, the wolves have been repopulating in captive breeding programs to help bring up the numbers before releasing them into the wild. According to a 2011 issue of the Endangered Species Bulletin, “In December 2010, the wild population numbered approximately 50 wolves—half the number needed for our objective to establish a single population of at least 100 wolves pursuant to the 1982 Mexican Wolf Recovery Plan” (Barrett). While 100 may seem like a small number, it is quite an improvement from the handful of wolves prior to when the re-introduction program started. On the other hand, with a higher wolf population means more animals being killed to supplement the dietary needs of the wolves.

The reason the wolves were eliminated in the Southwest was because of their increased attacks on the cattle and sheep in the area. Ranchers and government agencies alike started shooting, trap-

he only kind of shopping I do is grocery shopping because food is my business, and my life. In doing the weekly shopping one thing has become painfully obvious to me: in the product extension area beef is a flat-out failure.

Just look at the almond folks; they’ve taken a previously little-known nut and put it in ice cream, cakes, cans of beans, salads, cereals, candy, cookies, chips, protein bars and a shopping cart full of other foods. And it’s a nut! As a result, the almond farmers I know are driving late model pickups and taking vacations to exotic locales like Paris and Rome. (That’s Paris, Texas, and Rome, Illinois.) The raisin growers have done the same thing and yet I bet I haven’t met six people in my entire life who’ve admitted to liking raisins.

Surely there are many products that could use a little beefing up. Come with me now as I take you on a tour of a modern supermarket and suggest products that would NOT be left gathering dust on the shelf, past their expiration date, if they only had a little beef in them. Or, in the case of pickles and oatmeal, a LOT of beef.

We are in the salad dressing aisle now and I notice that ranch dressing appears to be the favorite kind, and yet there is nothing “ranchy” about it. No cow parts or body fluids at all! It’s like trying to find the grapes in Grape Nuts! How can you have ranch dressing without any beef? After reading the labels I’d say mostly what ranch dressing is made of are chemicals that sound like something you’d spray on weeds.

Now we are in the ice cream section and I see that Ben and Jerry’s has a flavor called Phish Food. Yuck! Ice cream gets mixed with a lot of stuff these days but I think Haagen-Das really missed the boat by not selling Bacon Bits Ice Cream, a combination of two of the greatest things on earth. But the pork people’s lack of vision provides a real opportunity for cattleman. Instead continued on page fourteen

continued on page four

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Livestock Market Digest

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January 15, 2014

Heard The Word?

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we’ve been operating because our world is not sustainable. But don’t worry, they have ways to fix it so that it is and their suggestions and regulations have already been adopted at local, state and nationals levels across the country.

According to Dr. Michael Coffman, writing in the winter 2013 edition of Range Magazine, “Agenda 21/Sustainable Development is the action plan implemented worldwide to inventory and control all land, all water, all minerals, all plants, all animals, all construction, all means of production, all energy, all education, all information, and all human beings in the world. If Agenda 21 comes to fruition,” Dr. Coffman says, “private land will be a luxury of the past and citizens will be told how they will live and where as dictated by U.N. guidelines. It has nothing to do with environmentalism and everything to do with control of a nation’s resources.”

According to the U.N. document, Toward a Sustainable America, “the objective of sustainable development is to integrate economic, social and environmental policies in order to achieve reduced consumption, social equity, and the preservation and restoration of biodiversity.” Every federal agency in America has been prodded to immediately begin implementing Agenda 21 and, sadly, they are now busy doing so.

Agenda 21 states that every decision made in society should be based on global education, global land use, and global population control and they have devised numerous covert strategies to promote their agenda.

The U.N. has created sweeping “sustainable development goals” and the U.N.’s Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has called these goals “a universal sustainable development agenda for the planet.” The U.N. says their agenda will make the next 15 years “some of the most transformative in human history.” In other words, sustainable development is the liberal progressives code for controlling every aspect of your lives.

We Can’t Go On Like This The liberal soldiers in the sustainability army say that we cannot continue doing things the way we are doing them without soiling our nest and destroying the planet. People look at the mess our country is currently in, shake their heads in affirmation, and quickly get in line in the sustainability bandwagon, never stopping to consider that the mess our nation is currently in was created by the very same bureaucrats and greenies who are pushing all this sustainability claptrap.

If you want to have some fun, next time your are in the presence of a bureaucrat, ask them for their definition of “sustainable.” I guarantee they won’t give you a definition found in Web-

continued from page one

sters, Wikipedia, or if you are really old, Funk and Wagnalls.

Actually what the politicians, greenies, and officials of nongovernmental agencies want to sustain is their job, power and pay grade.

To the progressives, sustainability means social justice and one world government. The enviros and bureaucrats want to create a pristine world in which they are the ruling class. But sustainability is all tickle talk and bull pucky, an excuse for them to steal your property and your freedom while hiding behind a green mask.

“Sustainability” is older than people think. In the 1970s biologist Paul Ehrlich predicted in The Population Bomb that we would run up against the word’s natural limits by now and we’d all be starving. Obviously, that didn’t happen. That’s because we live in a constantly changing world. I’m sure there were many Doctors who thought they had a sustainable practice before ObamaCare made them rethink their career choice. How many century old businesses did the Internet make unsustainable overnight?

How sustainable would the NCBA be without checkoff dollars? And what about ranchers in the west who thought they had a sustainable ranch, until the feds started turning wolves loose. Sustainability, it turns out, is a moving target.

The well-meaning folks who have sold conservation easements thinking their ranch would stay just as it is forever won’t be around to complain 100 years from now (or sooner) when the feds acquire all these great ranches, probably with the Nature Conservancy acting as the realtor. What’s that you say, you have it in writing? Well, so did the native Americans but the federal government broke over 250 treaties with them. Who knows, there might even be a casino on your land in 60 years.

One of the problems is the big disconnect between those who grow and raise our food and those who eat it. We have rich, connected urbanites in their infinite wisdom telling farmers and ranchers that what we are doing is all wrong and that what we are doing is not sustainable. So we have urban idiots buying up ranches and farms to raise endangered free-ranging pigs.

Last month the Wall Street Journal ran a feel-good story called The New Gentleman Farmer, in which they told the story of one of the cofounders of Cisco, Sandy Lerner. The 58-year-old tech pioneer has an 800-acre Ayrshire Farm in Virginia where she’s going to show us how to be sustainable. “Her cattle are all heritage varieties that represent the best of what American and European farmers raised in the era before Big Agriculture and factory farming took over,” said the story. Now get this: Sandy Lerner has 100 employees to run continued on page three

“America’s Favorite Livestock Newspaper”

January 15, 2014

Page 3

Heard The Word? her 800 acre farm! Hey, it’s a lot easier being sustainable with billions in the bank.

Sucker!

The worst part of this whole sustainable create-a-crises is that we are being suckered into it, buying the rope with which they’ll hang us. In 2011 the NCBA launched The Sustainability Research Program with your money. A year ago they gave a checkoff-funded life cycle assessment at their convention.

“Before the completion of this project, beef was not well positioned to answer questions about its sustainability with sciencebased answers,” said Tom McDonald of JBS-Five Rivers who is a member of the advisory committee. The NCBA even hired a Director of Sustainability, Kim Stackhouse-Lawson, who has the requisite hyphenated name and California college education for just such a position.

The NCBA defines sustainability as “balancing environmental responsibility, social diligence and economic opportunity,” a definition that sounds more like the meaning of socialism than it does sustainability. StackhouseLawson said, “When we talk about sustainability, I think the most common definition is utilizing fewer resources to produce more.” Which doesn’t sound like the definition of sustainability either. It sounds more like the definition of efficiency, which is exactly the point. The NCBA and its big feeder and packer members want to hide behind the image of ranchers while they push the agenda of big multinationals like JBS, Cargill and Merck. But I don’t think that beta agonists, 100,000 head feedlots and huge packing plants are what the enviros immediately think of as “sustainable.”

In announcing their research results the NCBA announced that beef’s overall sustainability improved 5% from 2005 to 2011; greenhouse gas emissions declined 2% in those six years; water use was reduced by 3% and resource consumption and energy use declined by 2%. Stackhouse-Lawson says that NCBA’s “life-cycle assessments to trace inputs and outputs for the different industry segments went into great detail, even including “the amount of toilet paper used at a processing plant.”

I hate to rain on Ms. Stackhouse-Lawson’s parade but maybe the reason we were using less resources as an industry is because there are a lot fewer of us still left in the business than there were six years ago. After all, fewer people using the restroom don’t use as much toilet paper. And when people are eating half of your product than they once were you may not need as much land, water or resources to produce it. For their next life-cycle assessment the NCBA might be able to save a lot of checkoff dollars by just subtracting the inputs of those who are no longer ranching.

As for sustainability, I would

continued from page two

repeat what a cattle feeder friend of mine said recently: “Feedlots are a whole lot more sustainable when corn is $4 than when it was $8.” Perhaps the checkoff can fund a study to calculate exactly how much more.

All this sustainability business is especially ridiculous when you consider the people who are trying to hide behind all this linguistic nonsense. For example, the NCBA joined the Global Roundtable on Sustainable Beef, “a multi-stakeholder organization whose goal is to advance sustainable beef production through the commitment of the stakeholders in the beef value chain.” How’s that for a bunch of politicallycorrect mumbo jumbo? The Global Roundtable includes companies like McDonald’s, Walmart, Cargill, JBS and The

Nature Conservancy. Again, I doubt very much if they are the first people a greenie thinks of whenever “sustainability” is mentioned.

Walmart says it’s going to invest billions to train farmers and ranchers how to be more sustainable. This from the huge multinational company that has done more to make rural communities unsustainable than anyone. Ask a store owner in a small town how sustainable their business was after Walmart came to town.

Another project being pushed by the NCBA with your money is the establishment of a Beef Sustainability Center “to concentrate on balanced solutions, strategic partnerships and collaborative efforts to lead industry principles on sustainability

issues.” Stackhouse-Lawson says that one strong sustainability message is that much of today’s beef is produced by fifth and ranchers.” sixth-generation Which brings up a good point.

Walmart and McDonalds really don’t need to teach sustainability to ranchers who have survived this long. While everyone is making up their own definition of sustainability might I suggest that ranchers deal with it on a daily basis because it is nothing more than the concept of carrying capacity. You can’t sustain your operation by running more cattle than it will support. That’s sustainability. Period. If you blindly follow the global Agenda 21 by crowding people into bigger and bigger cities they are going to start dying like flies in a bell jar. So why don’t the bureau-

crats and greenies start worrying more about Detroit, and leave those in the country alone?

The mantra of today’s urbanpoliticallycorrect-enviro-liberalprogressive is sustainable.

Organic. Fair Trade. Blah, blah, blah. Teachers are told to discuss sustainability with their students by bureaucrats who got our country 17 trillion in debt and frozen in a bureaucratic nightmare. Is that sustainable? How about Social Security? ObamaCare? The Post Office? Are they sustainable? We’re now living in a country where unemployment is sustainable, but employment isn’t. And yet the feds want to tell you how to be more sustainable? I’ll tell you how. Whenever your hear the word, be very afraid, my friends.

Very afraid.

