LMD June 2017

Riding Herd

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

by LEE PITTS

– JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL

June 15, 2017 • www.aaalivestock.com

Volume 59 • No. 6

The Trump Bump

W

On The Other Side

NEWSPAPER PRIORITY HANDLING

Ag economist David Kohl compared the rise and fall of cattle prices to climbing Mount Everest and says we are now safely on the other side. Cattle prices bottomed out in the fall of 2016, right before the election. Back then, 550 pound steers were fetching, on average,$1.34 per pound and 750 pound steers were selling for $1.22. But in the first week

chairs.

“I’m asking the Forest Service to adhere to the Americans with Disabilities Act, and if they’re not, then I don’t think they should be allowing mountain bikes at all, frankly, because mine is no different,” Berlly said.

In a letter to Forest Service Chief Tom Tidwell, U.S. Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler is championing Berlly’s cause, writing: “Our National Forests are community assets, and it is troubling that individuals employed to act as stewards of those assets are limiting access by the physical disabilities community through discriminatory actions.”

No exception, for now Electric bikes, or e-bikes, come in four different classifications, identified by the speed they can travel, how the motor is activated and other factors.

Berlly rides a Class-1 e-bike designed for mountain biking. She bought it thinking the Forest Service would see it as a regular bike.

It has almost all the same parts as a traditional mountain bike, save for an enlarged crank where the motor sits and an 8-pound battery attached to the frame. The motor activates continued on page four

continued on page four

If you haven’t fallen off a horse…then you haven’t been ridin long enough. of May 2017 those same 550 pound steers were bringing $1.68 for a 25% rise since the election, and 750 pounders rose 20% to $1.46. Granted, those prices aren’t the highs we saw back in the glory days of 2014 but they really aren’t all that bad.

It doesn’t seem that long ago when we were all wringing our hands and worrying as we pondered the almost guaranteed election of Hillary and a further deterioration in the cattle market. Farm economists were predicting even lower lows and the

NCBA was urging Congresspersons that we simply had to have the passage of the Trans Pacific Partnership or we’d revisit the wreckage.

It’s amazing what one election can do! Now we have President Trump dismantling the regulators and sending the TPPers packing. And lo and behold, instead of falling, the market rose dramatically. Each week finds packers caught short of their own inventory and having to pay sharply higher prices to fill orders. One week saw cattle rise $10! IN ONE

WEEK! The Sterling Profit Tracker showed for the week ending May 12th that feedyards saw $536 per head gains.

To take advantage of the profit margins packers were sending ever-greener cattle to town.

So many green fat cattle are being sold that the spread between between Choice and Select grew to $20 and carcass weights are down 3.8%. With so much less beef being produced, and retail ground beef prices at their lowest point in five years, the beef market is sizzling.

USDA’s cold storage report indicated that red meat supplies in freezers were down 4% from last year and the market for beef seems to be creating its own tailwind.

Compare this to post-Trumpian times when feedyards were holding cattle long after their continued on page two

Forest Service Says ‘NO’ To Disabled Woman Seeking Access To Mountain Bike Trails With E-Bike SOURCE: PROTECT AMERICANS NOW

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he U.S. Forest Service (USFS) says even though Bella Berlly, Klickitat County, Washington, has a degenerative disease, she can’t use an e-bike on mountain-bike trails.

She says that’s discrimination, and a Washington congresswoman is joining her fight.

After spending roughly 30 years as a mountain biker, Bella Berlly wasn’t ready to give the sport up when she was diagnosed with a degenerative muscle disease.

Unable to power a bicycle entirely on her own, the resident of White Salmon in Klickitat County found the solution in an electric pedal-assist bike.

But the USFS sees her bike as a motor vehicle and thus not allowed on mountain-bike trails. Instead, her bike is restricted to off-highway vehicle routes used by Jeeps, all-terrain vehicles and dirt bikes. A motor is a motor, according to the Forest Service and mountain-bike advocacy groups, and electric bikes should stay off trails designated for hikers, horses and cyclists.

