LMD Aug 13

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

– JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL AUGUST 15, 2013 • www. aaalivestock . com

MARKET

Digest O Volume 55 • No. 8

by Lee Pitts

NEWSPAPER PRIORITY HANDLING

Everyone has a photographic memory.

Some are just out of film.

wear and throw more logs on the fire.

Hurry, would someone please tell Al Gore to do another slide show. The only Inconvenient Truth we’re talking about here is that the former Vice-President was as full of hot air as a dozen feedlots full of cattle.

It always was the height of arrogance to think that people could control the temperature outside as if they had their collective hand on Mother Nature’s thermostat. The fact is, weather changes. It gets hot, it gets cold, and cows, coal and cars have little to do about it. But you really

have to admire the nerve of the scientific community, by saying that global warming is now causing global cooling they don’t have to answer for their trillion dollar mistake. They’re now covered either way and they won’t be humiliated and end up with egg on their face, even when they are dead wrong, because they have found a way to be right when Mother Nature refuses to cooperate and validate their theories. They think of everything, don’t they?

The Political Climate One of the major premises behind the global warming devastation theory is that greenhouse gases that are trapped in our atmosphere are supposed to speed the melting of the Arctic ice cap that will then drown out Hollywood and cause up to 60 trillion dollars in damage. Hey, you win some and you lose some. I say if we get rid of the Hollywood crowd it might be worth $60 trillion.

Professors, researchers and scientists point to Russia’s drought, the high price of corn, continued on page two

Department of Energy forecasts suggest that fossil fuels are the energy sources of the future MARK J. PERRY, WWW.AEI-IDEAS.ORG

resident Obama has frequently promoted renewable energy sources, and said during his 2012 campaign that “We’ve got to look at the energy sources of the future, like wind and solar and biofuels, and make those investments.” By “investments” Obama most likely means massive “taxpayer-funded subsidies” for wind, solar, and biofuels. At the same time, Obama has often dismissed fossil fuels as “energy sources of the past.” But according to projections from Obama’s Department of Energy, the reality is much different — fossil fuels will continue be America’s dominant source of energy for at least the next quarter century, while renewables, even with taxpayer life support, will continue to play a relatively minor role as an energy source for the US. Here’s what the Department of Energy reported on its website recently: “While the overall energy history of the United States is one of significant change as new forms of energy were developed, the three major fossil fuels—petroleum, natural gas, and coal, which together provided 87 percent of total

P

by LEE PITTS

Trouble In Store

Brrrr!

H

ave you heard the latest on the global warming front? It may be a cold front.

Yes, that’s right, there is a growing group of scientists who believe that global warming is now causing global cooling.

I kid you not.

I learned about this phenomenon from a recent college graduate who, because he now has his diploma, knows everything there is to know. About everything! I feel so fortunate that this newly minted biology major was kind enough to enlighten me on this important subject but I must admit, at first I thought he was kidding. Perhaps this was some sort of a cruel joke, that after spending hundreds of billions of dollars and writing immense volumes of new rules and regulations in an attempt to rid carbon from the world, that this was all just some kind of practical joke. It may be hard to believe but instead of drowning when the polar ice caps melt due to flatulating cows, a growing group academia, many of whom were global warming alarmists, are now saying we should buy long under-

Riding Herd

U.S. primary energy over the past decade—have dominated the U.S. fuel mix for well over 100 years. Recent increases in the domestic production of petroleum liquids and natural gas have prompted shifts between the uses of fossil fuels (largely from coal-fired to natural gas-fired power generation), but the predominance of these three energy sources is likely to continue into the future.”

The chart illustrates the importance of fossil fuels to America as an energy source — in the past, today, and in the future. Over almost a one-hundred year period from 1948 to 2040, fossil fuels have provided, and will continue to provide, the vast majority of America’s energy by far (based on Department of Energy data here, here and here). Last year, fossil fuels provided almost 84 percent of America’s energy, which was nearly unchanged from the 85 percent fossil fuel energy share twenty years ago in the early 1990s.

Even more than a quarter of a century from now in 2040, the Department of Energy forecasts that fossil fuels will still be the nation’s

ne of my most vivid memories as a kid were the trips we made from California to Missouri to visit relatives.

My favorite part of those trips was reading the Burma Shave ads by the side of the road. For you youngsters, these ads consisted of five or six signs spaced so they were like chapters in a book. For example: “If Hugging / On Highways / Is Your Sport / Trade in Your Car / For A Davenport / Burma Shave.”

Such ads helped Burma Shave compete with “The Big Soapers”, Colgate and Palmolive.

The part of the trip through Arizona and New Mexico was kinda boring because, for some reason, there were no Burma Shave signs. The biggest threat to the Burma Shave signs weren’t teenagers who stole them, or hunters who shot at them. Nope, the biggest threat were horses who found them to be excellent back scratchers.

Before Lady Bird Johnson tried to eradicate them from America’s landscape, billboards were everywhere, and they provided a nice income stream for ranchers and farmers who owned land adjacent to busy roads.

Farmers got as much as $25 per year for a set of signs from Burma Shave on their property! Wow! I leased a ranch where the income from one billboard was more than the rent I paid to run 100 cows.

I admit that whenever I pass a big billboard up the road from me I’m a little jealous of the extra income it brings the owner, a bachelor we call Gloomy. He is a bible thumping, humorless man, as somber as a funeral director, who thinks the world is coming to an end if we all don’t change our sinning ways. In the grocery store where my wife worked for 30 years he once lectured her for working on a Sunday.

I tease Gloomy for being a media mogul but I was shocked one day when I looked up at the billboard and saw a scantily clad, voluptuous model advertising an adult bookstore. I use the word “bookstore” but it continued on page nine

continued on page eight

www.LeePittsbooks.com

Livestock Market Digest

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August 15, 2013

Brrrr! catastrophic wild fires, Chinese floods and hurricane Katrina as examples of what happens when all humans don’t drive a Prius.

Professors like Michael Hanemann of the University of California at Berkeley have stated that “the economic costs of such disasters could make even inflated estimates of the legislation’s price tag look small.” So we have imposed all sorts of carbon taxes and laws and enabled bureaucrats to take our money to stave off this “man-made disaster”. I don’t get it, Congress can’t even pass a farm bill and yet you’re going to let the buffoons control the weather?

While the issue of global warming was being over-hyped in the popular press other scientists who didn’t receive quite the publicity as the global warming Chicken Littles, were warning of a different kind of climatecaused Armageddon. Back in the 1980s they were predicting a disaster all right, but not because we got too hot, but that we would freeze to death as a result of mankind’s disregard for the environment.

And This We Call “Nature”

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The idea that global warming could cause global cooling is not a new one. One of the key facts of climatology, that the global warming theorists never mention, is that ocean temperature cycles have a lot more to do with the temperature of the planet than gas-passing cows and fossil fuels. It is estimated that 90 percent of the global heat produced by a warming planet is stored in the ocean, not the atmosphere.

Look at a globe and you’ll see that salt water oceans cover 71 percent of the earth’s surface, which in turn contain 97 percent of the planet’s water. When the ice caps melt, as a result of cyclical global warming, the fresh water from the ice mixes with the salt water of the oceans and changes the oceans density.

The oceans are slow to warm up and cool down because they contain so much water and because they are constantly churning. Just like clockwork every 20 to 30 years, the colder water near the bottom of the oceans churns its way to the top where it has a slight cooling effect on global temperatures.

Then the sun warms those colder waters which then causes slightly warmer global temperatures. Like most things with nature, temperature is all about cycles. Who knew?

Global cooling caused by global warming is a continuous natural process. Nearly nine thousand years ago the earth was emerging from an ice age.

The oceans were gradually warming up, which in turn created more life on the planet. Then, all of a sudden, and for the next 100 years, the entire planet went into an ice box with temperatures falling nearly eleven degrees. Scientists say this chill was caused when a huge freshwater lake, twice the size of the

continued from page one

Caspian Sea, broke through an ice sheet, pouring vast quantities of fresh water into the salty Atlantic and changing the density of the ocean water. The world became a cooler place as a result. Then the oceans kept churning until a new equilibrium was achieved.

Scientists can point to many times in our earth’s history and show how these “fresh water floods” caused by global warming, lead to global cooling. Since the beginning of human history, there have been these 20 to 30 year cycles, regardless of how much cows burped. The cycle is approximately 30 years of warming followed by 30 years of cooling. And this, we naturally call “nature”.

Of A Cyclical Nature It’s amazing how regular these cycles have been. In our more recent past there was a cooling phase from the 1880s to 1910 and a warming phase between 1910 and 1940 that couldn’t be blamed on cars, CAFO’s and gassy cows. This was followed by a cooling phase from 1940s to 1970s despite soaring greenhouse gas emissions levels during this period.

The last warming phase, which got alarmists all hot and bothered and made Al Gore rich, took place from 1970 to the early 2000s. Scientists now say we are in a cooling phase which they expect to last until 2030, right on schedule.

Yes, you read that right. The global warming which has caused Congress to spend foolishly and destroy many industries ENDED 15 YEARS AGO! This happened even though greenhouse gas emissions have soared. The highly respected Economist magazine reported in March, “The world added roughly 100 billion tonnes of carbon to the atmosphere between 2000 and 2010. That is about a quarter of all the CO2 put there by humanity since 1750. Yet, still no warming during that time.”

That is because the CO2 greenhouse effect can’t even begin to compare with the natural, rhythmic causes of global temperature change.

At this very minute there is a fleet of robots diving up to 3,000 feet into our oceans to measure the temperature of the water.

After all, how can politicians and their fellow bureaucrats expect to control Mother Nature unless they know she’s been misbehaving? Since this system was fully deployed in 2003, it has recorded no warming of the global oceans. And remember, over 90 percent of global warming goes into the oceans. They are Mother Nature’s heat sink. Some of the 3,000 robots in this system, known as Argo, have shown cooling of the ocean’s temperatures just below the surface over the last few years but when they go to greater depths they find continued on page three

August 15, 2013

“America’s Favorite Livestock Newspaper”

Brrrr! that the ocean is still accumulating heat. Mother Nature’s system is working as it should.

These temperature readings are far more reliable than land based measurements which we know, due to leaked emails, have been toyed with just to make the case for government intervention. For example, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration shows much more warming during the same period that satellites, weather balloons and ocean robots were all recording cooler temperatures.

Imagine That And another thing . . . You remember the sun don’t you?