Risk factors for BRD in calves JOHN MADAY, MANAGING EDITOR, DROVERS CATTLENETWORK

hile a great deal of study has taken place on bovine respiratory disease (BRD) in feedlots, BRD also sometimes affects young calves, and less is known about the disease complex at that production stage. During the recent American Association of Bovine Practitioners conference, veterinarians provided some insight into pre-weaning incidences of BRD or “summer pneumonia” as it sometimes is called.

Russ Daly, DVM, MS, DACVPM, from South Dakota State University (SDSU), said pre-weaning BRD outbreaks are not predictable, and when outbreaks occur, within-herd incidence can often be high.

And, he says, outbreaks occur even in herds where calves are well-vaccinated at branding or turnout. Fortunately, he says, most affected calves respond well to treatment and death loss can be kept to low levels with

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diligent monitoring and timely treatment.

Daly says the typical reaction to outbreaks among producers and their veterinarians is to fall into firefighting mode, just trying to gain control of the disease. While timely treatment is important, he also advises taking a systematic approach toward mitigating the disease — at the kitchen table rather than at the chute. He encourages veterinarians to sit down with their clients to compile information on the outbreak to gain understanding of how it occurred, resolve it and prevent future problems.

He suggests gathering information on the animals affected including their age at the time of infection, where they were located on the ranch and, when possible, other information such as identification of sick calves’ dams, age of the dams and dystocia scores. Also discuss time events such as herd-management dates, group movements, introduction of other animals to the herd and weather events around the time of the onset of clinical signs. The veterinarian

potentially can use this information to determine how the disease established and spread within the herd BRD, of course, can involve several different pathogens including bacteria and viruses, and Daly encourages veterinarians to employ diagnostic testing in postmortem examinations for any calves that die from BRD. Daly said that veterinarians investigating these cases will also frequently perform ante-mortem testing. SDSU testing in herds with outbreaks of BRD in calves has found a variety of bacterial pathogens including Mannheimia haemolytica, Pasteurella multocida,Histophilus somni and Mycoplasma bovis. Tests also detected viruses associated with BRD including bovine respiratory syncytial virus, infectious bovine rhinotracheitis and coronavirus, which are frequently isolated from these cases. There is much to learn about properly interpreting results from ante-mortem samples, Daly says.

Livestock Market Digest

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January 15, 2014

A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing ping, and clubbing the wolves until they were nearly extinct, in the late 1990s (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service). Now, nearly half a decade later, the same government agencies are re-introducing the wolves in the same area where they were previously a threat to ranchers. The effect the wolves have on ranchers is substantial; it is detrimental to their livestock and income.

From listening to ranchers in southeastern Arizona and in other areas, they are outraged with the wolves being re-introduced to their land. To them, their livestock is more important than a wolf. Honestly, how could anyone blame them? The livestock are their source of income, the only source for some. In 2013, there were 23 confirmed livestock deaths caused by wolves (Carey).

With those 23 deaths goes thouof dollars.

Laura sands Schneberger, the president of the Gila Livestock Growers Association states that, “It takes four years to compensate for the death of one cow” (Robinson). The fact that one incident causes years worth of damage is significant because it does not just affect the rancher for that particular time, it follows him and his business for years.

Mexican Gray Wolves have been known to attack anything in site, including humans. This is a problem because not only has there been an expansion of residential housing in mountainous areas, but the wolves are also known to break away from their pack and venture into such places. In one location in New Mexico, the residents are so afraid of the wolves, they built wood and wire shelters for the children to stand in while waiting for the bus (McDonnell). Though there have not been any attacks on humans in the New Mexico/Arizona area, there have been a tremendous amount of wolf interactions on private property. According to Jess Carey, the

continued from page one

Catron County Investigator in New Mexico, there have been 214 wolf incidents on private property, 178 wolf-human interactions, and 317 wolf complaints in the past seven years (Carey).

This is especially frightening for families with small children, because they are more likely to look like prey and would not be able to fend off the exceptionally large predators.

One of the ways the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is trying to populate the Mexican Gray Wolf is by captive breeding. While this method may seem harmless to ranchers and residents, it has shown to be the very opposite.

The reason for this is the fact that wolves are fed by humans themselves. As a result of the humans feeding the wolves, they obtain “compromised hunting instincts” (Robinson). Those compromised instincts become a problem because the wolves no longer know how to find food for themselves and depend upon humans to provide for them. It is when the wild instincts are lost that the wolves start attacking anything they can find for food. Which in return accounts for many problems in the future.

The strict laws protecting the endangered wolf species cause citizens to fear for not only their lives, but also the lives of their four-legged family members.

There have been more than a few instances of families and pets being endangered by the wolves.

In an article in the The New American, it tells of an almost deadly camping trip in Arizona: In April of 1998, the Humphrey family was put in danger by a pack of wolves on a camping trip in Safford, Arizona. Their family dog somehow got mixed in with several wolves fighting.

Richard Humphrey attempted to chase the wolves away, and ended up shooting one. They

then took their dog, critically wounded, to the local veterinarian and filed a complaint with the Fish and Wildlife Service. However, the only thing done about the incident was charging Mr. Humphrey for killing the wolf and

cattle dog. The article accounts that the agency “paid him $150 for a dog [the owner] said would cost up to $5,000 to replace” (Khoury). Whether or not the monetary value of the dog is indeed $5,000 can be of question; however, the emotional value is something that cannot harness a price tag. Even though the compensation, regardless of actual price, is a step in the right direction, one would argue that the entirety of the clash would be eliminated if the wolves were not brought back to a place they were killed off nearly half a century ago.

In some aspects, the re-introduction of the Mexican Gray Wolf could be a positive attribute to the area. For one, the wolf is an endangered species, and its loss would be devastating to the eco-system. Generations to come would only be able to read about this unique sub-specie, and never get to actually see its glistening, gray coat. There is a great deal new generations of scientists can learn about the Mexican Gray; especially in the Southwest, where no other wolves live.

Wolves are an apex predator, which is a benefit because they could help maintain the predatorprey facet of the ecosystem. Still, there is already a substantial coyote threat in the New Mexico/Arizona area; it would be disadvantageous to add another large predator to the mix.

People who reside in large, urbanized cities do not see a problem with the re-introduction program and are not affected at all by the wolves inhabiting the Southwest. They see the re-introduction of the Mexican Gray Wolf to be “one of the most responsible, thoughtful and, in the best sense of the word, romantic notions this federal government has entertained in recent memory” (Carothers). While yes, the wolf may be majestic, in some form of the word, but the effect it has on ranchers and townspeople is near appalling. Then to further that claim and say that “the cost to ranchers, in terms of livestock killed, is virtually zero” is enraging (Carothers). Sure, it is never a good thing to have a species be listed as endangered, but one must consider the larger picture.

Local ranchers supply enough beef to feed not only the area, but people across the nation. If the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service continues to re-introduce these large, “majestic”, predators, the consequences will be anything but romantic.

Naturally, there are two sides to every story: both sides hosting very strong viewpoints on the situation at hand. On the one side, there is the risk of having a species become completely extinct, and on the other is the issue of having ranchers being put out of business as well as having the safety of adults and children threatened. It would be safe to assume that neither side would

Mexican Gray Wolves have been known to attack anything in site, including humans. gave him a steep fine and sentenced him to a year in jail. Nothing at all was done about the veterinary charges from the wolf attack (Grigg).

Even though the charges were later dropped and the attack did not prove fatal to their family pet, the wolf quarrel had the potential to take not only the dog’s life, but the rest of the families as well.

There have been other similar accounts where wolves are drawn into private property due to family pets, as well. In some cases, parents do not even allow their children outside because of the threat of wolves. The laws protecting the wolves make it near impossible for humans to defend themselves against these fierce predators. The laws only permit a person to shoot a wolf if their life is in immediate danger (McDonnell). This leaves a person defenseless to help their pet or livestock animal if it is being attacked.

Since there have been many complaints and killings done to livestock by the wolves, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has made a fund to help compensate the ranchers’ loss, a sort of pacifying for the people. The organization only pays what the calf, cow, or bull would be worth at the time of death. However, one would never know the true value of the animal if it had time to finish growing, or been sent to auction.

An article in the Christian Science Monitor mentions a man being reimbursed for the killing of his

like to see the other being hurt.

The ranchers and rural residents do not want the wolves to go extinct, just like the supporters of the re-introduction program do not want the ranchers’ cattle being killed or the townspeople feeling unsafe. In spite of this, something has to give. After fifteen years working on the reintroduction, a plan should have been formed on how they can coincide with one another. Seeing how one has not been formed, and the tension is still just as high as it was when the program started, the outcome is not looking good, and it seems like the ranchers are going to be stuck with the worst of it.

When more wolves get released from the captive breeding program, the rate of cow/calf killings are likely going to skyrocket, not to mention when the program goal is reached and there are 100 wolves in the wild. What is going to happen when areas become so populated the wolves have to branch out and look for food and shelter elsewhere? Then rural town residents are going to be in great danger. There are already a number of times where wolves were reported on private property. If there were more protective measures taken by the program, it might not be as bad.

However, knowing there are few restrictions for the wolves to roam, but many laws against to defending your family and pets against from the wolves, has got to be a little unsettling.

As with any program, there are going to be decisions, actions, and consequences for those actions. One could only hope that the consequences will not force the extinction of local ranchers’ calves and residents of rural towns’ safety due to the re-introduction of the Mexican Gray Wolf.

Works Cited Barrett, Sherry, Wally Murphy, and Sarah E. Rinkevich. "Never giving up work continues on: Mexican Wolf recovery." Endangered Species Bulletin Summer 2011: 44. Opposing Viewpoints in Context.

Web. 14 Nov. 2013.

Carothers, Andre. "Wolf Reintroduction Does Not Threaten Ranchers' Livelihoods." Endangered Species. Ed. Helen Cothran. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 2001. Opposing Viewpoints. Rpt. from "Will the Wolf Survive?" E/The Environmental Magazine (1995). Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 15 Nov. 2013.

Carrey, Jess. “Wolf Depredations and Human Interactions.” Southern Arizona Cattlemen’s Protective Association. 23 Oct. 2013. Web. 31 Oct. 2013.

Grigg, William Norman. "Thrown to the Wolves."

The New American Jan 27 2003: 20-1. ProQuest.

Web. 14 Nov. 2013.

Khoury, Kathy. “Clash of Values Over Saving Gray Wolf.” Christian Science Monitor. Vol. 91 Issue 3 p. 1 op. 2 1998. Article. 5 Nov. 2013 McDonnell, Tom. "Wolf Reintroduction Threatens Ranchers' Livelihoods." Endangered Species. Ed. Helen Cothran. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 2001.

Opposing Viewpoints. Rpt. from "testimony before the U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, Subcommittee on Parks, Historic Preservation, and Recreation." 1995. Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 17 Nov. 2013.

U.S. Fish and Wildlife. “Mexican Gray Wolf Recovery History.” Southwest Region. U.S. Fish and Wildlife. 9 Feb. 2013. Web. 2 Nov. 2013 Robinson, Michael, and Laura Schneberger.

"Should the Mexican Gray Wolf Roam Freely in the Southwest?" Backpacker 05 2006: 45. ProQuest.

Web. 13 Nov. 2013.

“America’s Favorite Livestock Newspaper”

January 15, 2014

Avalanche of New Laws in 2014 n estimated 40,000 new state laws, regulations and resolutions were approved by state legislatures in 2013, and many of which take effect January 1, says USA Today.