Berlly says that’s discrimination. She wants the USFS to allow disabled people to use e-bikes on nonmotorized trails in the same way they’re allowed to use motorized wheel-

I

’m not much of a world traveler. Outside of a dinner in Juarez and a week of giving speeches in Alberta, the only other country I’ve been to is Australia. The only thing foreign to me there was vegemite, a salty, bitter, wood-putty-like substance that they slathered on everything they ate. It smelled like a pair of gym socks that haven’t been washed in a month and tasted like what gets in your mouth when you work cattle with your mouth wide open.

On the opposite side of the world-traveling spectrum we have some friends who are always bragging about how adventurous they are, as if Scotland is the New Frontier and they are Davy Crockett or something. I’ve heard their story numerous times about how they survived a week in Croatia, surviving on nothing but food and water.

My friends are always off gallivanting all over the world, trying to eat a bigger slice of life than us homebodies. They have scrapbooks documenting how they had their stomachs pumped on three continents. The cosmopolitan couple brag about having eaten zebra, fried cockroaches, lutefisk soaked in lye, boiled sheep eyeballs and stewed pig intestines all while trying to make me feel small because the most gutsy and dangerous foods I’ve ever consumed were my mom’s leftovers.

I have no desire to travel abroad or to eat the food the natives do. No thank you, I’ll stick to my good old mononitrate, monosodium glutamates right here in the U.S. of A. I’m not going anywhere, especially with all the terrorism going on around the world.

But my friends shrug it off and say, “But Lee you should have tasted the fried scorpions and grasshoppers we had in Thailand, the stink bugs we ate in Africa, the tuna eyeballs, wasp crackers and fried spiders in Japan, the witchery grubs in Australia, the silkworms in Korea, the congealed blood in Europe, the birds-nest soup in Vietnam and the deep-dish hag-

BY LEE PITTS

hat’s that foreign feeling in the air at your local livestock auction? It’s a strange euphoric feeling we haven’t felt since the good old days way back in 2014. Could it be, nah, it couldn’t be optimism, could it?

Last autumn we’d all been a bit down in the dumps due to historic declines in the cattle market, but ever since Donald Trump got elected to be our 45th President cattle prices have been on a steady rise. This begs the question, was Trump responsible? Are market fundamentals now giving cattle prices a more firmer footing, or are prices just being driven by the paper players in futures markets who are playing momentum swings? Just how much, if any, of the renewed optimism that has cattle traders now putting money back on the table, due to a Trump bump?

Something To Chew On

www.LeePittsbooks.com

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Livestock Market Digest

June 15, 2017

TRUMP BUMP due-date for lack of bids, hoping and praying for higher prices. Carcass weights grew to an all-time high. Now we have even grumpy cattle traders calling the Trump rally “spectacular” and there have even been sightings of that most endangered species of all: the wrinkle horned flush green smiling cattle feeder.

Sizzling Like A Good Steak Cooler heads aren’t giving Trump all the credit. They contend the current market is being driven by packers having to do something totally out of character: they are actually bidding competitively to keep up with domestic beef demand and export sales. It seems the American consumer has reclaimed her joy of eating quality beef at an affordable price.

In 2014, when beef prices at every level were sky high, meat consumption fell to 202 pounds per person. That was down 9% from a record 222 pounds produced in 2007. Now in 2017 per capita red meat and poultry consumption is on pace to reach 218 pounds and economists are predicting American consumers will eat 223 pounds of meat per person in 2018, a new record.

One economist even went on record as saying that the increased cow slaughter numbers we’re seeing are an indication that cow herd expansion may already be over. As this is written there were 16.4% more heifers coming to market than the year before.

The other reason prices have made such a comeback is a sizzling export market. For the first quarter of 2017, U.S. beef export tonnage was up 22% from a year ago and the value of those exports was up 23%.

It wasn’t supposed to be this way. Prior to the election economists were predicting that the cattle market would crater under a Trump Presidency because of his intentions to refuse to sign the TPP deal and to withdraw from NAFTA. Immediately after the votes were tallied the markets did perform exactly as predicted and beef prices followed the Dow down.