That big, hot glaring orb in the sky? It turns out that the sun also has a lot to do with how hot we are. Son of a gun, imagine that! Global warming may have cooled off at first due to ocean cycles but there is something else at work here. It turns out that sunspots also occur in cycles, with short term cycles lasting eleven years and longer cyclical trends lasting from 90 to 200 years. During the last short term cycle the sunspot activity declined substantially.

In NASA’s Science News report for January 8, 2013 they said that the current short term 11 year cycle is the weakest in more than 50 years. You never would have heard such an admission in years past because one of global warming’s biggest cheerleaders was James Hansen, who recently retired. Probably because he was recently starting to catch a lot of heat for his stance on global

Page 3 continued from page two

warming.

If you no longer trust anything our government says or does, listen to The Voice of Russia as reported in April. “Global warming, which has been the subject of so many discussions in recent years, may give way to global cooling. According to scientists from the Pulkovo Observatory in St. Petersburg, solar activity is waning, so the average yearly temperature will begin to decline as well. Scientists from Britain and the US chime in saying that forecasts for global cooling are far from groundless.”

Also quoted in that report was Yuri Nagovitsyn of the Pulkovo Observatory who said, “We could be in for a cooling period that lasts 200-250 years.”

In other words, another Little Ice Age. This may explain why Britain had its fifth freezing winter in a row and why global average winter temperatures have dropped by 1.45C, more than twice as much as their rise between 1850 and 1999, and twice as much as the entire net rise in global temperatures recorded in the 20th century. The German Herald reported on March 31, 2013, “German meteorologists say that the start of 2013 is now the coldest in 208 years.” Another German scientist said, “We are facing an unavoidable advance towards a deep temperature drop.”

According to Forbes Magazine contributor Peter Ferrara, “Even some of global warmings biggest cheerleaders did concede last December that there would be no further warming at least

through 2017, which would make 20 years with no global warming. That reflects grudging recognition of the newly developing trends. But that reflects as well growing divergence between the reality of real world temperatures and the projections of the climate models at the foundation of the global warming alarmism of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.”

A Trojan Horse This idea that man can influence the weather has been around since the first Indian rain dance, but it was resurrected when the greenies saw that global warming could be utilized as their next Trojan Horse, an effective vehicle to shut down big chunks of American business in the same manner that the spotted owl cut down the logging industry. It’s certainly true that global warming has had a devastating financial effect already, but not in the way the greenies predicted.

According to the Guardian, global warming was supposed to cost $1.2 trillion per year, 1.6 percent of the world’s gross national product, and contribute to the deaths of nearly 400,000 people a year due to malnutrition and kill another four and a half million people indirectly due to pollution caused by fossil fuels. All that never even began to happen but the regulations and taxes that were imposed to combat global warming are still in place and have cost American business billions of dollars. Probably tril-

lions; much more than any losses from global warming.

Global warming never was going to be the huge disaster that environmentalists and politicians like President Obama said it would because man-made emissions of CO2 are only 5 percent of total global emissions, at most. And there is evidence that humans existed and, in fact, flourished during periods when atmospheric concentrations of CO2 were much greater than they are today. Yet even while the globe enters a global cooling phase President Obama is still trying to pass even more legislation and resurrect carbon taxes to combat global warming. This is graphic evidence that the liberal-ex-hippie-socialists will use wolves, global warming, spotted owls, junk food “science” or anything else to get rid of ranchers because ranchers own large chunks of private property, which they don’t believe in. Unless, of course, it’s their own.

If the liberals can’t use global warming to socialize this country, they’ll use global cooling. It makes no difference to them.

To a rational person it only makes sense that if cows were a major cause of global warming, like the greenies said they were, that as the planet cools down we’ll need millions and millions more cattle eating gaseous legumes in concentrated animal feeding operations to raise the temperature so we won’t all freeze to death in the ice age the greenies will be predicting next . . . when global warming causes global cooling.

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Livestock Market Digest

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August 15, 2013

A Solar Choice for Pumping Water for Livestock and Agriculture THOMAS JENKINS - NMSU ivestock, crops, and people often depend upon surface sources of water (streams, ponds, dugouts, etc.) or wells accessing underground aquifers.

For a variety of benefits, and in some states increased regulations, it is often desirable to move the water from a surface source or a remotely located well to a different location.

For surface sources, a wellvegetated riparian zone establishes a buffer which filters and purifies water as it moves across the zone, reduces sediment loads, supports soil stability, improves water quality, while enhancing wildlife habitat. Livestock pressure on buffer areas often result in nutrient loading, streamside vegetation damage, erosion, pollution, and decreased animal growth and health. Since they may be the only viable water source for producers, limiting access may be difficult. Fortunately, research shows that pumping water to different locations combined with a managed rotational grazing plan, optimizes animal performance, pasture use, water quality, and wildlife in these zones.

While cows may wade out to obtain better water, calves tend to only drink water from the shore. Wading into surface sources, cattle pollute the water with their urine and feces while their wading action may disturb the water to a level that they refuse to further drink. Calves require higher quality water and they won’t fight cows or mud to obtain it. Increases of 50 pounds/head in weaning weight have been reported when water

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in sufficient quantity and quality is provided. Studies show, when given a choice, cattle drink from a water trough 92 percent of the time rather than from a nearby stream. Research also indicates that yearling steer performance increased 23 percent when supplied with an alternate water source rather than dugouts. In addition to increased livestock and resource performance, by routing the livestock away from the riparian zones, very large reductions (50-90 percent) in streptococci and coliform fecal organisms (waterborne diseases like foot rot, red nose, TB and mastitis), nitrogen, phosphorous, suspended solids, and surrounding erosion are realized.

By pumping to drinkers, ranchers can better utilize pastures; get superior animal growth and health, while providing higher quality water.

Costs, reliability, and environmental concerns often influence the surface water pumping system employed by producers.

When producers do not have an economical access to grid electric power (it can cost $10,000 – $30,000 per mile of newly installed electrical power line through rugged terrain) they generally look to options such as ram, sling, diesel, windmills, hauling, and solar powered pumps. When these choices are compared, solar pump systems are often the best choice due to the operational conditions inherent to NM which permits them to function effectively and economically.

Solar pumping systems from surface sources or wells can be portable which is appealing as more and more producers want systems that can move among

Direct-coupled solar pumping system

varying locations. Some users are even powering windmill’s pump jacks by PV. A trailer with PV modules, the electric motor, and pump jack can be backed into place by the well and the sucker rod from the cylinder pump is attached to the jack with a wire cable coupling. For use in different locations, the angle(s) of portable PV modules should be adjustable and often a portable stock fence is set up around the unit.

For pumping water from wells, access to existing AC electric connections (closer than one-half kilometer) is again the best option. However, PV water pumping systems represents a very attractive long-term cost effective alternative in remote locations to hauling water, diesel pumps, and even traditional windmills for drinking water and selected irrigation applications (drip/trickle, hose/basin, and some channel irrigation – although typically not for very high flow rates such as might be used in flood irrigation).

A solar pumping system involves calculations and concepts that may make it difficult to determine a design if one is unfamiliar with the technology and terminologies. With this in mind, NMSU and the Cooperative Extension Services (CES) developed the following tools to aid and educate a potential user.

1. Two portable demonstration devices which illustrate the concepts and major system components for a solar pumping system. Each module is portable and therefore available for displays and presentations.

2. Literature and multimedia educational materials related to PV water pumping systems including comparisons between pumping technologies, contrast-

ing two different ways to mount PV modules (fixed angle mounting vs. single axis tracking systems), as well as a simple cost analysis for each of the technologies.

3. The formulation of a Microsoft Excel® spreadsheet to provide an easy and visual educational tool to show concepts behind PV technology and system design methodology.

This tool permits a user to follow the basic step-by-step design process and offers sample components and simple economic analysis for a producer-defined scenario.

SOLAR WATER PUMPING SYSTEMS EXPLAINED The design decision and a successful implementation of solar water pumping systems requires information specific to each application and an understanding of several concepts.

Example information needed for project feasibility consideration is: ■ Daily water requirements and usage – drinking, irrigation, etc.

■ Solar resource, i.e. the amount of sunlight available ■ Pumping/well characteristics such as water depth, drawdown levels and recharge rates, seasonal variations, discharge elevation from earth’s surface to water discharge point, total feet of pipe, nominal diameter of the pipe, and valves, elbows, etc.

■ Storage systems – catch tanks, storage tanks, et al. to ensure the daily water requirement is available during low-light conditions.

■ Economics – capital, operation and maintenance, labor, life-cycle, … costs

In addition, these factors should be considered: ■ Who will install and maintain the system.

■ Choosing/Matching PV modules and pump equipment to meet the design constraints ■ Security – although ideal for remote locations, this makes the system vulnerable to theft and vandalism.

■ Environmental benefits (including low noise).

BASIC OPERATION With no moving parts, the PV panels take energy from the sun and generate DC electricity where it is directed through a controller to the pump – what is termed a direct-coupled system.

The pump/motor combination moves water taken from the source through a pipe to a discharge point - commonly a storage tank which may feed a trough-drinker. This direct-coupled system is intended for operation only during the day and eliminates using batteries. Batteries are complex and expensive, must be replaced every few years, and require periodic maintenance while the useful life of storage tanks may be decades.

By providing water storage, a producer can still provide his daily water requirement from the tank storage at night or on cloudy days. The amount of water pumped is predominantly dependent on the amount of sunlight hitting the PV modules, the type of pump, and a few other factors of lesser importance. The available sunlight is predictable by location, but there are always variations in weather. PV panels may still produce up to 80 percent of their continued on page five

“America’s Favorite Livestock Newspaper�

August 15, 2013

Page 5

Solar

continued from page four

The century old multi-blade windmill maximum output power on partly cloudy days, and even on extremely overcast days can still produce about 25 percent of their maximum. With the use of this simple approach, the operation and maintenance, costs, and complexity of the system are greatly reduced.

COMPONENTS Solar water pumping systems are composed of two primary components other than the well itself – the PV panels (or modules) and the pump/motor.

Modules are installed with some type of mounting hardware that permit orientating the modules, adjusting the tilt of the modules to an optimum angle,

elevating the modules for security, and eliminating shading and damage from animals. As a rule of thumb, PV panels are faced due south and at a tilted angle. It is critical to minimize shading by structures and vegetation during all watering seasons as significant loss of power can result from even partial shading of modules. Locating modules close to the water source helps to minimize power losses and costs.

PV modules are sized as to DC power (Watts) and come in all sizes from a few Watts to over 250W. Modules can be wired in series to increase output voltages and in parallel to increase current while also

increasing total power. PV modules are sized and configured (series/parallel combinations) to power the second major component of the system – the pump/motor.