Among them: n Arkansas voters must now show a photo ID at polling places, while Virginia voters for the first time will be able to register online. n Colorado, 16 year olds will be able to pre-register to vote, but must still wait until they’re 18 to vote. n California students must be allowed to play school sports and use school bathrooms “consistent with their gender identity,” regardless of their birth identity. n In Oregon, new mothers will now be able to take their placentas home from the hospital — some experts say ingesting it has positive health benefits.

Another new state law bans smoking in motor vehicles when children are present.

Minimum-wage increases take effect in four northeastern states: Connecticut’s rises to $8.70 an hour; New Jersey’s to $8.25; and New York’s and Rhode Island’s to $8. In nine other states, the minimum wage rises automatically because it’s indexed to inflation.

Perhaps most significantly, Colorado adults age 21 or older will be able to buy up to an ounce of marijuana for recreational use from a state-licensed retail store.

A sample of other state laws taking effect Jan. 1: Colorado: Drivers will see a new annual $50 fee for plug-in electric cars. Colorado is one of several states looking to capture revenue from alternative fuel, electric and hybrid vehicles.

Delaware: Sale, possession or distribution of shark fins prohibited.

Florida: Expanded early voting.

Maine: Becomes the 48th state to require a check-off for organ donation on driver's licenses to promote organ donation.

Oregon: Privately run websites that feature police mug shots must take down photos for free if subjects can show they were not guilty or that charges were dropped.

Rhode Island: Becomes the eighth state to enact a so-called “ban the box” law that prohibits prospective employers from inquiring into an applicant’s criminal history on written job applications.

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Source: “New Laws in 2014: From Tanning Bed Bans to ‘Lemon Pets,’” USA Today, December 29, 2013.

Page 5

Beef economist expects near-record profitability in 2014 BRETT WESSLER, STAFF WRITER, CATTLENETWORK.COM

imited cattle supplies will keep cattle prices high next year, and a beef economist says high domestic beef demand and improving global opportunities are just a few reasons to expect near record-high profitability.

Scott Brown, University of Missouri beef economist, said the forecast for the cattle market over the next two years compares to the “golden era” of beef profits in 2004. Brown presented his outlook to producers at the annual Missouri Forage and Grassland Confer-

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ence at Port Arrowhead at Lake Ozark recently.

In addition to high cattle prices and low feed costs, demand in the U.S. and global markets is improving.

“International trade has been important. It’s really a bright spot when you look ahead for 2014,” Brown said.

“So not only do we expect domestic demand for beef to be better as we look ahead to 2014, but the ability to move product into places like Japan, South Korea and China does nothing but continue to help us on the price side.”

His forecast was supportive for the industry, especially cow-

calf producers.

His charts showed a sharp rise in live-cattle futures prices since 2010, from $80 per hundred to $135. Cattle supplies falling to a 61-year low has moved cow-calf returns from minus $25 per cow in 2009 to plus $25 in 2012. Brown told the group those returns could skyrocket to $300 per cow next year based on estimates from the Livestock Market Information Center.

Beef prices continue to improve and are expected to move an additional two or three percent higher next year, but the trend could change if consumers turn to pork and poultry

as less expensive meat options.

A rebounding economy and more disposable income will help keep beef on dinner tables across the country.

The outlook for 2014 and beyond is much more positive than the last four or five years, but profits could be affected if we face another unexpected drought.

“All bets are off if there is a drought in 2014.”

Brown added the expected profits in the cattle industry could benefit rural economies.

As the money comes back to producers they’ll spend those dollars within their communities.

Livestock Market Digest

Page 6

January 15, 2014

Jauer Dependable Genetics: Angus Breeding for the “Real World”

BY SHARON NIEDERMAN

auer Dependable Genetics, a fourth-generation outfit bordering the Great Plains outside Hinton, Iowa has stuck with its breeding philosophy since purebred Angus cattle were brought into the century-old farmstead in 1969. During the past 40 plus years, Jauer has maintained a well-defined goal of producing efficient, real world cattle that thrive in grass environments matching what Mother Nature provides. They believe the production of an Angus bull that sires an ever more efficient Angus mamma cow capable of doing well in a natural forage environment will fix most typical cow herd problems. The scope of Jauer’s program continues to be the production of that more efficient Angus mamma cow.

The largest expense for most producers is their breeding females. A herd of deep, thick, high capacity, moderately framed cows will consume fewer resources allowing for the raising of more calves on the same number of acres than a herd of larger framed, big boned, inefficient cows – thus producing more total output for the same or even fewer inputs. Jauer Dependable Genetics strives to produce females and bulls that can flourish on grass by excluding animals

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that need supplemental feed or grain to survive. High production animals that need additional feed and care may look good on paper (with high E.P.D. numbers), but these outliers will not fit into their program. They have extensively line-bred their herd to enhance the traits that benefit efficiency, structural soundness, and longevity. The result is an extremely consistent cowherd that goes out and works in the real world.

Selection for maternal efficiency, moderate frame size, longevity, and structural soundness have been neglected over time, and now breeders are beginning to take a closer look at these traits, Jauer thinks. “We’re seeing Angus breeders beginning to move away from a single trait selection process. We have foreseen this as an inevitable turn in the Angus breed. We feel chasing high E.P.D. numbers can lead to decreases in many important traits including overall cow efficiency.”

Says Roger Jauer, owner: “We put less emphasis on selection for extreme E.P.D. numbers and more selection pressure on traits that affect the total value and longevity of our cow herd.” He mentions, in particular, traits such as udder quality, sound feet, good dispositions, and fleshing ability. “These traits are

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To place your ad, contact Caren at 505/243-9515, ext. 21 or caren@aaalivestock.com

hills that supports mostly brome grass with some native warm season grasses of blue-stem and orchard grass. An area with “pretty dependable” rainfall, at neither extreme of wet or dry, it receives its moisture mostly in early spring from March through June, and again in September and October.

Currently, Jauer’s biggest challenge is finding adequate land for pasture. Says Roger, “We live on the edge of row crop country, and with rising prices more and more pasture is being given over to corn and beans. We rent most of our pasture, and rent keeps going up. Every year it gets harder and harder to find grassland to rent.” This has forced them to find innovative ways to stretch their grass resources. “We plant winter rye in the fall and calve our cows and heifers on this land in the spring.

This keeps the cattle off the pastures early in the spring and allows the grass to get a good start to the growing season.”

Practices like grazing winter annuals, rotational grazing, and grazing double crop hay ground allow Jauer to maintain a growing number of cattle while still being good stewards of the land.

“If we treat your animals and land right, they always seem to give it back to us in the end.”

Ranchers Helping Ranchers Online benefit auction happening now to support a Colorado Angus breeder ngus breeder Keith Russell, Johnstown, Colo., says he looks to improve his herd every day. But after the devastating flooding in Colorado, each day is a challenge. Since the massive rainfall that hit the area in 2013, Russell’s homestead has been left with mud and debris,

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Submit applications by March 1, 2014, to be considered for the program *VIHIVMGO %ZI 7X .SW [[[

Jauer’s philosophy has resulted in their well-attended annual bred female and bull sale held each year in January. “Our typical customer base includes seedstock breeders, club-calf breeders, breeders that cross our cattle with outside breeds to make F-1 females and bulls, as well as commercial producers and grassbeef finishers. The adaptability our cattle offer to each of these different sectors of the beef industry is what sets our program apart from our competition,” says Jauer.

Increasing profitability in the beef industry has always been a challenge, Jauer says, but sometimes making money has more to do with saving money on feed and associated costs. “If we can decrease our costs while maintaining a reasonable level of production, it will go a long way toward boosting our bottom line,” he says.

Located about ten miles north of Sioux City, Iowa on the western border of Iowa across the Missouri River from Nebraska and South Dakota, Jauer maintains a modest herd of approximately 300 head of purebred Angus and hybrid Angus X cows. The family tends their herd on the rolling hills of the Loess Hills region of western Iowa, a unique topography of windblown

and little to none winter feed or equipment.

In support of Russell, and to honor his commitment to the Angus breed, an online auction is now live, and offers top-quality Angus semen and embryos.

Supporters can find the auction at www.disasterrelief.dvauction.com. The sale ends at noon on Jan. 25. For more information about sale offerings call DV Auction at 402/316-5460.

Cash donations are wel-

come and can be mailed to the Keith Russell Benefit Fund at P.O. Box 331, Columbus, Mont., 59019.

To find out more about the benefit, contact Phil Trowbridge, Ghent, N.Y., at 518/369-6584 or trowbridgefarms@me.com; John Patterson, Columbus, Mont., at 406/445-2332 or blkcow@hotmail.com; or George Marcy, Fort Collins, Colo., at 970-294-1134 or marcylivestock@msn.com.

Apply for the 2014 Beef Leaders Institute

New Mexico Texas

© 2012-2013 American Angus Association

becoming cornerstones of top breeding programs across the country,” Jauer says.

Jauer’s resistance to a breeding program guided only by E.P.D.’s lies in the belief that selecting for any one trait creates an animal on the extreme end of the spectrum and is ultimately harmful to the cowherd. This can be especially true when selecting for the E.P.D.’s of carcass traits.

The animals that have been bred for extremely high carcass numbers tend to be harder fleshing, less inefficient, terminal type cattle. The females bred this way tend to have trouble maintaining their body condition and breed back is marginal if they are left out on pasture without supplemental feed. They require extra feed and grain to survive, and buying feed can quickly diminish the bottom line of profitability.

On the other hand, Jauer says, cattle bred with their philosophy utilize forage more economically, require less supplemental feed, breed back more consistently, live longer – more productive lives, produce lower birth weight calves, and still finish with good carcass characteristics.

Many Angus breeders pay attention to E.P.D.’s. And while some breeders might disagree, there is no arguing with success.

merican Angus Association® members interested in becoming more effective leaders in the agriculture industry are encouraged to apply for the seventh annual Beef Leaders Institute (BLI).

Held June 23 through 26, 2014, the program brings Angus producers together in Saint Joseph, Missouri, for a series of informative sessions, followed by a threeday tour across several industry segments.

“BLI allows our members to experience first-hand the entire beef production chain, and better understand how their quality

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Angus cattle contribute to the industry as a whole,” says Robin Ruff, Association director of events, activities and education.

Funded through the Angus Foundation, BLI is designed for Association members 25-45 years old to provide insight into the beef industry, while enhancing their knowledge of the Association and strengthening leadership skills.

“This opportunity really helped me recalibrate my focus on the beef industry, and look at it from a more holistic manner,” said Rhonda Wulf, a 2013 BLI participant from Morris, Minn.

“I would encourage others to apply, just for that chance to see the industry on a broader level, to get out of their comfort zone,

broaden their mind, and to go back to work with a new energy.”

During the three-day event, BLI participants are able to tour a beef harvesting and packing facility, retailer, fabricator, feedlots and other industry segments, including the Association. The Association provides transportation, lodging, meals and materials during BLI. Attendees will be responsible for round-trip transportation between their home and either Kansas City or Saint Joseph, Mo. To applycontact the American Angus Association at 816/383-5100. Information can also be found on www.ANGUS.org. Applications for the 2014 program are due March 1, 2014.

January 15, 2014

“America’s Favorite Livestock Newspaper�

Page 7

Angus Offers Internship & Scholarship Opportunities Deadline to submit application is Feb. 5, 2014. he American Angus AssociationÂŽ and its entities strive to provide students with opportunities to benefit themselves and the future of the cattle business. With paid internships and scholarship programs, the Association provides a chance for students to gain real-world knowledge and experience in the cattle industry, as well as financial support to further the education of undergraduate and graduate students passionate about beef and Angus cattle.