Then something inconceivable happened: we experienced a Trump rally. And it wasn’t the kind of rally where Trump fans CAREN COWAN............Publisher LEE PITTS.......................Executive Editor CHUCK STOCKS............Publisher Emeritus RANDY SUMMERS.........Sales Rep RON ARCHER................Sales Rep

MARGUERITE VENSEL..Office Manager JESSICA DECKER..........Special Assistance CHRISTINE CARTER......Graphic Designer

continued from page one

wait in line.

As markets continued to climb the anti-Trumpeteers had to find some other reason for the bounce back. It couldn’t have been the Donald. They found a likely candidate in a white hot export market. The export share of U.S. agricultural production currently represents more than 20% in volume and value that’s double the norm.

The cattle market got another nudge higher when Trump switched from canning NAFTA, to simply wanting to renegotiate it.

Lifting The Beef Barricade The NCBA and others predicted that without the Trans Pacific Partnership, Japan and the rest of Asia would turn elsewhere to meet their meat needs. Exactly the opposite has happened as both beef and pork exports to Asia are up sharply to date despite tariffs that reach as high as 38%.

Of course, the biggest news in the cattle market was after a 14 year hiatus in the importation of American beef due to Mad Cow, China lifted their beef barricade against U.S. beef. American beef could be back on Chinese shelves by the time you read this. This is big news because China represents a potential $2.6 billion beef market and China already accounts for 12% of the world’s beef export business.

There are a couple snags that need to be smoothed out before we begin shipping China boatloads of American beef. One of the major stocking points is our lack of a mandatory traceability system. John Nalivka, President of Sterling Marketing wrote in Drovers CattleNetwork that all the other countries who export beef to China have mandatory animal ID systems in place, but only 15% of our cattle are age and source identified through voluntary ID systems. Additionally, the Chinese may demand hormone free or GMO free beef.

There is reason to believe that a voluntary traceability system in the U.S. would be acceptable to the Chinese. “One thing we’ve tried to stress in continued on page three

June 15, 2017

Livestock Market Digest

Page 3

TRUMP BUMP meetings with the Chinese,” said Senator Max Baucus, “is that we can address their concerns. We have some voluntary programs already in place that allow a traceability component.

If there is a requirement we want to make sure that anything involving traceability would be voluntary. China is a very important market. At the same time, we don’t want any overly burdensome requirements on our producers who may choose not to produce beef for China.

We want an agreement that is commercially meaningful, but also meaningful for U.S. beef producers and Chinese consumers.”

China In Charge Before we get all overheated about the Chinese appetite for American beef we should remember one thing: when it comes to feeding their people, China wants to be in charge.

So how do they do that? Nalivka reminds us that the minute China started eating American pork in great quantities a Chinese company bought Smithfield Foods. That’s a pretty good bite full, accounting for 28% of U.S. pork production.

According to Nalivka, they added to that purchase recently by buying Farmer John in California which brought their share of U.S. pork production to 30%.

“Every pound of pork produced

by Smithfield can be sold to China,” says Nalivka.

“Chinese food companies have also acquired three beef plants in Uruguay as well as several dairy operations in New Zealand,” wrote Nalivka in Drovers CattleNetwork. And then Nalivka wrote something

continued from page two

that should scare the chaps off U.S. ranchers. “I submit,” wrote Nalivka, “that at some point a Chinese interest will purchase a major beef processing company or perhaps a major beef, pork, and poultry processing company in the U.S. It fits a strategy of food security through self-sufficiency.”

If that does come to pass, and it makes perfect sense, we see only two likely candidates.

Of the Big Three cattle processors that currently control more than 80% of the trade in U.S. beef, Cargill is in the process of selling their cattle feedlots which would seem to eliminate them. We doubt that China would be satisfied with a bunch of plants without a guaranteed source of captive cattle. Tyson could be a huge target and in a previous front page story we wrote about Tyson’s CEO indicating that animals will become less important as a protein source in Tyson’s future.