Pumps provide a mechanism to move water from wells or surface sources. It is important to analyze the system properly in order to make it as efficient and economical as possible yet meet the watering requirements. In designing a system, one should minimize the amount of work required of the pump which minimizes the amount of energy needed to operate the pump and thus the size and cost of components. In understanding these basic concepts beforehand, the

designer will be able to determine the appropriate components for a system.

In selecting a pump for the system, the following parameters should be considered: ■Water – how many gallons per minute (or total per day) are needed ■The conditions on the suction side of the pump (lots of grit, sand, dissolved minerals in the water, algae growth, etc.) ■Whether the pump will be submersible in a well, or pump from a surface source such as a lake or pond and the operating voltage of the pump ■The total head capability (how high can the pump move water ) at a flow-rate ■Space, weight, position limitations, cost of equipment and installation ■Standards including the National Electrical Code Once each parameter is clearly addressed, the decision to select a pump can be made.

The type of available pumps (and manufacturers) is very extensive and many will be capable of meeting the given application. It has been determined that DC pumps use one-third to

one-half the energy of AC pumps and are specifically designed to use PV efficiently even during low-light conditions at reduced voltages without stalling or overheating. Solar pumps are low volume, pumping less than one to over five gallons of water per minute. A good match between the pump, PV array, and system parameters is necessary to achieve efficient operation.

Other components that should be considered within the system are: ■PV mounting system – poles, fixed racks or some type of tracking system that follows the sun. ■A controller which allows the pump to start and operate under weak-sunlight periods (cloudy conditions, early morning – late afternoon) ■Storage-tank water level sensor for on/off operation ■Direct-burial wire (UF), grounding, and lightning protection ■Pipe, fittings, and other balance-of-system components.

A common mistake is to overcontinued on page six

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Modules are installed with some type of mounting hardware that permit orientating the module.

Livestock Market Digest

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August 15, 2013

Solar

continued from page five

NM State Representative Sandra Jeff Weighs in on Horse Controversy t is clear based on yesterday’s statements by the Navajo Nation that the political grandstanding by Governor Bill former Richardson and others is not based on fact or true sources, says Representative Sandra Jeff, Crownpoint.

With the decreases in federal funding the Indian tribes in New Mexico and across the West are becoming more burdened with the real and growing problem of the number of horses within the tribal lands. The insufficient management of the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Bureau of Land Management have contributed to the problem as well, says Jeff.

“Our leaders were elected to federal posts to represent our interests. I would hope that they bear in mind our tribal support of the Roswell facility and this critical issue of the responsible care of these animals,” says Jeff.

In the 2013 State Legislature, Representative Paul Bandy, Aztec, presented House Joint Memorial 16 to undertake a study of the feasibility of humane horse slaughter and processing facilities being established in New Mexico. There was bipartisan support of the measure among many representatives including Representative Jeff.

“I stood in support on the House Floor in a most contentious debate, explaining to the body that the issue was of utmost importance due to the growing uncontrolled overpopulation of unwanted horses reaching numbers of over 70,000,” says Representative Jeff.

The Navajo understand this issue unlike the activists, such as movie actor Robert Redford who creates a vision of the magnificent West, but have no experience with real life on the land, she stated.

The Navajo were the original stewards of the lands and have lived here on them and coexisted with the animals for centuries. “These people want to tell us how to manage our land and our lives,

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Far from utility lines, a portable PV pumping system supplies water from a fenced pond to a clean watering trough.

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size the piping. Most PV applications will be pumping at low flow rates 1-5 gpm and these low flow rates will not have sufficient water velocity through a large pipe to keep suspended solids from settling out into the bottom of the piping. Therefore ½-inch to 2-inch piping is typically sufficient for PV without much friction losses – smaller is better, cheaper, and more efficient.

CONCLUSION Photovoltaic powered water pumping systems are attractive for livestock and agriculture producers with remote water sources and limited access to AC power. The low maintenance and simple operation, no fuel (transportation or storage) costs, environmentally benign, as well as competitive life-cycle economics of solar systems place them at the forefront of choices in supplying water to livestock or agriculture. The technology for solar water pumping is exceeding all expectations, and will continue to be a viable choice for more and more users as its capabilities, reliability, and versatility increases while costs decrease.

The spreadsheet, documentation, and demonstration modules provide NMSU constituencies with terminologies, knowledge, and skill sets which can be the foundation for informed choices relating to alternative water pumping systems.

For more information on this or other topics, contact your local state agricultural extension agent or visit the web sites below: extension.nmsu.edu/energy_wat er.html aces.nmsu.edu/ces/windmill engr.nmsu.edu/outreach.shtml

but are unwilling to provide the financial backing to fund their agendas. They would rather spend their money on lawsuits and chase media,” charges Jeff.

Additionally, there is health and safety concerns for livestock being raised by tribal members on native lands, as well as the sacredness of the increasingly sparse water supply. Handdug earthen dams are all that supplies the livestock with this precious commodity in some places, she continues.

“The feral horses are destroying these and fences in an attempt to get at crops and feed, making many things unusable for the productive livestock that tribal members rely on for their livelihoods,” Jeff continued.

“These feral horses are not domesticated nor are these horses considered pets, while many such as Governor Martinez would have you believe otherwise,” says Representative Jeff.

As to the concern of narcotics in the horse tissues expressed by New Mexico Attorney General Gary King, there is no presence of them in the reservation horses.

The horse processing facility in Roswell would be an invaluable economic opportunity for this state. The Navajo is currently auctioning their animals that are being transported to Mexico for slaughter. The inhumanity of this transport and the horse slaughter facilities in Mexico would warrant any alternative facility in the U.S. The horse is sacred to the Navajo. Once a native horse owner has passed on, his or her horse is put down out of respect for the bond between man and animal.

“As a regular witness to the horrible horse deaths by starvation, I am devastated.

We must do better. There is a balance in these lands and it must be maintained through better management of the horses and a true understanding of the circle of life,” concludes Representative Jeff.

“America’s Favorite Livestock Newspaper”

August 15, 2013

Page 7

Music for Those Who Come to Dance

BY CALLIE GNATKOWSKI GIBSON

eople come from far and wide when they hear that the Delk Band is playing, whether to the Luna County Old Timers’ Reunion, the Joint Stockmen’s Convention, the Cowboys For Cancer Research fundraiser, a Cowboy Dinner and Dance in the Gila, or anywhere in between.

Today, Joe Delk and his sons Neal, Mark and Byron are continuing the legacy started by Joe’s father, Forrest Delk, playing music that people love and will drive miles to dance to. “The opportunity our music has given us to be a part of the Southwest is very humbling,” Joe said.

“People all over the region love to dance to our music.”

With the June release of the band’s new CD, Music for Those Who Come to Dance, fans will now have a way to enjoy the band’s music between performances. The album features Neal and Mark on vocals, Joe on fiddle, Neal on guitar, Mark on drums and Byron on bass guitar. Also playing on the album and part of their musical family are Dee Ford and Chek Rippee on fiddle, Roy Garcia and Jimmy Tomlinson on pedal steel guitar and Ty Martin on piano.

This is the first CD for the Delks, who have been playing together for 24 years. “This project wasn’t something we did to make a buck, it’s more about something we had to do for posterity and for the people who not only danced to my dad’s music but have grown up dancing to our music,” Joe said.

Everyone agrees that this CD has been a long time coming.

“It’s something that Dad has wanted to do for 20 years, and something we needed to do,” Neal said. “Once we all left the house and were living our own lives, it was hard to take the time to do it, but little by little we got it put together.”

“This is something that Dad has always wanted to do, to get all four of us on a CD before the time comes that we don’t do it anymore,” Byron agreed.

“It all goes back to Grandpa, we did this in memory of Grandpa and Grandma,” Mark said.

It’s also for their fans and listeners. “People have been asking us for years to do this, and we are excited to have it put together so that they can dance at home, too.”

Not much has changed in the band’s almost 80-year history.

It’s still a family band, although the “family” has grown to include other musicians who fill in when needed. And, they still play the old favorites that everyone grew up with and loves to dance to. “Probably three-quarters of the dance tunes we play today are the same tunes I played with my dad all those years ago,” Joe noted.

It all started with Joe’s father,

P

Delk family 1991 Forrest Delk. In 1934, in the middle of a tough drought, the then seventeen-year-old and his band, the “Sunshine Boys,” were scheduled to play at an Arizona Cattle Growers meeting in Apache Grove, Arizona. It was an outdoor event, and it rained so hard that no one could get to the dance. The next day, all the creeks had run when Forrest and his band members returned to Silver City and from then on the band was known as Forrest Delk and his Gully Jumpers.

Forrest’s father, George Delk, passed away in 1938 and Forrest, in his junior year at Western New Mexico University, went home to run the ranch near Santa Rita.

He continued his music, playing for many square dances through the late 40s and 50s as that became popular. He married his wife, Gertrude (Twiss), in 1945.

“Ranching, and playing for dances, was just what he did,” Joe explained. “Daddy loved playing for dances, and had no ambition to go anywhere with his music. My brother and sister and grew up going to school during the week, helping Daddy on the weekends, and playing for dances on Saturday night. It was just the way it was.”

Joe started playing the fiddle with his dad when he was 12 or 13 years old, and that grew into playing with the band full-time.

He married his wife, Diane, in 1968, and their three boys grew up with music and going to dances.

When he was growing up, Joe explained, musical instruments were always kept put away, so when you wanted to practice, you had to go get them out of the closet and get them out of the case – which can be a lot of work for a kid. “With our kids, we just hung the instruments on the wall – no restrictions – so if one of the boys wanted to walk by, grab an instrument and play for a few minutes, they could.”

“When they would learn something new,” he continued, “they would call Grandpa and say “Grandpa, listen to this.” They have been performing from an early age so when they got on stage for the first time, it wasn’t a

big deal.

The Delk Band of today first played together for the Knights of Columbus in Deming, but

their first big performance was on July 10, 1984 at the old Convention Center in T or C – when Byron, the youngest, was 10 years old. Joe says he got up on stage, looked out at the crowd, looked at his boys, and thought “What am I thinking?”

That performance was a success, and the Delk Band played at events across the state from then on, for parties, dances and 4-H events. In the spring of 1993, the three boys went on the road as the Delk Brothers Band, managed from home by Joe and Diane with help from Diane’s sister, Michelle. They played in clubs and honky tonks in cities like Phoenix, Flagstaff, San Angelo, Albuquerque, Tulsa, Amarillo and Las Cruces.