Deadlines and details for each internship and scholarship are listed below.

Angus Internships The American Angus Association Activities and Events Department is offering an internship focused on event planning to a college sophomore, junior or senior who has an interest in agriculture. The internship will provide a highly organized, detail-oriented college student the opportunity to gain experience planning and implementing educational and social events for the Association membership.

The qualified candidate should be available to start the position on or before June 1, 2014. Some travel is likely.

To apply, send a cover letter, resume and references to Robin Ruff, director of activities, events and education, American Angus Association, 3201 Frederick Ave., Saint Joseph, MO 64506, or emailrruff@angus.org. Applications due Feb. 5, 2014.

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The American Angus Association Junior Activities Department provides a college sophomore, junior or senior an outstanding opportunity to assist with preparations, communications and correspondence for junior shows and events. Applicants must be enrolled in an agriculture-related major, and consider themselves a selfstarter, detail-oriented and an outgoing individual who has the ability to work well with others.

Travel to the 2014 National Junior Angus Show (NJAS), Leaders Engaged in Angus Development (LEAD) Conference, and other shows and events is expected.

The internship spans from approximately late-May to midAugust, with specific starting and ending dates depending on the applicant’s availability.

A cover letter, resume and references are due Feb. 5, 2014, to Jaclyn Upperman, director of junior activities, American Angus Association, 3201 Frederick Ave., Saint Joseph, MO 64506.

For more information, contact Upperman at 816-383-5100 or jupperman@angus.org.

The American Angus Association Communications and Public Relations Department is accepting applications from college juniors or seniors studying journalism, agricultural communications or related fields.

Applicants should have strong writing and design skills, in addition to having completed coursework in news and feature writing, editing and design. Experience in photography, video and social media is an asset in this fastpaced internship. The internship

spans from approximately lateMay to mid-August, with specific starting and ending dates depending on the applicant’s availability.

Applications are due Feb. 5, 2014. To apply, send a cover letter, resume, references and writing samples to Jena McRell, assistant director of public relations, American Angus Association, 3201 Frederick Ave., Saint Joseph, MO 64506. For more information, contact McRell at 816383-5100 or jmcrell@angus.org The Angus Journal offers a college junior or senior the opportunity to be part of its editorial team for the summer. The writing-intensive internship offers the selected intern an opportunity to participate in producing various publications, including the Angus Journal, the Angus Journal Digital, the Angus Beef Bulletin, the Angus Beef Bulletin EXTRA, the Angus Journal Daily, editorial websites, and social media efforts. The internship will be flexible enough to tailor to the strengths and needs of the intern, but many duties can be expected. Experience in news and feature writing, editing and photography are strongly suggested. The internship spans from late-May to midAugust; specific starting and ending dates will be negotiated with the selected candidate.

Applications are due Feb. 5, 2014. To apply, send a cover letter, resume and writing samples to Shauna Hermel, editor, Angus Journal, 3201 Frederick Ave., Saint Joseph, MO 64506. For more information, contact Hermel at 816-383-5270 or shermel@angusjournal.com.

Angus Scholarships The Angus Foundation offers general scholarships to students pursuing undergraduate and graduate degrees in higher education. Eligible Angus youth meeting the qualifications for the Angus Foundation’s 2014 Undergraduate and Graduate Scholarship Programs will be considered by the Angus Foundation’s Scholarship Selection Committee. As in past years, other specific and special criteria scholarships administered by the Angus Foundation will also be available. Scholarship recipients will be recognized at the 2014 NJAS in Indianapolis, Ind. Applications will be available online beginning Dec. 1, 2013. For more information, contact Milford Jenkins, Angus Foundation president, at 816-383-5100 or mjenkins@angusfoundation.org.

Certified Angus Beef’s (CAB) Colvin Scholarship Fund will award six or more scholarships in 2014 totaling at least $20,000. The funds will be split among five undergraduate scholarships — in the amounts of $5,000, $4,000, $3,000, $2,000 and $1,000 — and a $5,000 graduate-level scholarship.

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College juniors and seniors who have shown commitment to the beef industry, either through coursework or activities, are encouraged to apply by the Dec. 6, 2013, deadline. Applications are evaluated on involvement, scholastic achievement, communication skills and reference letters. The graduate-level scholarship will be awarded to a full-time master’s or doctorate student conducting research related to high-quality beef production. Applications for that award are due Jan. 10, 2014.

For more details, interested students should go online or contact Trudi Hoyle, CAB, at 800225-2333 or thoyle@certifiedangusbeef.com.

DEADLINES SUMMARY: Dec. 6, 2013 – CAB Colvin Undergraduate Scholarship Jan. 10, 2014 – CAB Colvin Graduate Scholarship Feb. 5, 2014 – American Angus Association Activities and Events, Junior Activities, Communication and Public Relations, and Angus Productions Inc. Internships May 1, 2014 – Angus Foundation Scholarships

auer Dependable Genetics

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American Angus Auxiliary Elects Officers New leadership team selected during the Auxiliaryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s 2013 Annual Meeting. eeply committed to serving the Angus breed and its future generations, the American Angus Auxiliary has played a central role in the American Angus AssociationÂŽ for more than 60 years. The volunteer organization recently celebrated that tradition during Angus events held in conjunction with the 2013 North American International Livestock Exposition (NAILE) in Louisville.

The American Angus Auxiliary elected the 2013-2014 officers and regional directors during its Annual Meeting. Members of the newly-elected officer team are: President Cortney Holshouser, Castalia, N.C.; President-elect Lynne Hinrichsen, Westmoreland, Kan.; Secretary-Treasurer Carla Malson, Parma, Idaho; and Advisor Cortney Hill-DukehartCates, Modoc, Ind. The newly elected president, Cortney Holshouser, hails from

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Castalia, N.C. She has served as an officer of the North Carolina Angus Auxiliary for six years, and she and her husband, Karl, have been advisors to the North Carolina Junior Angus Association.

Together, they manage Castalia Cattle Company where they offer custom flush and embryo transfer work. â&#x20AC;&#x153;It is an honor to be part of the organization that has helped shape my life, and is continuing to influence the future of the breed,â&#x20AC;? Holshouser says. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I look forward to serving in this capacity, and seeing the Auxiliary grow in the year to come.â&#x20AC;?

The upcoming president-elect, Lynne Hinrichsen, has served as president of the Kansas Angus Auxiliary, regional director for the American Angus Auxiliary, and is a member of the Kansas Angus Association. Along with her husband, Ron, and children, Cale and Eva, the Hinrichsen family raises Angus cattle on R&L Ranch in Westmoreland, Kan. Members are also proud to

welcome Secretary-Treasurer, Carla Malson. With her husband, Mark and family manage the Malson Angus and Herefords farm. Malson has served as advisor for the Idaho and Western States Junior Angus Associations, and president of the Western States Angus Auxiliary.

The retiring president, Cortney Hill-Dukehart-Cates, and her husband, Tyler, manage Cates Farms in Modoc, Ind. As Auxiliary advisor, she is responsible for updating the Auxiliary guidelines for officers and committees and will serve as chairman of the Distinguished Woman and Nomination committees.

The Auxiliaryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s 2013 Regional Directors are: Region 1, Kathy Dubs, Montana; Region 2,Cindy Ahearn, Texas; Region 3, Shally Rogen, South Dakota; Region 4, Melanie Kiani,Mississippi; Region 5, Rachel Frost, Illinois; and Region 6, Marlene Dukehart, Maryland. Regional Directors are a source for information for interested members throughout the country.

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Livestock Market Digest

Page 8

January 15, 2014

Big Green’s well-financed death grip on fisheries policy must be broken

BY RON ARNOLD, WASHINGTON EXAMINER

resident Obama’s administration has added to its war on coal and its wind-farm eagle-chopping policy and is trying to yank seafood out of America’s diet.

For more than a decade, the National Marine Fisheries Service has devoured fishing fleets while Big Green’s money octopus prods the feds by waving grant-eating enviros in its tentacles, causing them to hook the public’s attention with mindless frenzy against “overfishing.”

Submerge for a moment in the seething political storm that fishermen live in — examine the overwhelming network diagram above. You’re looking at 552 grants totaling $561,907,154 — over half a billion dollars from six Big Green foundations: Pew, Packard, Walton, Moore, Surdna and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, each a funding octopus with anti-fishing payday tentacles that twine and choke and, for the

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most part, destroy.

Zoom in on one tentacle: Four Pew foundations gave Earthjustice — formerly the Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund — 20 grants totaling $25,156,500 in the past decade to sue and stop anything productive.

And SeaWeb ($2.6 million 2012 income) — one of the first greenies to declare war on fishermen — used to be Pew SeaWeb, founded in 1996, incubating to become its own public opinionmaking octopus in 1999.

Biologist Jane Lubchenco, head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration — who resigned in February — was arguably the brainiest and most viciously crass NOAA administrator ever. Members of Congress called for her resignation for destroying fishing fleets in struggling coastal communities using Big Green’s brutal “catch shares” rationing program, and for tolerating fisherman fines enforced by corrupt federal cops. Before NOAA, the Packard Foundation gave Lubchenco’s Aldo Leopold

Leadership Program $2.1 million to enable scientists to lead politicians and the public with scientific-technical control of public policy.

Nils Stolpe, veteran executive, consultant, and advocate for the commercial fishing community, sorted those numbers from Internal Revenue Service Form 990 reports and posted the result on his FishNet USA website. The Washington Examiner used Stolpe's findings to construct the diagram.

I asked Stolpe what seafood producers can do to defend themselves from that swirling galaxy of enemies. “Good marine fisheries management and government that plays by the rules,” he said, adding, “if we can get it.”

Stolpe hopes to get fair play.

He spoke of the House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Doc Hastings, R-Wash., and panel members' concern over attacks on the seafood industry. Stolpe said, “They’ve had four hearings this year, getting ready to reauthorize the primary ocean fisheries

BLM priorities lack respect for private property The president of the Idaho Farm Bureau speaks out on the federal Bureau of Land Management's view of private property rights.

BY FRANK PRIESTLEY, PRES., IDAHO FARM BUREAU, FOR THE CAPITAL PRESS

n its selection process of a route for a massive power transmission line across southern Idaho, the Bureau of Land Management listed eight criteria used in the decision making process.

“Route on public land where practical” came in seventh.

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The purpose of the Gateway West Transmission Project, proposed by Rocky Mountain Power and Idaho Power, is to route energy generated in Wyoming to population centers on the West Coast. Any benefits to Idaho residents are negligible. In fact, it’s not even on Idaho Power’s list of needed improvements over the next 10 years. However, it will place major constraints on some of the most productive farmland in the state where it crosses Power and Cassia counties. In those two counties, 75 percent of the route will be on private property.

On one hand, it’s astonishing that the right to own private prop-

erty, one of the most basic freedoms outlined by our nation’s forefathers, slips to seventh place on a list like this. On the other hand, when analyzing the six criteria deemed more important than private property rights, it’s shocking how insignificant individual liberty has become in the view of our federal government.

There are literally hundreds of quotes made by our forefathers about private property rights and their connection to our basic freedoms. James Madison said, “Where an excess of power prevails, property of no sort is duly respected.” President Calvin Coolidge said, “Ultimately prop-

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management law.”