He also announced that Tyson bought a chunk of Beyond Beef, which produces an artificial meat substitute. Certainly Tyson’s CEO didn’t sound like much of a true believer in the future of beef. We could easily see a Chinese company that is partially state owned gobbling up Tyson. If they tried would Trump try to stop them?

Then there is what we feel is the most likely candidate.

China could bypass Trump all together by purchasing a non-American meat packer like JBS. The Brazilian company is the world’s largest meatpacker and second-largest global food

company, processing 29,000 cattle every day in the U.S. and 4,200 in Canada. The company owns 11 American feedlots with a capacity of 900,000 head. JBS also bought Pilgrim’s Pride which processes 6.6 million birds a day in 25 U.S. processing plants. JBS also processes 90,000 hogs a day in the U.S. and also operates five feed mills.

Last year JBS had $33.9 billion in sales of U.S. and Canadian beef, pork and poultry, accounting for more than half of the company’s revenue. A Chinese

also admitted that he gave millions more in bribes to Brazil’s last two presidents through offshore accounts.

That news about JBS came a week after dozens of search warrants had been issued in a criminal investigation called “Operation Bullish”. A few years ago on the front page of this newspaper we complained about the cozy relationship that existed between JBS and the Brazilian government who was acting as the meatpacker’s banker. Now Batista has admitted that billions of dollars of loans were made by Brazil’s National Economic and Social Development Bank to JBS going back years, which just happened to coincide with the wild growth of JBS. Now JBS has agreed to a plea deal, admitting that seven of its executives and its controlling entity, J&F Investimentos may have gotten those loans through graft and corruption. The company also agreed to pay $67.93 million in fines.

But wait, there’s more. Recently you read in the Digest about Brazilian meatpackers, including JBS, who were caught selling tainted meat to foreign customers and paying bribes to meat inspectors to turn a blind eye. It got so bad that JBS shut down Brazilian operations temporarily.

We wouldn’t be surprised at some point that the pyramid the Batista family has built would start to topple and at that point they, and the Brazilian government, might want to cash out to the Chinese. But instead of two companies hassling over terms,

Lately JBS has been in the news more than Madonna and Justin Bieber combined. acquisition of JBS would go a long way in fulfilling China’s future protein needs.

Turning A Blind Eye From afar it would appear that the Batista family who controls JBS would not want to sell the family’s jewel, but they might not have the final say in the matter. Lately JBS has been in the news more than Madonna and Justin Bieber combined.

And it hasn’t been good news.

Joesley Batista, chairman of JBS S.A., is caught up in a slew of scandals and Dow Jones reported that Brazil’s Supreme Court released Batista’s testimony indicating that he and other top JBS executives gave over $2.2 million in bribes to current Brazilian President Michel Temer.

In making a plea deal Batista

it would be more like two countries.

When You’re Handed Lemons If you’ve read his books you know that above all else Donald Trump is a trader. He likes to do big deals, like the one he made recently with Argentinian President Mauricio Macri.

After meeting the Argentine President, Trump announced that Argentine lemons would soon be sold in the U.S. American citrus growers, many who’d contributed to the Trump campaign, were not pleased. They said Trump’s trade neglected to take the growers’ concerns into account and could allow lemons from pest-infested areas of Argentina into the United States.

Joel Nelsen, President of California Citrus Mutual, said in filing a lawsuit to stop the trade, “Trump viewed allowing importation of Argentine lemons as a bargaining chip to achieve unrelated foreign policy objectives.” (It was speculated those other objectives involved North Korea.)

We can only hope that Trump The Trader doesn’t soon forget who helped get him elected and someday uses beef as a bargaining chip in a similar manner.

We’d suggest a good way for Trump to show he really does put America first would be to come out in strong support for country of origin labeling so consumers could once again choose home-grown American beef. We suspect a lack of support for such a push suggests that the Trump Bump could be fleeting and cattle markets could turn into a Trump Dump and/or Slump.