“It was a chore getting them into some of these clubs, but once they played, the managers were calling to ask when they could get them back to play

again. People liked their music, but also their character and work ethic. They grew up in the 4-H world, and that had a big impact on who they are,” Joe noted.

One Saturday night in November of 1995, after nearly three years on the road, Joe and Diane got a midnight phone call from Neal in Tulsa. Neal told them that two of the band members had come up after the last set of the night and told him they wanted to go home. Neal said that everyone was ready to come home and they played their last gig on the road at the Cadillac Ranch in Albuquerque in December of that year. “Since then,” Joe said, “we haven’t looked for work, but work has found us.”

“We are the third generation, I was 10 when we started,” Byron said. “One thing led to another, continued on page nine

Livestock Market Digest

Page 8

August 15, 2013

Claims

continued from page one

wind together will account for only 3.6 percent of America’s energy, according to the Department of Energy forecasts, and all renewables together will provide less than 11 percent of the nation’s energy.

Bottom Line: The economic and scientific reality, according to Obama’s Energy Department, is that abundant, low-cost fossil fuels will continue to dominate the US fuel mix for at least the next quarter century, and probably much, much longer into the future. Meanwhile, politics aside, the economic and scientific reality

according to the Energy Department is that renewable sources of energy will continue to play a minor role in America’s energy mix. In 2040, the Energy Department’s projected 10.8 percent share for renewables will be almost inconsequentially different from the 9.3 percent share in 1948. In other words, the Energy Department’s not expecting a lot of progress for renewable energies as a fuel source for America, even after almost 100 years of efforts from politicians like Obama and billions of taxpayer dollars.

Steiner Ranch sells cattle herd to Santa Rosa Ranch fter a century in the cattle business and over 40 years of producing top purebred Brangus cattle, XS Steiner Ranch Brangus has dispersed their entire cattle herd to Santa Rosa Ranch.

Over 1,000 head of females will be relocated to Santa Rosa Ranch along the Trinity River in Houston County and will complement the growing herd of purebred Brangus and Ultrablack cattle that have been developed in their program.

“This is a bittersweet time for our operation.” commented Bobby Steiner of XS Steiner Ranch. “But I am gratified that this premium cow herd, coupled with the already strong Santa Rosa Brangus operation, will definitely ensure Brangus bull and replacement female buyers with an unequaled opportunity to have access to the most premier Brangus cattle anywhere.

I congratulate Gerald Sullivan, his daughter Kelley and their family as well as General Manager Kent Smith of Santa Rosa Ranch because I know they offer an outstanding program for this herd to join.”

“We are proud to incorpo-

A

dominant energy source, providing more than 80 percent of our energy needs. So, despite President Obama’s dismissal of fossil fuels as “energy sources of the past,” the Department of Energy’s own forecasts tell a much different story of an energy future where fossil fuels serve as the dominant energy source to power our vehicles, heat and light our homes, and fuel the US economy.

Further, President Obama says we should “invest” in “energy sources of the future” — renewables like solar, biofuels, and wind — instead of focusing on oil. But again, the Department of Energy’s forecasts tell a much different story. Even after “investing” billions of dollars in government taxpayer subsidies in renewable energy already, those sources provided only 7.5 percent of America’s energy last

year, which was actually less than the 9.3 percent share of renewables in 1948, more than 60 years ago — that’s not a lot of progress for the politically-popular, taxypayer-subsidized renewables. When it comes to solar and wind, those energy sources provided only 1.8 percent of America’s energy last year — an almost insignificant amount.

Even in 2040, more than a quarter century from now, solar and

rate this stellar herd of cattle into our operation.” adds Kent Smith, General Manager of Santa Rosa Ranch. “One would be hard-pressed to find a set of cattle with this reputation for quality and productivity than what Bobby and his family at Steiner Ranch have developed over time. This is a great opportunity for our program.”

Santa Rosa Ranch was founded by the Gerald and Susanne Sullivan Family and has locations in Grimes and Houston Counties. Under the guidance of GM Kent Smith and Manager Scott Broadus, Brangus and Ultrablack seedstock are developed from the genetic foundation of Brinks Brangus, Gardiner Angus and V8 Brahman cattle. Recently, the program expanded to the historic Rattlesnake Ranch/7J Stock Farm in Houston County, offering expansion opportunities for their current purebred and commercial operation as well as bull development, replacement female and weaned calf programs. For more information about Santa Rosa Ranch, log on to www.srrtexas.com or call 936/624-2333.

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“America’s Favorite Livestock Newspaper”

August 15, 2013

Page 9

Delk

continued from page seven

Mark & Stacy

Riding Herd mostly sells slinky negligés, sex toys and triple “X” rated videos.

At least that’s what I’m told, mind you. And this ad for a veritable amusement park for kinky men was on the property of the most religious, un-kinkiest man in the world!

It didn’t help Gloomy’s chances with his girlfriend either, the church’s choir director.

When she first saw the sign she wanted Gloomy to pull the billboard down with his tractor, but he weighed the prospect of female companionship versus the rent check for the billboard and, well, let me just say that the advertisement is still there.

At the urging of his girlfriend Gloomy read the 25-page billboard contract to see if he had any control over its content and found that he did not. Next, the girlfriend sent Gloomy to the sex store to beg the owner to take the ad down.

Gloomy went to the store and walked up to the counter as if he had blinders on, trying hard to shield his eyes so he wouldn’t see the inflatable sex toys, handcuffs, harnesses and other things he had no idea what they were

Neil, Tandy & Family live in Las Cruces where he works as an electrician and she is a speech language pathologist.

Byron and his wife, Jaylene, also live in Las Cruces with their two sons, Cody Joe, 11, and Caleb, 8. They own an “Axle Surgeon” franchise for southern New Mexico, and Byron special-

izes in on-site spindle replacement on big trucks. Jaylene is a reading interventionist at Doña Ana Elementary School.

And as for the next generation? “The grandkids have the opportunity to play, and are showing interest,” Joe smiled.

“We’ll certainly encourage that.”

Advertise to Cattlemen in the Livestock Market Digest

Byron, Jaylene & Family those thoughts that you push out of your mind right away because there are too many people out there that love to dance to our music,” Mark said.

Joe and Diane live in Mesilla Park where Diane is retired and Joe is a sales representative for ADM. They have always been active in the agricultural industry, and in recent years Joe has become active in protecting the private property rights of federal

lands ranchers.

Neal and his wife Tandee live in Melrose where their boys Teigan, 13, and Tyce, 11, attend school. They own Roper Fence Co. that operates out of Clovis and services the eastern side of the state. Tandee is the principal of the new Gattis Middle School in Clovis. Neal also has a growing reputation for his praise music.

Mark and his wife, Stacey,

continued from page one

used for. Surprisingly Gloomy found the owner to be a very nice man who explained that he probably would not renew his lease on the billboard and it would be gone in a year. Then he sent Gloomy home with a big box of persimmons he’d grown in his back yard. The problem was that several of his fellow parishioners saw Gloomy walk out of the store with a big bulging box of what they assumed were naughty play toys.

A red-faced Gloomy dreaded facing the congregation and while the official church position was one of horror and disgust, Gloomy found the men were shaking his hand, winking and inviting him to poker games. He even got invited to dinner by one swinging couple he hadn’t spoken to in all the years they’d gone to the same church.

The reception that night was not so warm, however, from his girlfriend. In the delicate words of what Burma Shave might have said . . . “He asked her nicely / But she said, “Not now.” / But his lust he could not sever./ He asked her “When?”/She said, “Not ever.”

ELM

FARMINGTON

and we were busy playing dances every weekend. It was a lot of fun, we stayed busy and covered a lot of miles. We had a lot of fun doing the CD, too.”

“It’s been a pretty special legacy to keep going,” Neal agreed.

With growing families, busy schedules, and long distances across the state, all four Delks are not always able to get together to play at every event.

Today, the band includes the Headquarters Crew and the East and West Camp Crews, a group of some of the best musicians in New Mexico including those who contributed to the CD, Bucky Allred, Robert Flowers, Michael Dean, and more.

Diane, who has traveled with the band every mile she could, helps Neal maintain the band’s website. “We want to keep it fun,” Joe said.

There’s no way to know what the future holds, but for now, the Delks enjoy playing together when they can, and New Mexicans are glad when they do.

“Sometimes I do wonder when it will all be over, but that’s one of

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Livestock Market Digest

Page 10

The Obvious he data is clear - Calves that arrive healthy and stay healthy at the feedlot make more money.”

This was printed in bold letters at the beginning of an article in one of our industry publications.

What! I read the headline again. What’s the catch? I turned

“T

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1301 Front Street Dimmitt, TX 79027 Ben G. Scott – Broker Krystal M. Nelson NM Qualifing Broker Ranch & Farm 800-933-9698 day/eve.

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■ POTTAWATOMIE CO., OK. – 1,200 ac. +/-, 600 ac. +/- of corn for 2013, cheap pumping from two pumping stations on the little river, pivot sprinklers, balance in choice grassland, barn w/apartment, steel pens, on pvmt., 800 mature pecan trees, very scenic.

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it over and read it upside down.

It must be a trick question? A play on words? A bad pun? There must be a deeper meaning to this bold statement.

Should it have said . . . ”Calves who stay healthy, etc. have better eye sight, higher IQ’s, are tastier, are better at hopscotch, have a better chance of being featured in a vaccine ad?”

In all fairness to the scientist,

sky is always lighter when the sun comes up. “Duh.” Then an eclipse rises up.

The data is clear – Frogs who do not have their feet tied up can leap farther than frogs that have their legs taped to their body.

The horse that finishes first wins the race. Really? How ‘bout a disqualification for making faces at the crowd, making fun of another jockey’s colors, or changing horses at the final turn?

I spent many years in feedlots.

Lots of things were predictable, like mud, BRD, mill fires, OSHA inspections, blizzards, bovine escapes, and pickups that smell like pour-on, fermented silage, rumen contents, antibiotics, paint cans, burnt oil, and manure. But timing is crucial.

Say the owner of pen #304 arrives just after the front end loader scraping that very same pen dozed off, flattened ten feet of concrete bunk, tore out the gate, stripped the cable, and ran over four head of napping 1200

pound steers. If the manager had only bought the visiting owner one more round of Spicy V-8 juice over lunch, they would have been able to have the remaining healthy steers in #304 moved to another pen and explained later.