That law, the MagnusonStevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, has had provisions for a thriving, respected seafood industry since it was first passed in 1976 — but Big Green pressure has blotted out everything that would help production.

University of Washington fisheries Professor Ray Hilborn focused on that problem in a September committee hearing, pointing out that the MagnusonStevens Act provides not only for rebuilding fish stocks, ensuring conservation and protecting essential habitat, but also, “the Act makes it clear that one objective is to provide for ‘the development of fisheries which are underutilized or not utilized . . . to assure that our citizens benefit from the employment, food supply and revenue which could be generated thereby.’”

Whoa! The federal government has been enforcing only half of the law? Hilborn thinks so. He told the panel, “The two specifically targeted actions are erty rights and personal rights are the same thing.” Northern Nevada rancher, the late Wayne Hage, summed it up as well as anyone when he said, “If you don’t have the right to own and control property then you are property.”

So without further ado, here’s what it’s come down to, folks. Following are the six criteria established by the BLM as more important than your right to own property: n Avoid BLM-identified preliminary priority sage-grouse habitat and Wyoming core habitat areas. n Avoid designated areas such as national monuments, wilderness study areas, national landscape conservation system areas and state and local parks. n Avoid visual resource management Class II areas. n Follow existing corridors or linear structures. n Avoid sensitive species habitat, including bald eagle nests and big game winter range. n Avoid cultural and natural resource areas.

Sage grouse habitat is more important than private property.

We heard a rumor several years ago that by the time all was said and done, sage grouse would make the spotted owl controversy seem small in the realm of economic devastation. This could be a preliminary indication of that prediction coming true. While no one can see into the future, it certainly makes you wonder if the farmers and ranchers who settled southern Idaho by developing the water and hacking a living out of the sage brush would have done so knowing that one day the presence of bird habitat would become more important than farms and ranches.

Wilderness study areas are more important than private property. This is possibly the biggest kick in the guts on the list. It takes

to rebuild over-exploited stocks and develop fisheries on underutilized species.”

OK, that’s clear enough. But what really happened? “While we have reduced overfishing,” said Hilborn, “one consequence has been far more underutilized fish stocks, and we seem to have lost sight of the actual goals of employment, food supply, recreational opportunity and revenue.”

Those key items, employment, food supply, and revenue are the very things Big Green has targeted for incremental destruction year after year.

They’ve crushed, vilified, and destroyed seafood producers nationwide, fed by money earned in gigantic foundation investment portfolios of corporate common stocks, real estate and other assets.

Big Green is a dangerous, overwhelming power. That power lock must be broken.

RON ARNOLD, a Washington Examiner columnist, is executive vice president of the Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise.

an act of Congress to establish a wilderness area, and judging by recent memory, we all know Congress doesn’t act on much of anything. In light of that fact, our federal land management agencies have the power to establish a wilderness study area — a de facto wilderness area — on their own.

We would be surprised if the BLM could find one acre south of the Snake River in Idaho that meets the true definition of a wilderness area — “untrammeled by man.” Yet, here we have another instance of federal agencies running our state.

Follow existing corridors or linear structures. Isn’t Interstate 86 an existing corridor for infrastructure?

Big game winter range and bald eagle nests are more important than private property. One of the true benefits of living in Idaho is an abundance of wildlife. Many farms and ranches support wildlife during different times of the year and some incur significant damage. But we don’t understand how the presence of wild animals is more important than the presence of Idaho’s hardworking farm and ranch families. In addition, we believe those hardworking families have established a firm record of living harmoniously with our abundant wildlife. How a federal agency establishes this as criteria to justify the taking of private land is astonishing.

Private property is an integral part of the engine that powers Idaho’s economy. Private property helps pay a lot of mortgages in this state — sage grouse don’t.

The biggest threat to sage grouse is fire. This tells us that BLM needs to do a better job of managing public land and never be allowed to dictate how and where the rights of private property owners will be violated.

Frank Priestley is president of the Idaho Farm Bureau.

January 15, 2014

“America’s Favorite Livestock Newspaper”

Crazy Horse

BY BARRY DENTON

ince I’ve always been a “morning” person I have enjoyed many spectacular sunrises from under the belly of a horse. The horse racing world thrives in the early morn-

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ing as horses are fed, saddled, worked and bathed. Everyone takes pride in being up early and getting their horses through their routines.

Morning works are exciting as they let you know just how well

your horse is working. You will see only the serious horsemen out at the training track every morning. Occasionally, you may see a handicapper walking around as well with a pad in his hand scribbling feverishly regarding his inside scoop. Hustle bustle is the theme of a morning at the race track.

The evening prior I had received a phone call from a trainer that I had just spent three days working for and he informed me he had one more colt to shoe that he had forgotten about. It wasn’t a problem for me to swing back by the track and shoe him the next morning because the race track is abuzz way before the rest of the world.

I arrived at the usual shop area to shoe the horse, but soon the groom came and asked if I could shoe this new colt in the alleyway of the barn. The groom thought the colt might stand better in familiar surroundings. I almost never shod horses in the barn alleyway because it was a very busy area and I would have been in the way. I drove my rig over to the barn and parked at the far end.

This particular barn was extremely long with about sixty wood plank stalls on a side and a large saddling paddock with a tack room in the middle. The exercise riders were saddling their colts and riding them out the other end of the barn to get to the track. The good thing was that I would only be there long enough to shoe just one colt.

The groom showed up with the new colt and proceeded to tell me all about him. It was indeed a pretty colt, but I was hoping he had worked with his

feet for shoeing. This 2 yr. old thoroughbred stood about sixteen and a half hands tall. He was big boned with a “jug” head and pin ears.

Despite the jug head he did have a large eye which convinced you that you could talk him into behaving eventually. The colt was impressive, but not very pretty. Like many two year olds he was quite nervous and a little jittery. However, once the groom put the lip chain on him settled down quite nicely.

At the other end of the barn one of the exercise riders brought in a horse covered with sweat and heaving. The trainer looked the horse over and decided to give him a shot of anti-histamine to help settle the horse down. The trainer along with the groom and the horse went into the nearest stall to give the horse the injection. When administering the drug in the vein, the vein collapsed and the horse went nuts in the stall and wiped out the men in no time. Next the horse burst out the stall door running full out with his head high in the air. It was obvious that the horse was out of his head and running blind.

This particular barn had an alleyway made of pavement so I could hear this horse thundering toward me. I had been nailing a shoe on a front foot until I heard the horse running toward me. I dashed out from under the colt and told the groom to get under the truck. The groom let go of the colt we were shoeing which ran out our end of the barn. The colt wasn’t going to stay and see what happened either.

At the last minute I dove under the truck with the groom.

Page 9 Of course once I got under there I remembered my anvil and stand sitting out there and figured the crazed horse would impale himself on the anvil horn that was pointed right at him. I thought the next thing he would do is run into the back of my truck. Somehow the speeding horse saw the anvil stand in his crazed stupor. When the horse arrived at the anvil stand he made a sharp right hand turn into the stall wall crashing through the boards.

There he laid in a heap and wasn’t conscious. They tried to revive the horse to no avail. The grooms did pick up the broken boards that surrounded him.

Finally they left him alone so he could rest and I understand that he slept until the next morning.

Then the horse got up and acted normal. They gave the horse a couple of weeks off and then went back to training on him.

The trainer was astounded that the crazed horse trained better than ever and became one of their most successful runners.

Apparently it turned this horse’s life in the right direction.

Now the horse I was shoeing turned out very differently. The 2 year old never wanted to be in the training barn again. They went so far as keeping him in an outside paddock and saddling him outside. He remained a pill to shoe and never got over it.

The colt never wanted to be trained after that either.

Finally they sent that horse to a training sale and I never saw or heard of him again. The incident ruined his racing career. I have always been amazed at what can happen in a split second.

Livestock Market Digest

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January 15, 2014

Senate Grazing Improvement Act Spells Disaster for Federal Lands Users

BY CAREN COWAN

n a move hailed by some national trade organizations, the U.S. Senate Energy & Natural Resources Committee passed a measure entitled the Grazing Improvement Act sponsored by Senator John Barasso (RWY) in late November 2013. In reality what was passed was “a substitute in the nature of substitute” that looked nothing like the original measure.

Not only does the bill not contain many improvements for federal lands ranch families, says Jose Varela Lopez, New Mexico Cattle Growers’ Association President, LaCieneguilla, New Mexico, “the measure was intended to provide stability for ranchers grazing on Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and U.S. Forest Service (USFS) as part of the multiple use mandate for these lands,” Varela Lopez explained. “Instead, the amended bill reduces stability and provides a path for eliminating lands from multiple use.”

For example, he said, Senator Barasso’s original bill would have provided term permits for grazing of 20 years rather than the current 10 on healthy allotments. The substitute will allow for up to 20-year

I

permits, but it removes the stability of even a 10-year permit.

According to Denver, Colorado based environment and land law attorney Connie Brooks, “The grazing permit renewal bill provides for 20-year renewal and categorical exclusion under NEPA if: monitoring of the allotment has indicated that the current grazing management has met, or has satisfactorily progressed towards meeting objectives contained in the land use and resource management plan of the allotment, as determined by the Secretary concerned.

“In more recent land use plans, the Forest Service adopts management objectives that are based on the “natural range of variation.”

The objectives are not tested by data and assume management to mimic pre-western civilization. It is possible if not probable that most grazing permits will not achieve such objectives.

“In North and South Dakota, the Forest Service had adopted objectives for the National Grasslands that required vegetation density measured by “visual obstruction rating” or “VOR.” Despite expert opinions that the prescribed ratings cannot be achieved on most North and South Dakota

range sites due to soils, climate and lack of precipitation, the Forest Service insisted that the land was biologically capable of producing tall and dense vegetation. Rigorous studies have proven that the western North Dakota range sites are not biologically capable of meeting the management objectives. To this day, the Forest Service proposes significant reductions in grazing for the very reason that they do not meet the LRMP management objectives.

“Similarly the same plans called for 20 percent of the land area to be native plant species, even though the Department of Agriculture conservation programs planted most of the land with nonnative crested wheat grass that still dominates the areas. Crested wheatgrass is very difficult if not impossible to convert to native grasses. So once again, the grazing permit will not conform to management objectives.

“In the above circumstances, permittees will not “meet land and resource management plan objectives” and will thus be denied renewal.”

The legislation should be revised to remove in its entirety, Brooks concludes.

It is the “categorical exclusion” language that is the poison pill for Karen Budd-Falen, Cheyenne, Wyoming federal lands attorney who was instrumental in drafting

the original Grazing Improvement Act. “The amended bill codifies National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) analysis on federal grazing allotments,” she explained. “This bill would congressionally mandate actions that are currently decrisionary.”

In an unprecedented move, the amended Grazing Improvement Act takes dead aim at ranchers in New Mexico and Oregon, Varela Lopez points out.

“The bill contain a provision for “voluntary relinquishment” of up to 25 allotments in New Mexico and Oregon,” he said. “Those allotments would be mandated to permanently exclude grazing.”

Not only does this undermine the small business of ranching in those states, but it unmanaged allotments will certainly provide more fuel for the catastrophic wild fires the West has suffered in recent times, Varela Lopez noted.