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Livestock Market Digest

RIDING HERD

Baxter BLACK

continued from page one

gis in Scotland.”

“That sounds like real throat ticklin’ grub all right. I’ve never met anyone who enjoyed bad food as much as you two. But was any of that stuff any good?”

“Heck no.” admitted my friend. “It was the most god-awful stuff I’ve ever tasted. But those dishes paled in comparison to how bad the camel hump and sweet and sour yak was.”

“Yuk.” “Not yuk. Yak,” said my friend. “I’ll tell you, traveling abroad is a great way to lose weight. Whenever my wife wants to shed a few pounds we go to some exotic locale, eat what the natives do and she comes home at least ten pounds lighter.”

“You may be on to something. Write a cookbook on the Foreign Food Diet and get rich.

But seriously, what was the absolute worst food you ever tasted?”

“I’d say it was a toss-up between the deep dish dog, the refried locust larvae, or the rat we had in Laos.”

“Refried locust larvae? My Grandpa would have called that eatin’ the bait. That stuff sounds like it would kill a Duroc.

How do you even eat it?”

“Well, in the case of the dog, rat and camel, the natives advise you to dig deep in the barrel because that’s where the biggest hunks of dog, rat or camel are.

So we ate the broth off the top.

But some foreign food is delicious. Like the Foi gras we had in Paris.”

“I make it a rule not to eat anything I can’t pronounce. Do you have any other advice for would-be world travelers who want to enjoy bad worldwide cuisine like you two?”

“There’s the “jungle rule” which states, “If you can’t peel it or cook it, forget it.”

“Was there ever any food that you just flat-out refused to eat?”

I asked.

“Yeah, my mother’s fried Spam sandwiches.”

“Point well taken.” wwwLeePittsbooks.com

ON THE EDGE OF COMMON SENSE www.baxterblack.com

Handyman Jacks

P

eople develop a morbid relationship with the most unlikely things. “Git rid of that horse, Newt! It’s bound to kill ya someday!” But Newt keeps saddlin’ up the widow maker.

“Don’t be eatin’ those chilis, Newt! Ya know they’ll keep you up all night!” But Newt eats ‘em and spends the night on the john.

“Dadgummit, Newt! I know that was yer Daddy’s pocket knife, but enough’s enough!” But Newt’s still cuttin’ calves with a half-inch blade.

I’ve spent half my life cursing Handyman Jacks. I’ve turned the air blue coaxing

them to cooperate. I can attest that it is impossible to injure one with anything short of an acetylene torch. I know they will work the first day, but the instant they are exposed to the smell of burnt rubber or the hint of desperation, they sull up.

Oh, they work sometimes, just to keep you off guard.

Like the time I was cruising a country road east of Malta and I felt thunk. I saw my rear wheel pass me on the left, bounce through the ditch and disappear into a field of waist high wheat! It didn’t take long for the truck to stop. For a hundred yards behind my rig it looked like I’d been install-

June 15, 2017

ing telephone cable!

Stuck out there, I improvised with a long fence pole I found near an irrigation pump. I jacked it up with the Handyman Chin Smasher and Slim Mechanism. Up one, down two, up one, down one, and so on. From the rear I wedged the pole over the axle and chained it tight. The pole stuck out several feet behind the bumper. Then I lowered the truck down by pounding the jack with a calf puller until the bumper rested on the protruding pole. I waited until a lone irrigator passed by and had him drag me ten miles back to the farm shop.

I limped in like a one leg-ged cross country skier!

Two years later the jack showed its true colors. I was comin’ south outta Grouse Creek in a brand new 3/4 ton vet truck. The high mountain road was snow packed and I was testing my traction.

I missed a turn and slid off a ditch, high centered. ‘No sweat,’ I thought, ‘I’ll just jack it up and pile some wood underneath the tire.’ Once again I engaged the Combination

NO only when a rider pedals, and it shuts off if the bike travels faster than 20 mph.