And what is obvious to one of us isn’t always obvious to everyone. Can you imagine this question in an Animal Science Class at University of Nebraska, Lincoln: 1. Do cattle that arrive healthy and stay healthy at the feedlot make more money than cattle that arrive sick and stay sick? a) Yes b) No c) It all depends on the market But sometimes the logic becomes crystal clear. I was at a cattlemen’s meeting and overheard a cattle feeder remark, “The calves that got sick and died right away, made more than those that lingered on and died eventually.”

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In the Digest

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"&,'("*$-,%"(%-.".% #+) Jack Horton

or more probably the editor, they had a limited space and wanted to be succinct. And . . . . it did catch my eye immediately. I guess it is our duty as scientists, veterinarians, nutritionists and farmers to run experiments to prove the obvious. Without this option how would students find material for post-graduate thesis?

However, I can picture scenarios where the statement is obvious, but not always true. The

August 15, 2013

!

Rae H Anderson

Real Estate GUIDE To place your Real Estate Guide listings, contact RANDY SUMMERS at 505/243-9515 or at randy@aaalivestock.com HEADQUARTERS WEST LTD. ST. JOHN’S OFFICE: TRAEGEN KNIGHT P.O. Box 1980, St. John’s, AZ 85936 || www.headquarterswest.com 928/524-3740 • Fax 928/563-7004 • Cell 602/228-3494 info@headquarterswest.com

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Lincoln County, NM An ideal four season cattle grazing ranch located 50 miles northwest of Roswell, New Mexico on the north side of the Capitan Mountain; being 38 sections (24,204.30 acres) - a 500 AU controlled yearlong grazing capacity under normal range conditions. ACREAGE - deeded acres: 11,830; NM State Lease acres: 4097.30; BLM (federal) permit acres: 8197.30 plus 80 uncontrolled acres; additional acreage can be added on request. The asking price for the Foothills Ranch is based on $300 deeded acres with all leases acreage assigned, for an asking value of $3,500,000.

The ownership will carry back 60% of the total asking price to a qualified buyer.

“America’s Favorite Livestock Newspaper”

August 15, 2013

Page 11

My Cowboy Heroes

Paul Carney: A Lot in a Short Time aul Carney was one of sixty-one men who walked out of performing at the Boston Garden Rodeo in 1936.

They demanded better treatment.

While the show’s organizer, Col. Johnson, was livid and originally refused to give in to the cowboys, a truce was eventually reached. This event led to the formation of Cowboy Turtle’s Association (CTA) which was the beginnings of the Professional Rodeo Cowboy Association (PRCA).

Paul was born in the small town of Galeton, Colorado on

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September 21, 1912. His father, N.V. Carney, had a homestead where they farmed and ran livestock.

Young Paul became interested in the livestock operation and respectfully left farming alone. He developed a knack for breaking and training horses, and from thereafter, he just wanted to be a cowboy!

Paul was always proud of his small-time Colorado roots (Galeton, in far Northeastern Colorado, only had about 150 residents). He would always list his address as “Galeton, Colorado” for the announcer to call out.

He entered his first rodeo, the Greeley Stampede at the young age of fifteen. The following year he won the rookie bronc riding at Cheyenne Frontier days and thereafter was a rodeo cowboy for most of the rest of his life.

Stock contractor, Verne Elliot, took young Carney under his wing, giving him a job. This allowed Paul to compete at rodeos as he worked for the contractor. He even got to compete in London, England in 1934 (he was only twenty-one) thanks, in part, to Elliot. Paul was soon off and running with his rodeo career and he did not need the safety-net of a job any longer (although he and Elliot remained life-long friends).

Paul regularly competed in four events: bareback, saddle

Bottari Realty

could it have been a shirt? Burel Mulkey, who had won the 1938 All-around World Championship, gave Paul the shirt he was wearing . . . they joked about it, but you know how some rodeo superstitions are.

Carney was also known to have a dry, but active sense of humor, taking a joke just as good as he continued on page twelve

SOUTHERN PLAINS LAND C

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NEVADA FARMS & RANCH PROPERTY Farm near Wells, NV: 90 acres in hay; 2 homes; shop and storage three miles from town. $450,000

bronc, bull (steer) riding and steer wrestling. He was versatile at both ends of the arena (he also roped calves) and won world championships in the bareback riding in 1937 and ’39.

Also in 1939, he became the first man from Colorado to win the title of: All-around Champion of the World.

Was it because he was good at four events? Perhaps. Or

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CHERRY CANYON RANCH: Secluded ranch located in the foothills of the Capitan Mountains in southeastern New Mexico. 10,000± total acres located in limestone hill country. Grazing capacity estimated at 200 A.U.’s yearlong. Improved with a two residence, mobile home, barns and corrals. Livestock water provided by three wells and pipelines. Abundant wildlife to include mule deer and Barbary sheep. Price: $1,800,000, call for more information.

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Livestock Market Digest

Page 12

Land O’Lakes Announces Strategic Agreement with Radio 830 WCCO and O’Lakes, Inc. announced a multi-year strategic agreement with 830 WCCO-AM, extending a longtime relationship between these two iconic Minnesota brands.

As part of the two-year agreement, the national, farmer-owned food and agricultural cooperative will serve as 830 WCCO-AM’s exclusive sponsor of its broadcast facility, to now be known as the Land O’Lakes Studio. As part of this agreement, Land O’Lakes will receive customized on-air and online recognition. Additionally, Land O’Lakes and 830 WCCO-AM will work together to broaden their joint participation at local events and initiatives that make a difference in the lives of area residents.

“Land O’Lakes is a Minnesota company, founded by farmers, with deep roots in the community. We were born out of the ideas of innovation and the power of cooperation and have prided ourselves on not only our top-quality products but our commitment to our communities, our members our consumers and employees,” said Chris Policinski, president and CEO of Land O’Lakes.

“This partnership formalizes a long-standing relationship between two companies that partner on issues important to our communities.”

“We have created an unique opportunity to work with one of the nation’s iconic brands that also happens to call Minnesota home,” said Mick Anselmo, CBS RADIO Minneapolis Senior Vice President and Market Manager. “Our listeners have

L

heard Land O’Lakes on our air for many years, delivering important insight into food trends and agribusiness. And our philanthropic partnerships have provided aid and resources for the community.

The announcement is yet another development in a successful relationship that has spanned many years.”

Land O’Lakes and 830 WCCO-AM have previously worked together on multiple philanthropic events such as the Let’s Kick Hunger Radiothon, Dave Lee’s Gutter Bowl and the St. Thomas Kickoff to Kick Hunger, and a partnership with United Way. Terms of the agreement weren’t disclosed.

O’Lakes, Inc. Land (www.landolakesinc.com) is a national, farmer-owned food and agricultural cooperative with annual sales of more than $14 billion. The nation’s second-largest cooperative and number 194 on the Fortune 500, Land O’Lakes does business in all 50 states and more than 60 countries. It is a leading marketer of a full line of dairybased consumer, foodservice and food ingredient products across the United States; serves its international customers with a variety of food and animal feed ingredients; and provides farmers and ranchers with an extensive line of agricultural supplies (feed, seed, and crop protection products and services) under the operations of WinField and Purina Animal Nutrition. Land O’Lakes also provides agricultural assistance and technical training in more than 25 developing nations.

August 15, 2013

Early Weaning May Not Always Have to Be the Answer MARCY WARD, LIVESTOCK EXTENSION SPECIALIST

have been on the job all of 45 days and have learned quite a bit about the current conditions New Mexico producers are facing. When pondering the topic of this newsletter, I struggled with what I could offer at this point to be of any real assistance. The proverbial magic pill, so to speak. Sorry folks, but that is not in my current bag of tricks. What I can offer is something to think about. I, along with the Kansas State Livestock Extension Specialist, Dr. Sandy Johnson, conducted a preliminary trial last summer as a result of the drought. As I talked about that at this year’s NMCG summer meeting, there was a challenge and we created an opportunity from that challenge. In the end we learned some things that may be helpful to producers in similar situations.

But first a little background. I managed a cow herd as part of my duties in my previous job. We calve in the months of February and March. We start our breeding season the first or second week of May. Approximately two weeks after breeding the cows AI, due to the drought; our feed source changed from decent Sudan hay (cane hay) to Conservation Reserve Program (CRP residue hay).

We were basically on a winter feeding program of 4 percent crude protein hay and a 32 percent protein supplement in May. Feeding cows in peak lactation this type of ration resulted in severe and rapid weight loss. Within 30 days they had dropped two body condition scores; with the first calf heifers suffering even more dramatic weight loss. And based on the calves’ appearance, the cows had all but quit lactating. At our 30 day post A.I. pregnan-

I

cy check, only 25 percent of the cows were pregnant. Being an educational institution, we saw this as an opportunity to learn from our situation.

We decided to do an early weaning comparison of calf performance, cow intake, and body weight recovery in the cows. We split the cow herd into two Grow Safe System® groups with an even distribution of cow age between the two groups (early wean, EW and normal wean, NW). My primary goal through all of this was to put weight back on all the cows, therefore, once money was available, I increased the energy and protein of the ration by incorporating wet distillers grain at 25 percent of the total diet with the remaining portion being in chopped CRP hay. To measure intake, we kept all the cows (from both treatments) in one pen and utilized the Grow Safe Feeding System® This is a piece of equipment that can individually monitor a cow’s as fed intake on a daily basis through electronic ID technology. We collected intake data on the cows from July 10 to our traditional weaning date of the first part of October.

We weighed all calves at the initiation of the trial, and did our version of fence line weaning; with the early weaned group. The early weaned calves were also vaccinated at the time of weaning. The calves still on the cow were provided special access to feed, so they wouldn’t skew the intake data of the cows. All the calves were weighed again on day 119 of the trial. Cows were both weighed and given a body condition score at the beginning and conclusion of the trial. It has been fairly well documented that early weaning can result in reduced intake and quicker body condition recovery. What continued on page thirteen

Table 1. Net income of EW vs. NW calves.

ITEM

EARLY WEAN

NORMAL WEAN

Weaning Weights (lbs) Income Per Calf Feed Cost – cow b Creep Feed – calf Net Income Per Calf

351 a $552.61

518 a $643.10 $26.74 $32.67 $583.70

$552.61

5-yr KS weight average price 350 lbs calves for August ($157.44/cwt) and 550 lbs in October ($124.15/cwt) b 7.8 lbs more as fed intake in the normal weaned cows than early weaned x 77 days x $0.045/lb feed, calf creep feed for the normal weaned calves = 9.53 lbs/day a

Heroes gave one out.