The substitute bill offered as an amendment was offered by Senators Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Martin Heinrich (D-NM) is now ready for action on the U.S. Senate Floor.

The U.S. House of Representatives has an un-amended version of the measure awaiting action as well.

Neither measure is scheduled for action in Congress at this time.

January 15, 2014

“America’s Favorite Livestock Newspaper”

Free Henny Penny! s America continues to become tangled in the web of domesticated animal welfare, we continue to exacerbate the inhumane results of our efforts. The closing of horse slaughter plants has backfired. Our emphasis on spay and neuter clinics has made just a small dent in the number of feral cats and dogs.

Millions of canines and felines are euthanized each year. Feral hogs have become as welcome as coyotes, rats, prairie dogs, wolves and white tail deer in many states. The biggest factor in each case can be traced back to decisions made by people with big hearts and a limited knowledge of nature’s way.

The latest example of compassionate, naïve and innocent ignorance backfiring, is the unwanted backyard chicken movement.

Urban folks, sincere and serious, want to know where their food comes from. In their mind they have the image of free-range hens laying eggs and pecking around with smiles on their beaks. Roosters welcoming the day, cute little chicks you can hold in your hand.

So far, so good. But as the effort to feed, contain, clean-up after,

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Cash Prizes to be Awarded for Winners of Cattle Raisers Youth Contests March 3 Entry Deadline

WASHINGTON EXAMINER

ould it make any difference to the public whether the climate gurus in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change are right or wrong about dangerous human-caused global warming if only a weak minority of Americans knew what carbon dioxide is? Or what the carbon in their carbon footprint is? Or that their own body is built with carbon-based molecules? Or what a molecule is?

Answer: No. That “if” is the real state of science literacy in the United States, according to nearly two decades of National Academy of Sciences studies. Most of us don’t know any of those things, nor does most of the world, for that matter, says an Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development 2008 survey.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change can say anything it wants because only a literate minority is listening, much of which is listening with its attitudes and emotions and really, really wants catastrophic global warming to happen, as a number of IPCC scientists admit of themselves in private.

If the IPCC believers sound a bit like excitement-starved teenagers, that might be explained by the fact that literacy studies tend to focus on “what is learned by the time a student graduates from high school,” when learning

W

oung cattle raisers can showcase their creative talents by entering up to four youth contests during the Cattle Raisers Convention, April 4-6 in San Antonio. Deadline for all entries is March 3.

Youth ages five to 17 can enter the photography, art and essay contests. Youth ages 13 to 17 are eligible to enter the beef promotion video contest, the newest contest added to the lineup. Each contest is specifically designed to allow young cattle raisers to showcase how ranching life has positively affected their family.

The contests are sponsored by Farm Credit. A total of $5,000 in cash prizes will be awarded to winners. Entries will be judged and winners selected at the Cattle Raisers Convention.

All contestants must be a member of TSCRA, either a stu-

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dust for lice and hose chicken poop off the porch, the swing set, the window sills…the new nervous poultrymen must face reality. They begin to see why farmers using modern practices that prevent disease, increase sanitation, improve their diet, and reduce the muck that goes with raising chickens is important. Reality is not the idyllic farmer-in-the-dell fairy tale they had imagined.

Then the hens quit laying. The neuvo-farmer can’t even think about slaughtering such a faithful hen. So, just like dumping unwanted horses, puppies and kittens, they turn their old hens loose . . . sort of a “Free Henny Penny!”

Is this a serious problem? In Minneapolis, a “Chicken rescue facility” reports that they received calls to take 500 abandoned chickens. They are working with Animal Control to find homes to place the steady stream of unwanted chickens.

Those of us in rural America look on this problem dumbfounded. Nigerians in refuge camps, Filipino typhoon victims, North Korean mothers, Laotian immigrants plus 98 percent of the peo-

ple on Earth who have some basic understanding of life’s cycle, are incredulous.

In megacities, we have isolated a significant percentage of our population from reality. They exist in a cocoon that is controlled by electronic robots that keep them and their children separated from dirt, weather, farming, mining timber, drilling and changing their own flat tires. They might as well be living in a space station on the moon.

We, whose job is to feed, house and comfort these space station citizens make an effort to inform them “Where their food, clothing and shelter comes from.” But most will never become truly knowledgeable enough in the subjects to make an educated decision. So, it will continue to be up to us, the producers, to make the right decisions, for the right reasons.

So with a tip of the hat to you urban chicken raisers, do your homework, be responsible and enjoy your eggs. And remember, that little chick will one day be at the Campbell’s soup stage of their life. Have a plan.

Lack of science literacy helps global warmists spread their gospel

BY RON ARNOLD,

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contains fewer chemistry and physics courses than it does raging hormones and dominance fights.

College graduates aren’t much better. Universities seem to indoctrinate more than educate, which probably helps whip up educated ignorance into the brand of fear marketed by IPCC scientists.

The United States National Center for Education Statistics tells us that “scientific literacy is the knowledge and understanding of scientific concepts and processes required for personal decision making, participation in civic and cultural affairs, and economic productivity.”

We’re not inundated with that.

Popular culture has no clue or care what scientists say anyway, and pop types probably think that IPCC is a new street drug. Climate fear certainly rates lower on the popular panic scale than would Kanye West leaving Kim Kardashian for Miley “Wrecking Ball” Cyrus because of Kim’s new facelift.

You can argue endlessly about the content of IPCC reports – what’s fact and what’s not – and IPCC denizens will keep on saying what the paymaster wants, because they’re human too, and need the personal income, the career advancement, and public recognition.

So, quarreling over “content” is pointless. “Context” is what’s important – the vast organizational structure with its self-serving rules and snooty hierarchy that shapes the IPCC and determines what

content it produces.

Most importantly, IPCC science isn’t scientific. It is based upon consensus, a non-scientific process from decision-making theory. That’s politics.

Also, IPCC findings depend largely on computer models, which are notoriously wobbly. GIGO applies – the 1963 hacker acronym for “garbage in, garbage out.” The IPCC first turned GIGO into “garbage in, gospel out,” then after some experience, “gospel in, gospel out.” That’s delusional.

IPCC scientists defend their gospel with envenomed fangs, for they have inserted into their computer models the long-sought Finagle’s variable constant, that number which, when added to, subtracted from, multiplied by or divided by the Wrong Answer, gives the Right Answer. That’s supernatural.

Not only is climate gospel protected by the god Finagle, but it also has a free pass from the power of his mad prophet, Murphy, whose law says, “Anything that can go wrong, will—at the worst possible moment,” thus assuring us of IPCC gospel infallibility.

You may recognize by now that this is humor, a heresy unknown among IPCC believers.

Now, in contravention of all glum political correctness, I sincerely wish you and yours a glorious, joyous, Merry Christmas!

RON ARNOLD, a Washington Examiner columnist, is executive vice president of the Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise.

dent member, child or grandchild of a member, or a child of parents who are employed by a TSCRA member. Non-members can become members prior to the contest by contacting TSCRA at 817-332-7064. There is a membership fee of $25 for young members.

Entry information is available online at www.tscra.org/convention/youth.html.

The 137th annual Cattle Raisers Convention is April 4-6 at the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center in San Antonio.

Highlights include the popular School for Successful Ranching, the Cattle Raisers Expo, and general sessions and committee breakout session covering a wide range of economic, ranching and wildlife topics.

A complete schedule can be found on the TSCRA convention website. TSCRA will continue to update the schedule with additional events.

Livestock Market Digest

Page 12

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January 15, 2014

‘Crunch time’ in Nevada sage grouse debate Stakeholder comments due Jan. 29 for impact statement SOURCE: WWW.RGJ.COM

uch is in play as deadlines loom and discussions continue over how to protect a chickensized bird found across much of the Nevada, with possible steps to protect the land upon which it depends coming with potentially huge economic consequences.

And if debate among scientists, politicians, ranchers, conservationists and others remains robust over the best ways to avoid listing of the greater sage grouse as a threatened or endangered species, consensus over two things is clear — the stakes couldn’t be higher and time is decidedly short.

“The clock is ticking,” said Larry Johnson of the Coalition for Nevada’s Wildlife, who next week will meet with representatives of other sportsmen groups and conservationists to discuss the best strategies moving forward.

Johnson and others are studying a range of alternatives contained in a draft environmental impact statement released Nov. 1 by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management.

Among other things, they’re trying to determine how federal recommendations might meld with a state conservation plan released last year. Comments will be accepted until Jan. 29.

The discussion comes days after Nevada’s U.S. senators, Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid and Republican Dean Heller, released draft legislation designed to raise funds and preserve land needed to protect Nevada’s sage grouse.

They, like stakeholders across the Silver State, hope to avoid a listing decision that could profoundly affect ranching, mining, energy development and recreation and, as a result, Nevada’s overall economy.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposed in October to list a distinct subspecies of grouse that exists only along the NevadaCalifornia line, the bi-state sage grouse, as a threatened species. A decision concerning the greater sage grouse across much of Nevada and 10 other Western states is due next September.

Ted Koch, Nevada director for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife, likes much of what he’s seen in the state plan and other alternatives now under the microscope. But, like others, he is worried time is running out with key decisions still to be made.

“It’s getting close to crunch time, and we’re eager to see how we will connect the dots,” Koch said, adding that restoration goals for the Great Basin’s sagebrush ecosystem deserve to be implemented at the same scale as massive restoration efforts that have occurred in places like the Everglades, the Great Lakes and Chesapeake Bay. “The Great Basin, in my opinion, warrants that same level of attention,” Koch said.

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Sagebrush steppes in trouble Sage grouse, striking in appearance and behavior, historically inhabited vast swaths of sagebrushcovered terrain in the Western United States and Canada. But the sagebrush habitat needed by the bird has been reduced by nearly half since 1900 due to grazing, farming and development, with the biggest problem in Nevada being widespread wildfires and invasion of nonnative cheatgrass, experts said.

Listing of the bi-state population of sage grouse, with numbers limited to an estimated 5,000 birds, as a threatened species is warranted because it is “truly imperiled,” said Mark Salvo of the conservation group Defenders of Wildlife.

Whether the greater sage grouse needs full protection under the Endangered Species Act remains to be seen, Salvo said. But he sees plenty of room for improvement in the 15 separate plans prepared by federal land managers for the bird across the West, the last of which targeted parts of Wyoming and was released recently.

“There is still an opportunity to improve these plans,” Salvo said, insisting more must be done to protect imperiled sagebrush habitat and that the effort should be pursued on a massive scale.

“Sage grouse, everybody would agree, need large areas of relatively undisturbed sagebrush steppes,” Salvo said. “These largest areas are under a constant barrage and are continuing to shrink.”

Salvo is concerned the federal government is taking a wrong approach for sagebrush habitat protection by preparing 15 different plans when a more uniform approach across the West may be more helpful.

“By partitioning the process, Balkanizing the process, there is a risk of producing inconsistent and maybe inadequate protections for sage grouse,” Salvo said. “Sage grouse need healthy sagebrush steppes whether they are in northern Montana or in Nevada.”

Most agree the proposal for Nevada prepared by the BLM and U.S. Forest Service will be particularly important because some 85 percent of land across the state is in federal ownership. The plan ultimately approved will likely be “a blend” of actions proposed in the six alternatives released Nov. 1, and include components of the state’s plan, said Joe Tague, BLM project manager.

“We really want to look at what we can still allow in sage grouse habitat and still conserve the bird,” Tague said. “It should be something different than what we’ve done in the past.”