Berlly said she had a traumatic experience when she was confronted by an angry cyclist for riding her e-bike on Forest Service trails near Sedona, Arizona, this year. When she sought clarification from the Forest Service, she was dismayed to learn the agency considers it motorized.

A Forest Service briefing paper on e-bikes from May 13, 2015 recognizes that people with disabilities have requested the use of e-bikes. But because the bikes weren’t designed solely for the disabled, and wouldn’t typically be used indoors, the agency says they don’t qualify as exceptions to its rules.

“An e-bike remains a mo-

Handyman Post Puller and Fickle Finger Mangler.

I jacked that baby up ‘til the pickup was clear, packed everything I could find under the tire and flipped the lever that lowered the jack.

With each pump of the handle, the pickup rose instead of fell! I alternated pumping and whacking the jack with the star wrench. Finally I got clear to the top of the jack!

My brand new pickup had its left hind cocked up like a dog markin’ his territory.

It took an hour on the lonely road for a meandering hay truck to rumble by. It was equipped with snow chains.

They backed up to me and, with a screech and a whomp, pulled me off the jack.

I drove that pickup for three years with a bent frame and a driver’s side door that never closed properly.

But I’m still carryin’ the miserable rat bag of a jack around in the back of my latest truck. Me and Newt, knowin’ better but stupidly hoping it’ll work just one more time. www.baxterblack.com

continued from page one

tor vehicle regardless of who is using it. It is essential that exceptions not be made to the (Travel Management Rule) designations,” the document said.

“Restrictions on motor vehicle use that are applied consistently to everyone have been repeatedly found not to be discriminatory.”

In an email, Byron James, a spokesman for the Forest Service, said the agency realizes technology is changing how people move.

“Monitoring of e-bike use for visitor safety, social issues, along with performance metrics and natural resource impacts will continue to develop and advance,” he wrote. “As such, the Forest Service remains open to potentially revisiting and adjusting associated agency guidance if and as needed in the future.”

Specially designed trails?

Although e-bikes are creating a gray area between what was once a black-and-white issue of motorized and nonmotorized trail users, mountain-bike advocacy groups such as the Evergreen Mountain Bike Alliance and the International Mountain Bike Alliance say they’ll continue to draw a hard line between

the motorized and nonmotorized.

“Yes, this a new technology.

Yes, this is a new user group.

Let’s figure out where we can accommodate those e-bikes without putting too much pressure on those user groups who don’t want to be around motorized use,” said Yvonne Kraus, executive director of the nonprofit Evergreen alliance, the state’s largest mountain-bike association.

For the mountain-bike community, earning trust and building coalitions with wheel-wary outdoors groups and then working with landowner agencies to create bike access has taken years of work. E-bike technology is reshaping the bicycle industry and entering the consumer market at a fast pace. Encouraging their use on nonmotorized trails could be detrimental to those relationships, Kraus said.

“The technology is coming fast and changing fast and those bikes are becoming more affordable, more accessible,” Kraus said. “There is a strong case for ADA access and getting more people out on their bikes in the outdoors – not to mention they’re fun to ride.”

But she worries that allowing low-power e-bikes on nonmotorized trails could increase the risk of injury by bringing riders to terrain they’re not skilled enough to ride, or that riders with mobility issues could lose power far away from their vehicles. Furthermore, she has concerns about how well a rule differentiating between different classes of e-bikes could be enforced.

Kraus said she thinks a path forward might be to create trails specifically designed to accommodate riders with mobility issues who ride e-bikes, or even three-wheeled, hand-pedaled bikes. Until those are created, she suggests e-bike and handcrank bike riders use motorized trails and roads, which outnumber nonmotorized trails.

The International Mountain Bike Alliance claims more than 40,000 individuals and 400 clubs among its membership.

Aaron Clark, who handles government relations for the group, guessed that under half of its members support e-bikes on trails.

“The rest either don’t care or are adamantly opposed,” he said.

FALL MARKETING EDITION

Coming Soon!