In 1937, when Paul was at the top of his rodeo game, he drew a bad bronc called, Hell’s Angel, who had gone unridden the previous nineteen tries. Paul rode Hell’s Angel that day at Madison Square Garden. He rode him again in 1939 at the same rodeo, but Paul once said, “ . . . Hell’s Angel was the toughest bronc I’ve ever been on.” Even though Paul won the world in bareback (Hell’s Angel was a saddle bronc), each year he drew the “Angel” and covered him, Paul became a World Champion.

Carney was also given credit as the first man who figured out that if you bent the shanks of your spurs in and down that it helped keep contact with a bucking animal. Rough stock spurs have been designed that way every since and he was jokingly called “Shanks” Carney for many years.

continued from page eleven

Paul was easy going, yet very popular, and also a leader.

World Champion, Gene Pruett, once said, “Paul was one of the world’s greatest riders. Although quiet and unassuming, he was a leader among rodeo cowboys.”

He was actively involved in the early CTA, holding card number twenty-one. He was on the board as the steer riding representative (It would be “bull riding” now-a-days, but back then they rode long and lanky, thousand-pound plus steers—some as big as horses.)

Shortly after winning the World All-around Championship in 1939, Paul and his wife, Lillian, moved to the Phoenix (Chandler), Arizona area and started a construction company along with his brother, Albert. The couple also raised horses on their “Diamond Two” ranch. In 1942, the Carneys purchased champion quarter horse, Little Joe Jr. (out of the

great stud, Joe Bailey), and brought him to their ranch.

During this phase of life, Paul continued competing in rodeos, although more on a local level.

All-the-while he raised great quarter horses and ran the construction business.

Just as he was in the prime of life, while working on a road project near the Grand Canyon on June 24, 1950, Paul Carney fell over dead from a heart attack. It seemed hard to believe he was only thirty-seven because he had accomplished so much.

Out of respect for this great cowboy, whose impact was largely felt in the short time he was here, Paul Carney was inducted into the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum’s Rodeo Hall of Fame in 1961. In 1965, he was inducted into the Colorado Sports Hall of Fame and in 2001 to the ProRodeo Hall of Fame in Colorado Springs.

“America’s Favorite Livestock Newspaper”

August 15, 2013

Page 13

Raising Bulls for the Real World

BY HEATHER SMITH THOMAS

uddy Westphal has been raising registered Charolais near Polson, Montana for several decades. “Here at Valley View Charolais we produce bulls for the commercial cattlemen rather than for other purebred breeders. Our bulls have to work in the real world, usually in big range pastures. Therefore we do some things differently in raising these bulls than what is generally done by other seedstock breeders,” he says.

Even though yearling bulls have become popular in recent years, Westphal still prefers to sell 2 year olds. Most breeders market yearlings because they feel there is less time and feed expense invested in them, not wanting to keep them another year. But in order to have them as big as possible, most breeders tend to overfeed yearlings—pushing them to maximum growth.

Many bull calves are put through feed tests to see how much they can gain per day, and this is often a selling point—advertising the top gainers as future super-sires to produce steers that will excel in the feedlot.

Yet buyers who purchase those high-gaining, over-conditioned young bulls are often disappointed in how they perform as sires.

Over-fleshed, pampered young bulls may have feet problems, fer-

B

tility problems (too much fat in the scrotum) and may be too “soft” and out of shape to go out and climb mountains to chase after cows during that first breeding season. Yearling bulls today are often well grown and fleshy, and people forget that they are still immature, and that they may not hold up very well if they are expected to breed cows in a range situation.

“I sell only two-year-old bulls because I don’t have confidence that a yearling bull can always get the job done and hold up through the whole summer,” says Westphal. “The injuries and return rate (inability to go out and do the job again) is horrible with yearlings compared with 2 year olds. I’ve heard all kinds of numbers on attrition rate of yearling bulls— everything from 30% to 35% of young bulls that never get to breed cows the 2nd year.”

This is a big loss for the bull buyer, after that kind of investment. “It’s not only what they lose in paying a lot of money for the bull, but also in the number of cows that don’t get bred early and may end up calving later, and maybe some cows that don’t get bred at all, if the rancher is depending on yearlings,” he says.

“With a yearling bull, the way most people wean a calf and put him in the feedlot and fatten him up, there’s a lot of mystery hidden underneath all that fat. You don’t

know what he really looks like, structurally, until he comes home off the range after a hard summer looking like a Corriente steer because he lost so much weight during that first breeding season.”

Subtle aspects of structure and even how a bull travels can be deceptive or masked when a young bull is too fat. “When they’ve been in the feedlot to measure their rate of gain you really can’t tell what they are and how well they travel or if they will travel when they are out on the range. You don’t know whether those bulls will go up on the mountains with the cows or stand at the gate waiting for a feed truck,” he says. All of these things add up regarding what you don’t know about that nice-looking young bull.

Disposition is also harder to evaluate in a young bull fresh out of the feedlot. He’s still young and has lived with his buddies, and has been extremely well fed.

“He’s not as likely to show what his real disposition is until he becomes a little more mature,” says Westphal.

“Our operation is a little bit different because we are sending our yearling bulls, about 250 per year, out to pasture just like you would send yearling steers. They are not fed grain. They climb up and down the mountain like a bunch of yearling stocker cattle.

Even the traveling they have to

Weaning

continued from page twelve

has not been well studied are intake trends in cows in extremely poor condition. In addition, there has not been much work done on individual intakes of mature cows through individual intake systems. We felt fairly confident we were not going to find any ground breaking discoveries about early weaning, but as it turns out there were some intriguing results.

In terms of body condition recovery, early weaned cows recovered moderately more than the normal weaned cows (BCS = 4.7 vs. 4.5, from a beginning average of 3.75). However, the two-year-old cows in both groups struggled to return to a healthy body condition by the conclusion of the trial; with only a ½ score change vs. a full score change in the cows. Dry matter intake in the early weaned cows, though lower, was not significant (Figure 4.)

30 25 20 10

DMI

10 5 0

EW

do to get to summer pasture helps sort out the ones that won’t make the grade as bulls. After they’ve hiked 17 miles from the home ranch to summer pasture, this shows us which ones are tailenders. This in itself is a great sorting process. We just load up the last few and haul them back home because we know they are not going to make it out there, and they are not something we’d want to sell to a customer,” he explains.

“Then again in the fall when we bring them home, the ones that went lame or got footsore also sort themselves out. Some of them may have mechanical or structural problems that you wouldn’t see otherwise—things you might not notice in a 1 or 2 mile hike. But during 17 miles of travel any structural feet and leg problems tend to show up,” says Westphal.

“This is how we sell our bulls, based on how they do during that yearling summer and what their 18-month index is when they come home from summer pasture. The weaning index shows which bull calf had the best milking mother. The 18month index shows what the young bull can do, himself. Not all good-milking beef cows are the best dams for producing bulls. You want to give bull calves a chance to even up, and sort themselves out.” The baby

NW

P>0.1 SE +- 3

Fig 4. Dry matter intake of early weaned (EW) & normal weaned (NW) cows.

When we applied the economic implications (Table 1.) of early weaning, it built a scenario that producers may consider before deciding to early wean as a quick fix. The normal weaned calves still offered better returns, despite the added feed cost of the dam. In addition, since the early weaned group did not eat significantly less than their normal weaned counterparts, the advantage of early weaning for the cow was minimal.

Though this study warrants repeating, the initial results indicate cows that are very thin have quit lactating and are simply eating to regain lost body reserves; whether they have a calf on their side or not. That may be one of the reasons we did not see significant difference in intake between the two groups. So then the question comes down to economics. If there is no real advantage to the cow or the grass for early weaning, is it necessary?

That may be a risky statement to make without further study, but I don’t believe anyone is in the business to raise 250 lbs calves.

It is very difficult to mimic real life situation in a research setting. But research does provide information that can lead to potential solutions to help producers in the long run. Financially, will you be better off keeping the calves on the cow? This project suggests yes. Will you be save or stretch your grass significantly

with early weaning very thin cows? This study suggests maybe not necessarily. However, you will improve the longevity of your young cows by weaning them early when feed runs out. Realizing for some producers in New Mexico there is simply no feed for cows or calves, selling pairs is their only way to stretch their grass. As difficult as a decision it may be, those young cows currently carry the highest value, and may be the next group to sell as pairs, minus obvious culls.

So, how did our drought story end? Well, we had a 90 percent conception rate (a little below our normal) and a normal calving season; staying within our February/March time frame. As expected, the greatest percent of the open cows were the two year olds. The majority of those very thin cows, however, bred in the first cycle post AI. That contradicts what much research has shown about body condition and reproduction. But that is for another article.

P.O. Box 7458 Albuquerque, NM 87194 505/243-9515 • Fax 505/998-6236 caren@aaalivestock.com www.aaalivestock.com

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fat from mama covers up a lot, and also won’t do them any good later in life. The 18-month index will better predict the mature size and growth production probability.

“I got into this program, marketing 2 year olds instead of yearling bulls, because I had the misexperience years ago of having 27 young bulls on the Midland test, the year I got out of college and purchased this ranch. I put those yearling bulls out with our cows on summer range, and that fall you had to look twice to tell the yearling bulls breeding the cows from the calves sucking them,” says Westphal. They were about the same size, but the calves were fatter. The bulls had lost weight and hadn’t grown much at all.

“I thought, what if I had sold those bulls to someone else and they did that poorly on their ranges? They’d have called the humane society, the veterinarian or the sheriff.They’d have called anyone but me to buy more of these bulls. I decided I would never do that to a customer. I would rather let bulls grow up and mature a little more, and sell bulls that would do the job without pampering before, during and after breeding,” he says. When he sells a bull, he can guarantee that the bull will do the job and hold up through a long breeding career.

Livestock Market Digest

Page 14

August 15, 2013

Commentary: Arizona Senator Griffin calls on feds to rescind jaguar designation t’s with great alarm and disappointment that I write to express my vehement opposition to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s proposal to designate a large area of southern Arizona as critical habitat for the Jaguar.

As the Service itself previously concluded, designating these areas in southern Arizona as critical jaguar habitat is not only irresponsible, but economically and socially reckless. It is based on faulty and inadequate science, incomplete data, and speculative anecdotal accounts that have no justification serving as a basis for such a monumental, consequential, and far-reaching rule.

The Service’s decision to designate large portions of southern Arizona as critical jaguar habitat contradicts and fails to meet standards established by the Endangered Species Act (ESA), which requires that: The Secretary shall make determinations . . . solely on the basis of the best scientific and commercial data. (Emphasis added) Instead of relying on the best scientific data, as required by the ESA, the Service has constructed a weak and indefensible justification for this rule that relies on inadequate data. The inadequacy of this data is self-evident when one recognizes the following.