Tony Wasley, director of the Nevada Department of Wildlife, is among those working on efforts to promote the state plan initiated by Gov. Brian Sandoval and now being pursued by the governor’s Sagebrush Ecosystem Council.

One key component is creation of a “conservation crediting system” designed to help preserve some of Nevada’s best habitat.

Under that plan, a group such

as the Nature Conservancy could work to improve key habitat in one area and sell conservation credits to someone wanting to develop another habitat area, Wasley said.

How to fund the program remains “a big question,” he said.

“The main objective is to have mechanisms in place that provide assurance to the Fish and Wildlife Service that the state can and will stop the decline in loss of habitat,” Wasley said.

Show me the money Lack of funding is one reason federal legislation proposed by Reid and Heller is so important, others said.

Under that proposal, the Nevada Sagebrush Landscape Conservation and Development Act would create a special fund in the U.S. Treasury to help finance restoration projects, including those to treat the landscape to prevent wildfires as well as restore habitat that has already burned.

The bill is designed to encourage economic development in some areas while conserving the most precious grouse habitat, including through the establishment of new wilderness areas.

Money for the fund would be raised by sale of developable federal land identified by Nevada counties and through a fee assessed on any development allowed in identified sage grouse habitat.

“The federal legislation does what the state has always had trouble doing — paying for stuff,” said John Tull, a Reno conservationist involved in the issue. “All of these activities are expensive to do. The problem has always been coming up with the money to pay for it.”

Johnson of the Coalition for Nevada’s Wildlife points to the need for some other creative solutions to raise needed money. For too long, Johnson insists, the cost of protecting sage grouse and its habitat has been borne by Nevada sportsmen alone.

Many possibilities exist to raise needed funding, Johnson asserts. A portion of royalties from Nevada’s mining companies could go to the effort, as could some of the registration fees paid by owners of offhighway vehicles. A surcharge on grazing fees for areas where livestock graze in sage grouse habitat could raise money as well.

Conservationists might weigh in by paying for a bird-watching stamp. Sportsmen might contribute further by paying a special fee when applying for big game hunting tags.

Much attention has been focused on discussing ways to protect sage grouse and sagebrush terrain, Johnson said. He feels it’s time to move beyond the talking stage as quickly as possible.

“We need a huge restoration effort and in that regard very little has been accomplished,” Johnson said. “A lot has been done administratively. Unfortunately very little has been done on the ground for the benefit of the bird and that is of great concern. We need to get everybody together on this, stop the bureaucratic process and get progress on the ground.”

January 15, 2014

“America’s Favorite Livestock Newspaper”

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In 2014, Strive To Be The Kind Of Person Your Dog Thinks You Are

BY JOE ROYBAL IN BEEF EDITORS’ BLOG

new year is traditionally viewed as a sort of fresh start, a clean slate, a new beginning. It’s estimated that about 45 percent of Americans typically make New Year resolutions, according to www.statisticbrain.com, and only about eight percent of those resolutions are realized.

The top 10 resolutions for 2014, according to the same website, are to lose weight, get organized, spend less and save more, enjoy life to the fullest,

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Assessing Fiscal Sustainability very country faces an intertemporal budget constraint, which requires that its government’s future expenditures, including servicing its outstanding official debt, be covered by its government’s future receipts when measured in present value. The present value difference between a country’s future expenditures and its future receipts is its fiscal gap, says Laurence Kotlikoff, a senior fellow with the National Center for Policy Analysis and economist at Boston University.

To generate an accurate assessment of the US government’s fiscal sustainability, Kotlikoff uses both fiscal gap accounting, which discloses the amount of adjustment needed to restore sustainability, and generational accounting, which looks at the impact of current and implied policy on specific generations. n The U.S. fiscal gap now stands at $205 trillion. n This is 10.3 percent of the estimated present value of all future U.S. gross domestic product (GDP). n The United States needs to raise taxes, cut spending or engage in a combination of these policies by an amount equal to 10.3 percent of annual GDP to close its fiscal gap. n Closing the gap via raising taxes would require an immediate and permanent 57 percent increase in all federal taxes. n Closing the gap via spending cuts (apart from servicing official debt) would require an immediate and permanent 37 percent reduction in spending.

This grave picture of America’s fiscal position effectively constitutes a declaration of bankruptcy.

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Source: Laurence Kotlikoff, “Assessing Fiscal Sustainability,” Mercatus Center, December 12, 2013.

stay fit and healthy, learn something exciting, quit smoking, help others in their dreams, fall in love, and spend more time with family.

Of the resolutions made for the new year, it’s estimated that 75 percent will make it past the first week, and only 46 percent will make it past 6 months.

That’s not the greatest of success rates but, of course, that doesn’t mean one shouldn’t try to better oneself in areas where you think improvement is needed.

There’s a natural tendency, I think, to look beyond home for

measures of success, however.

The problem is that such factors often aren’t totally under our control – things like wealth, recognition, material possessions, etc. Inspirational speaker Zig Ziglar used to say that “Money won’t make you happy, but everybody seems to want to find out for themselves.”

I like to think that the most meaningful yardsticks for measuring success are things that we generally have a lot of control over. There’s an old adage I heard a few years ago that goes something like this: “To the world you may be just one per-

son, but to one person you just may be the world.” I think we all too often get caught up in the race for something more, bigger or better. Meanwhile, the thing that carries the truest and deepestpersonal reward might just be a loved one, be it child, a spouse, an elderly relative or friend, or any person who looks up to you.

This is a lesson I think we all viscerally know and understand, but often have to be reminded of, and it’s the turn of a phrase that sometimes provides the cold slap that forces us to stop and take inventory.

And the turning of a new year is

always a good time to rededicate ourselves to such important pursuits.

Golda Meir, the legendary Israeli prime minister, once said: “Create the kind of self that you will be happy to live with all your life.” I recently heard a more succinct and humorous version of that sentiment by author J.W. Stephens, which went like this: “Strive to be the kind of person your dog thinks you are.”

I don’t know if it’s possible for any of us to live up to that kind of lofty image, but best of luck for a great 2014.

Livestock Market Digest

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January 15, 2014

Water Wars: Texas v. New Mexico A battle is brewing between Texas and New Mexico over the waters of the Rio Grande that may be decided in the United States Supreme Court

BY TIFFANY DOWLING, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR & EXTENSION SPECIALIST AGRICULTURAL LAW TEXAS A & M AGRILIFE EXTENSIONS SERVICE

Background n 1938, Texas, New Mexico, and Colorado entered into the Rio Grande Compact (“the Compact”) to allocate water from the Rio Grande between the three states. The Compact requires that New Mexico deliver water into the Elephant Butte Reservoir. At that point, the United States Bureau of Reclamation allocates the water between beneficiaries in Texas and New Mexico. (An additional lawsuit is pending in New Mexico federal court between New Mexico and the Bureau of Reclamation because the percentage of water allocated between the two states was modified in 2008 from 57% to New Mexico and 43% to Texas to the current percentages of 38% to New Mexico and 62% to Texas.) The allocated water is for the benefit of two beneficiaries: the Elephant Butte Irrigation District (New Mexico) and the El Paso County Water Improvement District No. 1 (Texas).

The Lawsuit In February 2013, Texas filed suit against New Mexico and Colorado in the United States Supreme Court in a battle concerning the Compact. Although Texas sued both New Mexico and Colorado, it appears that Colorado was named only because they are party to the treaty at issue. All of Texas’ claims are based upon alleged wrongful conduct by and in New Mexico.

It may seem strange that the lawsuit was actually filed in (as opposed to being appealed to) the United States Supreme Court. The reason for this is that the United States Constitution provides original jurisdiction to the Supreme Court for all dis-

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putes between states. In this instance, a state must file a motion seeking permission to file the complaint and a brief explaining why the Court should hear the case.

So now that the motion has been filed, the Court will decide whether to hear the case. In making that decision, the Court considers three factors: (1) whether the dispute is truly between states (as opposed to disputes between state agencies or private claims); (2) the seriousness of the dispute-specifically looking at whether this type of conflict would lead to war between sovereign nations; and (3) whether an alternative forum is available to decide the dispute.

If it chooses to hear the case, it will likely assign the case to a Special Master who will determine any factual issues in the case.

After the Special Master has resolved factual disputes, the Court would then take up the case and make decisions on the legal issues.

The Parties’ Arguments Texas claims that New Mexico is illegally depleting the Rio Grande's flow before it reaches the New Mexico/Texas state line.

Specifically, Texas claims that New Mexico allows impermissible diversion of surface water from the river and that increased groundwater pumping also depletes the river by causing the surface water to leave the river to recharge connected underground aquifers. As to the groundwater pumping, Texas points to wells— approximately 2,500 of these wells have been drilled below the Reservoir since the Compact was signed—and claims that these wells are depleting the amount of water coming to Texas pursuant to the Compact. Although Texas does not point to a specific term of the Compact that was violated and does not dispute that New Mexico is delivering the correct amount of water into the Elephant Butte Reservoir, it claims that the “purpose and intent” of the Compact is violated when

New Mexico allows water to be diverted prior to delivery into Texas.

Texas’ lawsuit requests that the court (1) hear the case; (2) enjoin New Mexico's diversions and depletions that take any portion of Texas’ water; (3) order New Mexico to pay for the water that it has taken through groundwater pumping and surface diversions; and (4) specifically allocate Texas’ portion of water to which it is entitled under the Compact.

In response, New Mexico claims that its only obligation under the Compact is to deliver a certain amount of water into the Elephant Butte Reservoir. The Compact does not require any specific amount of water be delivered to the Texas/New Mexico state line. New Mexico claims that what happens between the Reservoir and the Texas state line is governed by New Mexico law and not by the Compact. New Mexico claims that the wells drilled below the Reservoir are proper as they were drilled based upon water rights that were granted under New Mexico law.

Colorado has argued that the Court should not hear the case because Texas’ complaints are not tied to the Compact and, as New Mexico argues, the Compact does not apply to the waters south of Elephant Butte.

The United States, represented by the Solicitor General, encouraged the Supreme Court to grant Texas’ motion and hear the case, but also advocated for a procedural plan that would allow New Mexico to file a motion to dismiss shortly thereafter to attempt to resolve the case early on.

As the states await a decision from the Supreme Court on Texas’ motion, tensions run high.

The Texas budget for 2014 shows an allocation of $5 million for litigation expenses related to the suit. In New Mexico, Governor Susana Martinez has said that New Mexico “will not cede one inch of New Mexico water to Texas.”

Name Old Address City, State, Zip New Address City, State, Zip

For advertising, subscription and editorial inquiries write or call: Livestock Market Digest P.O. Box 7458, Albuquerque, N.M. 87194 Telephone: 505/243-9515

Riding Herd of Phish Food, which sounds like something I’d feed the roses, how about a Beef Bits Dove Bar or a frozen Sirloin On A Stick?

YUMMM! In the candy aisle I do not see a single Milky Way, Reese’s Pieces, or Pop Tart with any beef in it, and you can’t tell me that a cheeseburger dipped in chocolate wouldn’t sell like bovine hotcakes. If people will buy Raisinets they’ll surely buy a McDonalds Candy Coated Big Mac, or a Filet Mignon M & M that will truly melt in your mouth. And where are the Slim Jim Mash Ups and Beef Jerky Roll Ups for kids?