To plan your advertising call Ron Archer 505/865-6011

June 15, 2017

Livestock Market Digest

Page 5

Wolf Recovery Projects Continue to Drain Millions From State Coffers WWW.SPOKESMAN.COM

Wolf management costs, 2016 WASHINGTON Wolves: 90 minimum Status: Listed for state and/ or federal Endangered Species protections Revenue, hunting-trapping: None Annual state budget: $2.9 million, soon to be cut by 50 percent IDAHO Wolves: 790 minimum Status: delisted Revenue, hunting-trapping: $437,000 Annual state budget: $800,000, plus more than $500,000 for livestock depredation MONTANA Wolves: 540 minimum Status: delisted Revenue, hunting-trapping: $400,000 Annual state budget: $600,000, plus $135,000 for livestock depredation Wolves don’t come cheap.

Since the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service reintroduced gray wolves to Yellowstone National Park and central Idaho two decades ago, the legendary carnivores have increased their numbers to more than 2,000 and spread into Washington, Oregon and beyond.

The feds initially estimated in the 1990s that approximately $7 million would be spent ushering wolves to recovery in the Northern Rockies. Wolves were removed from the Endangered Species protections in Idaho and Montana in 2011 – eight years after wolf numbers had exceeded the minimum set for recovery in both states. But millions more continue to be spent by federal and state agencies dealing with the wolf’s return.

Livestock grazing on both public and private lands are on the front line of impacts.

“Other predators are not even in the same league in terms of damage complaints,” said Todd Grimm, director of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Wildlife Services Program for Idaho.

“Idaho has around 20,000 black bears and 2,500 mountain lions. They’re of similar size to wolves, occupying roughly the same space, yet those two species cause very little conflict in terms of livestock compared with wolves.

“Idaho probably spends less than $10,000 dealing with depredation by bears and cougars,” Grimm said. “Last year, $576,357 was spent dealing with wolf depredation.”

Idaho also addresses wolf management through the governor’s Office of Species Conservation with $800,000 split between

the Idaho Fish and Game Department and the tribes.

Even though the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has cut back on wolf recovery funding to Idaho and Montana, the agency reported spending $7.4 million on gray wolf programs across the country in 2014.

One thing wolves and wolf managers have had going for them is the good habitat and generally abundant prey when recovery commenced.

Whatever is being spent on wolves pales to the $263 million the federal government spent in 2014 on steelhead trout, which are protected in 11 separate managed populations. Steelhead and salmon are struggling in habitat compromised by dams and tributary damage. Endangered species funding for nine stocks of chinook salmon totaled $240.7 million.

But any added program cost can be a financial challenge for chronically cash-poor state wildlife managers.

Federal funding still defrays some expenses for addressing wolf attacks on livestock, but the states are largely on their own for financing wolf monitoring and other costs. “We used to get $800,000 a year in federal funding, but that’s gone,” said Jim Hayden, Idaho Fish and Game’s lead wolf biologist.

Even after delisting, Montana and Idaho are still responsible to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for assuring at least 150 wolves and 15 breeding pairs in each state to avoid endangered species protections from kicking in again.

Washington, which is still in wolf recovery mode, has an annual budget from all funding sources of nearly $2.9 million.

That amount will be decreased by about 50 percent in the next biennium, said Donny Martorello, Department of Fish and Wildlife wolf policy lead.

Where wolves are delisted, sales of wolf hunting and trapping licenses raise $437,000 a year in Idaho and $400,000 a year in Montana.

But wolf hunting is not allowed in Washington, where wolves are still protected by state endangered species rules in the eastern two-thirds of the state and by federal protections in the western portion.

Sales of personalized endangered species license plates provide $900,000 a year to Washington’s wolf program, Martorello said.

In addition, wolf management is receiving $220,000 from the state wildlife program, $90,000 from federal Pittman-Robertson taxes on shooting and hunting equipment, $64,000 from federal species recovery funds and $61,500 from the state general fund plus other grants that are competitive and not reliable.