Jaguar sightings in southern Arizona in recent decades have been limited to male jaguars only. A January, 2006 Federal Register notice by the Service concluded that: While jaguars have been documented as far north as the

I

Grand Canyon, sightings in the late 20th century to the present have occurred mainly along the international boundary of the United States and Mexico. Further, only three records of a female with kittens have been documented in the United States, the last in 1910 (Lange 1960; Nowak 1975; Brown 1989), and no females have been confirmed in the United States since 1963 (Brown and LopezGonzalez 2000). (Emphasis added) The only confirmed jaguar sightings in recent decades have been singular and anecdotal in nature and do not justify the conclusion that southern Arizona is a critical habitat. As pointed out by Brown and Lopez Gonzales 2001, there have been only eight confirmed sightings since 1961 — an average of one jaguar sighted every six years.

The recent photos — taken by federally-funded cameras — of a lone male jaguar roaming the Santa Rita Mountains provide no justification for designating critical habitat. No rational analysis, indeed, no rational biologist, can conclude that the presence of a single male jaguar is evidence of critical habitat for an entire species whose primary habitat is hundreds of miles away.

The study (McCain and Childs 2008) used by the Service to justify its proposed rule is fatally flawed by the researchers’ use of female jaguar scat to attract male jaguars. The Service itself, in its Recovery Outline, pointed out that: Because female jaguar scat was used at some camera traps at various times throughout their

research, it is unknown whether or how this could have influenced the observed range of the jaguar in this study.”

How can the Service credibly rely on data that is compromised by researchers’ use of artificial baiting? Furthermore, while not mentioned in the Service’s proposed rule, McCain and Childs not only used female jaguar scat, but scat from female jaguars in heat. This finding clearly undermines the credibility of McCain and Childs’ study and, therefore, the scientific validity of the proposed rule.

With the aforementioned in mind — the scarcity of confirmed jaguar sightings, the absence of female jaguar sightings, and the artificial use of female jaguar scat to attract male jaguars — it is clear that rather than using southern Arizona as a habitat, jaguars are peripheral in their occurrence and are certainly not using southern Arizona for breeding.

Clearly, the Fish and Wildlife Service does not have a scientific basis for designating critical habitat for the jaguar, and for this reason alone, the Service should reverse its decision. However, there is another reason why the proposed designation is bad for Arizona — that is, the designation’s potential impact on local, large employers, including Fort Huachuca and the Rosemont Copper Mine, as well as the southern Arizona ranching industry.

Fort Huachuca is the primary employer in Cochise County and serves as economic engine for southeast Arizona. It employs thousands of servicemen and

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women and is the economic base for the entire region. A critical jaguar habitat designation has the potential to further complicate the Fort’s already-challenging efforts to perform its mission while complying with federal environmental regulations.

Similarly, Rosemont Copper proposes to develop an environmentally-sensitive mine that has the potential to directly and indirectly employ over 4000 southern Arizona residents and generate as much as $19 billion in economic activity over the life of the mine, providing desperatelyneeded funding for Arizona schools and universities. A finding by the Service that Rosemont operations may have a negative impact on the jaguar could threaten Rosemont’s efforts to gain federal approval for the mine.

As an elected representative of southern Arizona, I find it appalling that the presence of a single, solitary animal has the potential to prevent the creation of thousands of jobs and billions of dollars of economic activity.

This is not what Congress intended when it passed the Endangered Species Act. Fortunately, Rosemont is currently going through a National Environmental Policy Act process with the Service and the U.S. Forest Service — a process that includes consideration of the jaguar. However, the fact is that thousands of jobs and billions of dollars in revenue may hinge on the Service’s designation of critical habitat for the jaguar.

Proponents of the rule may argue that it is unlikely to have an impact on local industry and employers. Indeed, in its press release announcing the proposed rule, the Service benignly claims that: Critical habitat designations have no effect on actions taking

place on non-federal lands unless proposed activities involve federal funding or permitting.

What this statement ignores is the fact that the federal government owns a significant, indeed, a majority of the land in Arizona, and that virtually all employment-related uses of that land — from mining to cattle grazing — require federal permits of some kind.

The Service’s disingenuous assurance that jaguar habitat would have no effect on non-federal lands provides no reassurance to those of us in Arizona who have seen the devastating physical, economic, and social consequences of federal efforts to protect endangered species.

These consequences include but are certainly not limited to: The destruction of over a million acres of forest and hundreds of homes in northern, eastern, and southern Arizona as a result of federal protection of the spotted owl and other species at the expense of needed forest thinning and restoration.

The loss of hundreds if not thousands of jobs in the timber industry as forest thinning contracts were cancelled.

The slaughter of dozens of heads of privately-owned cattle

by Mexican Gray Wolves in eastern Arizona as a result of the Mexican Wolf Recovery Program.

As a state senator representing southeastern Arizona, I call upon the Fish and Wildlife Service to stop ignoring the customs, cultures, and economy of southern Arizona and rescind its proposed designation of critical jaguar habitat.

The consequences to the state, its residents, and its economy, are simply too great, – Gail Griffin State Senator, District 25 Arizona State Senate

August 15, 2013

“America’s Favorite Livestock Newspaper”

Beef Demand May Vary With Quality

BY STEVE SUTHER, CERTIFIED ANGUS BEEF LLC

he gap is widening between key indicators of demand for premium and commodity beef.

T

Non-branded USDA Choice beef saw eroding demand since its 2010 peak, as consumers apparently turned toward a premium branded alternative.

Details are in an updated research paper from Kansas State University (K-State), “Defining and Quantifying Certified Angus Beef ® (CAB®) Brand Consumer Demand, 2013 Revision.”

Pounds of CAB product sold increased every year since 2005, but it took economic modeling and research to see the demand effect.

K-State economist Ted Schroeder and 2010 Master’s student Lance Zimmerman conducted the initial study that year. Zimmerman took a break from his role as analyst with CattleFax to update his college work with new data to characterize demand through 2012.

Methodology and results are explained in that research paper, available at http://www.cabpartners.com/news/research. php That index provides a measure of demand change over time, and features a new timeline comparison (Figure 1). “Since CAB product is a branded subset of the USDA Choice-and-higher marketplace, demand for the aggregate quality category was expected to share more similarities than the nonbranded USDA Choice index used in the 2010 research (Figure 2),” the paper says.

The results show three different demand growth patterns among the indexes.

Demand for the aggregated Choice-andhigher grading product actually outpaced CAB from 2008 to 2010 before declining in

2011 and 2012, while CAB product continued its improvement. Demand growth for both categories was similar through the first nine years of the study.

“However, as much as the early growth patterns point to the similarities, the divergence of demand patterns most noticeable in the last two years of the study suggest there are perceived differences in CAB relative to its greater product category in the mind of consumers,” the paper says.

Demand eroded nearly 27 percentage points for Choice-and-higher beef in 2011 and 2012, while CAB demand increased 25 points.

“It is reasonable to assume that Figure 2 points to at least some of the demand differences seen lately between CAB and the Choice-and-higher product category. The graph shows demand for CAB has outpaced non-branded Choice consistently since 2009. Demand for CAB increased 79 percent over the 10 years, and Choice demand increased three percent,”according to the updated paper.

The model results explain demand trends over time for each beef product as it relates to larger macroeconomic trends. Since each measure is based on wholesale demand, it includes sales to retailers, foodservice and international.

The CAB demand index had its largest year-over-year improvement in 2010 when demand improved 38 points reaching 154.8.

That coincided with the 100-million-pound annual increase in sales and 13 percent increase in per capita consumption even as cutout values grew.

“Beef demand remains a concern in the post-recession environment. Consumer incomes have made relatively small improvements in recent years, and incomes are a key beef demand consideration,” the paper states. Since the 2009 recession lows, the CAB cutout value has improved 6.6 percent annually and per capita consumption improved each year as well. In the other categories, boxed beef values improved at the expense of per capita consumption.

Page 15

Bill introduced to end Equal Access to Justice Act payments to litigious environmental groups overnment Litigation Savings Act disallows payments to groups making more than $7 million dollars; requires “direct and personal” relationship with the case to qualify for reimbursement U.S. Representative Cynthia M. Lummis (R-Wyoming) and more than a dozen House colleagues introduced the Government Litigation Savings Act in early August, a bill that limits access to taxpayer funded reimbursements for suing the federal government under the Equal Access to Justice Act (EAJA). The 1980 law was intended to provide individuals, small businesses, and small non-profit groups with financial assistance to sue the federal government, or defend themselves from a suit brought by the federal government.

EAJA was intended to help people overcome a one-time challenge: the financial disincentive of seeking judicial redress against the huge federal government. Over time, large, deeppocketed groups have begun to make heavy use of EAJA reimbursements to fund repeated, procedural lawsuits against the federal government. The Government Litigation Savings Act will protect, and even improve access to reimbursement for individuals like veterans and seniors, while it simultaneously disallows taxpayer funded reimbursements for any group or business with a net worth over $7 million dollars. The bill also ensures that taxpayer funded reimbursements go only to those citizens litigating matters in their own direct and personal interests, such as correcting a financial or medical benefit.

“Yesterday I introduced a bipartisan bill that will bring back transparency to a program that has been without oversight for nearly 18 years.

That is a very important step.” Lummis said, “However, it is not the only step. Many independent studies published by Universities like Virginia Tech and Notre Dame, and investigations by the Government Accountability Office and other legal counsels prove that litigious environmental groups use EAJA to fund repeated procedural lawsuits.

Whether those lawsuits result in a $1 dollar or $1 million dollar reimbursement, it is contrary to Congressional intent. EAJA was written for the little guy to fight a once-in-a-lifetime substantive lawsuit.”

Background: ■ The Equal Access to Justice Act (EAJA) was passed by Congress in 1980, establishing two methods by which individuals or groups could recover the costs of suing, or defending against, the federal government.

■ The first method is through agency proceedings, codified under Title 5, Section 504 of U.S. Code. It provides payments for adjudicatory proceedings within the agency themselves, as opposed to courts proceedings.

■ The EAJA required the Administrative Conference of the United States (ACUS) to track these payments and report on them to Congress.

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■ In 1994, Congress defunded ACUS without transferring the responsibility of tracking EAJA payments to another agency.

■ The second method to recover EAJA fees is through court proceedings, codified in Title 28, Section 2412(d) of U.S. Code.

■ The EAJA directed the Department of Justice to track these payments and report them to Congress.