I’m standing now in the most crowded part of any grocery store, in front of the Hostess section, and I don’t see a single T-Bone Twinkie, Beef Zinger, or

continued from page one

Brisket Sno Ball. It’s probably why they went bankrupt. We’re always talking about having a hard time getting rid of the cheaper cuts of beef but if you combined them with Zingers, Twinkies and sugarcoated pies, we’d all be selecting cattle with beefier briskets.

There are creamy and crunchy kinds of peanut butter, but not cowy, and the barbecue potato chips appear to be meat-free. I ask you, how can you have a barbecue without meat? The cereal goes snap, crackle, pop, but not “MOO”. If they really wanted to make Special K really “special” they’d put some beef in it.

While kids are rotting their teeth drinking soda they might as well get a little protein by drinking a PepsiCow or a Coca Cow Cola. And Gerber’s Baby

Food has way too many strained carrots, peas and pears in it for my taste. If Gerber babies had a beef-covered bone to gnaw on maybe they’d quit their incessant crying. A beef flavored pacifier would have them hooked for life, I’m quite sure.

Yoplait could sell a roast beef yogurt and eating all that popcorn without beef can’t be good for Orville Redenbacher. If they added a little rib-eye to their shampoo I’d buy Pert Plus Plus, and Old Scent could market a hamburger underarm deodorant that would have both the girls, and the dogs, following any man who used it.

Hands down, the two products I saw in the grocery store that could use a little beef the most were the vegetarian lasagna and the poultry grilling package.

“America’s Favorite Livestock Newspaper”

January 15, 2014

Page 15

THE LIVESTOCK MARKET DIGEST

Real Estate GUIDE To place your Real Estate Guide listings, contact RANDY SUMMERS at 505/243-9515

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BAR M REAL ESTATE New Mexico Properties For Sale...

Six Shooter Ranch – Located approximately 15 miles west of Carrizozo, New Mexico in western Lincoln County. The ranch is comprised of 640 ± Deeded Acres, 961.4 New Mexico State Lease Acres and 11, 246 Federal BLM Lease Acres. Grazing capacity is controlled by a Section 3 BLM grazing permit for 175 Animal Unit on a yearlong basis. Improvements include one residence, which has recently been remodeled, hay barn, storage sheds and corrals, all functional. Water is provided by three wells and an extensive buried pipeline system. Much of the water system has been replaced or installed new within the last five year.

The Carrizozo Malpai lava outcrop forms the entire eastern boundary of the ranch. Access to the ranch is gated and locked from Highway 380. Public access is by permission only.

Price: $1,300,000.

Border Ranch – Located approximately 10 miles east of Columbus, New Mexico along the international boundary with Mexico along and on both sides of State Highway 9. The ranch is comprised of 1,910 ± Deeded Acres, 11,118 NM State Lease Acres and 52,487 Federal BLM Lease Acres. Grazing capacity is set by a Section 3 BLM grazing permit for 613 Animal Units. Livestock water is provided by three wells and a buried pipeline system. Five sets of working corrals are situated throughout the ranch. Adjoins the Mt. Riley Ranch to the west. Price: $1,100,000, but negotiable, come look and make an offer. Seller wants the ranch sold.

Mt. Riley – Located approximately 30 miles northwest of Santa Teresa, New Mexico along and on both sides of State Highway 9. The southern boundary of the ranch is the international boundary with Mexico. The ranch is comprised of 160 ± Deeded Acres, 6921 NM State Lease Acres and 74,977 Federal BLM Lease Acres. Grazing Capacity is set by a Section 3 BLM grazing permit for 488 Animal Units on a yearlong basis. The biggest portion of the ranch is located north of the highway. The headquarters is located approximately one mile north of the highway. Headquarters improvements consist of a camp house, maintenance shop, storage sheds and a large set of working pens with scales. Water is provided by four wells and a buried pipeline system. Adjoins the Border Ranch to the east. Price: $725,000, but negotiable, come look and make an offer. Seller wants the ranch sold.

Bar M Real Estate www.ranchesnm.com

Scott McNally, Qualifying Broker Roswell, NM 88202 Office: 575-622-5867 Cell: 575-420-1237

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SOCORRO PLAZA

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Paul Stout, Qualifying Broker (575) 760-5461 pkstout@gmail.com

INTEREST RATES A S L OW A S 3% Pay m en t s Sch ed u l ed o n 25 Year s

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Ranch & Farm Real Estate

1301 Front Street, Dimmitt, TX 79027 Ben G. Scott – Broker Krystal M. Nelson, NM Qualifing Broker 800-933-9698 day/eve. www.scottlandcompany.com www.texascrp.com

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SOCORRO COUNTY HORSE FARM In the Rio Grande Valley.

Custom-built home with 100 acres of irrigated land.

House has approximately 3,700 sq. ft., 4 bedrooms, and 2 baths. One hour from Albuquerque Int’l Airport. Close to 5 racetracks: Sunland, Ruidoso, Albuquerque, Santa Fe and Farmington.

024)". &8"3 5/4*/( "/% $"44-& 79

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For more information, visit us on Facebook, or visit our website at: sites.google.com/site/ corralescottonwoodrealty/

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DON BROWN, Qualifying Broker Email: dbrown@socorroplazarealty.com

: "8 +0&12*&342& /&4 : +0&12*&342& &"24)-*/, $0.

Missouri Land Sales ■ 675 Ac. Excellent Cattle Ranch, Grass Runway, Land Your Own Plane: Major Price Reduction. 3-br, 2ba home down 1 mile private lane.

New 40x42 shop, 40x60 livestock barn, over 450 ac. in grass. (Owner runs over 150 cow/calves, 2 springs, 20 ponds, 2 lakes, consisting of 3.5 and 2 ac. Both stocked with fish. Excellent fencing. A must farm to see. MSL #1112191

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PAUL McGILLIARD Cell: 417/839-5096 1-800/743-0336 MURNEY ASSOC., REALTORS SPRINGFIELD, MO 65804

■ 113 acres SOLD / 214 acres REMAINING: “Snooze Ya Loose.”

Cattle/horse ranch. Over 150 acres in grass. 3/4 mile State Hwy. frontage. Live water, 60x80 multi-function barn. 2-bedroom, 1-bath rock home. Priced to sell at $1,620 per acre. MLS #1204641 ■ NEW LISTING - RARE FIND - 226 ACRES 1.5 miles of Beaver Creek runs along & thru this "Ozark Treasure." Long bottom hay field, walnut grove, upland grazing, excellent hunting, deep swimming hole, 4 BR, 2BA older farm house. Don't snooze and loose on this one. Call today! MLS #1303944

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Livestock Market Digest

Page 16

January 15, 2014

For global warming believers, 2013 was the year from Hell

BY LAWRENCE SOLOMON, FINANCIALPOST.COM

Almost everything that could go wrong did go wrong for the cause of global warming 013 has been a gloomy year for global warming enthusiasts. The sea ice in the Antarctic set a record, according to NASA, extending over a greater area than at any time since 1979 when satellite measurements first began. In the Arctic the news is also glum. Five years ago, Al Gore predicted that by 2013 “the entire North polar ice cap will be gone.” Didn’t happen. Instead, a deflated Gore saw the Arctic ice cap increase by 50 percent over 2012. This year’s Arctic ice likewise exceeded that of 2008, the year of

2

his prediction. And that of 2009, 2010 and 2011.

Weather between the poles has also conspired to make the global warming believers look bad. In December, U.S. weather stations reported over 2000 record cold and snow days. Almost 60 percent of the U.S. was covered in snow, twice as much as last year. The heavens even opened up in the Holy Land, where an awestruck citizenry saw 16 inches of snow fall in Jerusalem, almost three feet in its environs. Snow blanketed Cairo for the first time in more than 100 years.

2013 marks the 17th year of no warming on the planet. It marks the first time that James Hansen, Al Gore’s guru and the one whose predictions set off the global warm-

ing scare, admitted that warming had stopped. It marks the first time that major media enforcers of the orthodoxy — the Economist, Reuters and the London Telegraph – admitted that the science was not settled on global warming, the Economist even mocking the scientists’ models by putting them on “negative watch.” Scientific predictions of global cooling – until recently mostly shunned in the academic press for fear of being labeled crackpot – were published and publicized by no less than the BBC, a broadcaster previously unmatched in the anthropogenic apocalyptic media.

The heavens even opened up in the Holy Land, where 16 inches of snow fell in Jerusalem 2013 was likewise bleak for

businesses banking on global warming. Layoffs and bankruptcies continued to mount for European and North American companies producing solar panels and wind turbines, as did their pleas for subsidies to fight off what they labelled unfair competition from Chinese firms. Starting in 2013, though, their excuses have been wearing thin. China’s Suntech, the world’s largest solar panel manufacturer, has now filed for bankruptcy, as has LDK Solar, another major firm. Sinovel, China’s largest manufacturers of wind turbines and the world second largest, reported it lost $100-million after its revenues plunged 60%, and it is now closing plants in Canada, the U.S., and Europe.

While these no-carbon tech-

nologies get buried, carbon rich fuels go gung ho. Last month Germany fired up a spanking new coal plant, the first of 10 modern CO2gushers that Europe’s biggest economy will be banking on to power its economy into the 21st century. Worldwide, 1200 coalfired plants are in the works.

According to the International Agency, coal’s dominance will especially grow in the countries of the developing world, helping to raise their poor out of poverty as they modernize their economies.

But important as coal is, the fossil fuel darlings are indisputably shale gas and shale oil. This week the U.K. sloughed off the naysayers and announced it will be going all out to tap into these next-generation fuels. Half of the UK will be opened up to drilling to accomplish for the U.K. what shale oil and shale gas are doing for the U.S. – drastically lowering energy costs while eliminating the country’s dependence on foreign fuels.

China, too, has decided to tap into the shale revolution – in a deal with the U.S. announced this week, it will be exploiting what some estimate to be the world’s biggest shale gas reserves, equivalent in energy content to about half the oil in Saudi Arabia.

2013 as well marks a turning point for the governments of the world. January 1, 2013, Day One of the second phase of the Kyoto Protocol, saw Kyoto abandoned by Canada and Russia, two fossil fuel powerhouses. With their departure Kyoto became a club for the nonemitters – the Kyoto Protocol now only covers a paltry 15% of global emissions. At UN-sponsored talks on global warming in Warsaw last month, the Western countries of Europe, North America, and Australia refused to even discuss a proposal from developing countries that would limit emissions in the future.

2013 also saw Australia elect a climate-skeptic government in an election that was hailed as a referendum on climate change. Upon winning, the government promptly proceeded to scrap the country’s carbon tax along with its climate change ministry, now in the rubbish heap of history. Other countries are taking note of the public’s attitude toward climate change alarmism – almost nowhere does the public believe the scary scenarios painted by the climate change advocates.

2013 was the best of years for climate skeptics; the worst of years for climate change enthusiasts for whom any change – or absence of change — in the weather served as irrefutable proof of climate change.

The enthusiasts fell into disbelief that everyone didn’t join them in pooh-poohing the failure of the climate models. That governments and the public would abandon the duty to stop climate change was in their minds no more thinkable than Hell freezing over. Which the way things are going for them, may happen in 2014.

Lawrence Solomon is executive director of Energy Probe, a Toronto-based environmental group.

LawrenceSolomon@nextcity.com