■ In 1994, The Paperwork Reduction Act eliminated the DOJ’s tracking and reporting responsibility for EAJA payments.

■ EAJA requires that to be eligible for reimbursement of attorney’s fees and costs, individuals must have a net worth under $2 million, and forprofit businesses must have a net worth of under $7 million. The Government Litigation Savings Act maintains the individual and forprofit net worth cap, and adds nonprofit organizations to the groups that cannot exceed the $7 million net worth cap.

■ In March of 2010, U.S. Rep. Cynthia Lummis (WY-R) and thenRepresentative Stephanie HersethSandlin (SD-D) introduced H.R. 4717(Open EAJA Act of 2010). This legislation, along with its mirror legislation in the Senate (S. 3122), would have reinstated tracking and reporting of both Title 5 and Title 28 of EAJA. It also required that the online reporting provide more detailed information on who receives EAJA payments, and to what amount, but left the remaining EAJA law intact.

■ Following a year of study on court documents and IRS filings, Rep. Lummis and U.S. Senator John Barrasso (WY-R) introduced the Government Litigation Savings Act (GLSA). The GLSA (H.R. 1996, S. 1061) requires comprehensive tracking and reporting of both Title 5 and Title 28 of EAJA, and consolidates the tracking and reporting within the newly reconstituted ACUS, and made changes to EAJA eligibility that instituted a net worth cap, and requires EAJA reimbursement filers to prove they have a “direct and personal” interest in the government’s action. H.R. 1996 passed the House Judiciary Committee in November of 2011.

■ In July of 2012, Rep. Lummis offered the tracking and reporting section of H.R. 1996 as an amendment to a larger bill on regulatory reform (H.R. 4078). That amendment passed unanimously in the House.

■ On August 1, 2013, Rep. Lummis and Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN) introduced H.R. 2919, the Open Book on Equal Access to Justice Act. H.R. 2919 builds on the unanimous passage of the tracking and reporting amendment of 2012. The legislation reinstates tracking and reporting requirements of federal agencies concerning EAJA payments. The bill also requires an online, searchable database of EAJA payments maintained by the Administrative Conference of the United States.

Livestock Market Digest

Page 16

August 15, 2013

Why are publicly-funded scientists allowed to keep their work secret?

WASHINGTONEXAMINER.COM

BY RON ARNOLD |

ho owns taxpayer-funded science? From the way many scientists behave, it's not the taxpayers.

Many scientific studies funded by federal agencies - through grants, contracts, or cooperative agreements, particularly those used to justify the most horrendous regulations - hide the guts of the science.

What the scientists keep secret is the raw data they obtain in the real world and the methods they use to interpret it, as if those were personal possessions.

Independent scientist Rob Roy Ramey told me of an extreme example: "A researcher tracked endangered desert bighorn sheep with government GPS radio collars to record precise animal locations for wildlife rangers.

"He then reset the access codes so only he could download the data remotely, and refused to surrender the codes. So California Fish and Game had to track down and netgun the bighorns from a helicopter in order to manually download the collar data, costing a fortune and endangering both animals and people."

Agency "science" frequently isn't about data collection at all, but instead is a "literature search," with researchers in a library selecting papers and reports by others that merely summarize results and give opinions of the actual scientists.

These agency researchers never even see the underlying data, much less collect it in the field. The agency then holds up those second-hand opinions as if they had rigorously tested them against the data. Using this unscrupulous tactic, you can cherry-pick the literature to make any case you want.

With so many federal reports containing no data, only conclusions put forth by another scientist, there is no way to debate, debunk or disprove the underlying facts, even requiring court orders to track

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down and disclose them if Freedom of Information Act requests are denied, which they frequently are (legally or otherwise).

How are we to know that the nation is not paying for mathematical errors, unreliable methods, deliberate bias, peer-review collusion, outright fakery, or even criminal activity and fraud?

All these allegations against federal agencies have emerged repeatedly - and surfaced once again at a congressional hearing recently.

The House Natural Resources Committee under Chairman Doc Hastings, R-Wash., has been investigating secretive and corrupted science, titling this hearing, "Transparency and Sound Science Gone Extinct?"

A panel of four witnesses honed in on the impacts of the Obama administration's closed-door megasettlements on endangered species and people.

These closed-door Big Green lawsuit settlements use the Endangered Species Act to force agencies to list hundreds of species and make related habitat decisions, not because the science supports the need, but because Big Green settlement deadlines require it.

Be forewarned: The Endangered Species Act is not about species at all, it's about land-use control. Everything in the ESA hinges on "critical habitat," land that a bureaucrat can declare useless to public and private users for a species' sake, with devastating impact.

Panel witness Damien Schiff, principal attorney of the Pacific Legal Foundation, testified that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service itself "estimated that the annual economic impact of critical habitat designation for the California gnatcatcher [a bird] is over $100 million."

One of the Natural Resources Defense Council's first publications was "Land Use Controls in the United States," a handbook that appeared in 1977 to teach activists how to separate land from

use.

The power to impose land-use controls anywhere is the real motive behind all current sue-andsettle back-room species-listing deadline deals between Big Green and President Obama's administration.

Dan Ashe, director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, defended his sue and settle deals: "Settlement agreements are often in the public's best interest because we have no effective legal defense to most deadline cases." That's a flat lie.

Ashe has a powerful legal defense that he will not use: Demand that the science underlying the species listing be examined to determine whether it is flawed, corrupt or fraudulent. Failure to pass that test could totally invalidate the original listing and everything to do with it.

Why won't he use that moral, ethical and legal defense as an impartial arbiter? First, his agency authorized funding for most of the science. Second, most of the scientists are on his agency's payroll.

Third, politically, he can't try to win because it would make the Obama administration look like it opposes endangered species protection. Directed according to such a mindset, the FWS becomes a political tool using science as its sword and shield, it cannot be an impartial arbiter.

And make no mistake, the FWS is rife with malicious officials, as witness Kent McMullen, chairman of Franklin County, Washington's Natural Resources Advisory Committee, testified.

His written testimony filled nine pages with outrageous FWS dirty tricks and skullduggery in his county. For example, announcements of critical habitat designations for the White Bluffs Bladderpod plant were deliberately kept "under the radar" in Franklin County so it could become law without a big fuss. Only when Hastings asked county officials about it did the impending decision come to light.

McMullen said, "a FWS employee that apologized in private to a farm family told them that they had been told to keep the issue quiet and to not inform landowners or locals."

The star witness was independent scientist Ramey, a PhD with 33 years of worldwide experience with threatened and endangered wildlife.

Ramey hit key points hard: The data behind most ESA decisions is not publicly available. We own it and it should be posted on the web for independent, third party review - and so everyone can examine it, comment on it, and thus sap the power of the scientific elite.

Your vote is as good as any scientist's but your power isn't. That playing field can be leveled.

Ramey also emphasized that peer review is a useful but imper-

fect filter on information quality, subject to "species cartels" of scientific careerists who find a cash cow in the ESA. However, it is not a substitute for public access to the underlying data.

Ramey's plea was not so much for good science as for good citizenship. What passes for science in today's government is a travesty.

Total transparency would help convert Big Green's worshipful scientism back into science.

We already have online data repositories such as GenBank for DNA sequences and Dryad for general-purpose data. Federal decision-making can be based on the best data, not just the best data available. Let's make it so.

Washington Examiner columnist Ron Arnold is executive vice president of the Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise.

T or C, NM Launches New Pick-Up Site for Spaceport America Tours he hot springs capital of the Southwest – Truth or Consequences (T or C), New Mexico – will be the site of a new pick up and drop off point for the popular Spaceport America Preview Tours offered by Follow the Sun Inc./FTS Tours.

Effective on Friday, Aug. 2, 2013, the pick up/drop off location will be at the Holiday Inn Express Hotel and Suites in T or C. FTS Tours has been offering 3 1/2 hour Spaceport America Preview Tours since May 2011 on Fridays and Saturdays at 9 a.m. and 1 p.m., and on Sundays at 9 a.m only. Tours typically sell out.

“We are excited not only to bring people here for the Spaceport tours, but to give them a chance to experience the historic landmarks, art galleries, and hot springs in T or C,” said Adrian Sandoval, Holiday Inn Express General Manager. “The Holiday Inn Express is the first thing you see at the top of the hill when coming into town, so we’re easy to find and are very accommodating not only to our guests but to guests of the Spaceport America tours.”

“We are elated at our new partnership with the Holiday Inn Express,” said Rose Bleth, President of FTS Tours. “They truly understand customer service, so our guests will be unquestionably well taken care of. It is not just a pick up location – it will be part of our Spaceport tour experience. We certainly appreciate the hospitality that Adrian has shown to FTS Tours and will show our future guests.”

Beginning on Aug. 2, Holiday Inn Express will offer complimentary hot breakfasts until 10 a.m. to anyone taking the morning tour; and hot tea, coffee and cookies for those taking the afternoon tour. Tour guests interested in staying overnight at the hotel will receive a 10 percent discount with purchase of a Spaceport America Preview Tour ticket.

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Tour guests can wait for shuttles in the lobby of Holiday Inn Express, which accommodates up to 60 people. Guests can park at the hotel’s parking lot which accommodates up to 75 vehicles.

Holiday Inn Express Hotel and Suites is located at 2201 F.G. Armin St. in T or C, NM. Call 575-894-3900 for reservation details.

FTS Tours’ Spaceport America Preview Tours feature guided, exclusive access to the spaceport site and provide guests with an up close and personal encounter only available during the preoperational phase. Guests will learn about the area’s colorful history including that of T or C, Elephant Butte Dam, the ghost town of Engle, Jornada del Muerto (Journey of the Deadman), media mogul Ted Turner’s 350,000-acre Armendaris ranch, and the historic El Camino Real (Royal Road) leading to Spaceport America.

The tour ventures inside the Spaceport perimeter to see the horizontal launch area, spaceway (runway), operations center, and areas still under development, including the fuel storage complex and the iconic Virgin Galactic Gateway building. Guests will hear stories of Virgin Galactic, Space X, Armadillo Aerospace and others, and learn about trends in the emerging commercial space industry, among many fascinating bits of information.

FTS tour prices are $59 for adults 18 and over; $49 for teens ages 13-17; and $29 for children 12 and under. Reservations and a minimum of three guests are required per tour. For reservations, call 575/740-6894 or book online at spaceplacenm.com.

The New Mexico State Board of Finance recently authorized a $20.8 million loan to fund construction of two new visitor centers at Spaceport America which is expected to draw more than 200,000 visitors annually.