The current bulge in wolf

funding stems from a $2.2 million special appropriation from the Washington Legislature for 2015-2017. Of that, $850,010 was spent on a two-year contract with conflict-resolution consultant Francine Madden to guide the Wolf Advisory Group citizen panel ranging from ranchers to wildlife protection groups to consensus on wolf management.

The group in the past year has explored deterrents to wolf attacks on livestock and hammered out a protocol for lethal removal of wolves as a last resort.

A wolf-livestock conflict budget includes $497,000 for staff time. Washington has three people working full time on wolves plus roughly two dozen conflict specialists who work on wolf issues as well as a wide range of other problems such as big-game damage to crops.

“The conflict specialists in northeastern Washington spend a lot more of their time on wolves than the specialists in other regions,” Martorello said. “When they work on wolves, they bill to that account – when they deal with deer or elk eating a farmer’s crops, their time is billed to another program.”

The conflict budget also includes $61,000 for compensation and $38,000 for lethal removal of wolves if needed. The lethal removal budget was exceeded in 2016 as the bill for removing most members of the cattle-killing Profanity Peak Pack totaled $135,000.

Wolf-livestock research support for Washington State University graduate students accounted for $600,000 of the special appropriation and $400,00 was earmarked for a five-year predator-prey study that’s underway.

Wolf population monitor-

ing has been a costly burden to all of the states involved in wolf recovery. Washington currently is spending approximately $425,000 a year for trapping, helicopter captures and surveys, collaring and year-round study.

“As the wolf population grows, it gets harder and more expensive to try to maintain a collared wolf in every pack for keeping tabs on them,” Martorello said.

The amount Idaho spends for monitoring wolves has been cut by roughly 90 percent since wolves have been delisted and most federal monitoring requirements have expired. “But it’s still really expensive and not very useful for management,” Hayden said.

Idaho is investing roughly $500,000 to develop new “occupancy modeling” techniques. If using DNA samples, hunter reports and remote camera images can replace helicopter captures, GPS collars and surveys, Idaho can reduce its monitoring costs to about $50,000, Hayden said.

“The state isn’t working with a million dollar budget anymore,” he said.

Washington also is banking on perfecting that sort of monitoring technique, Martorello said.

“Snagging hair samples for DNA and photos from remote cameras would allow us to use volunteers and citizen science to lower costs,” he said.

In fiscal year 2015, Idaho budgeted $1.63 million for wolf related expenditures including depredation, enforcement, hunting-trapping oversight, monitoring, research and administration.

“This was the last year under federal oversight,” Hayden said.

“It was an exceptionally high year – we wanted to make dang sure we had all the bases cov-

ELM

ered. Now our monitoring will be much different, and costs are much lower.”

Wolves occupy roughly 50 percent of Idaho – an area that exceeds what’s been identified as quality wolf habitat, Hayden said. The number of wolves is approximately five times more than the federal minimum of 150.

Nevertheless, wolves are coming into some sort of equilibrium on the landscape.

“Since hunting and trapping was authorized, pack size decreased about 25 percent while territory size remains about the same,” he said.

“That means reduced density and food requirements per pack, which has resulted in a substantial 57 percent decrease in livestock depredations. That saves the state money.”

“All of those things point to a good path. Elk survival has increased – 96 percent cow elk survival and high calf survival statewide last year,” he said. The numbers likely will be lower this year because of the tough winter conditions, he said.

The bottom line, Hayden said, is that wolves don’t need millions of dollars of management to do well on their own in Idaho even with managed hunting and trapping seasons.

“One thing about wolves, they’re prolific,” said Bob Inman, Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks Department carnivore and furbearer coordinator. “It’s hard to overdo management actions.

They’re resilient and people have gotten more used to them being around.

“Wolves definitely have arrived as a cost that wasn’t out here in the previous 100 years.

It’s definitely not going away, but it doesn’t have to be so high.”

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Page 6

Livestock Market Digest

June 15, 2017

Field Cameras Catch Federal Government Decision to List Deer Eating Birds – Yellow-Billed Cuckoo Challenged Wait, Why Do Deer A Eat Birds?

BY ESTHER INGLIS-ARKELL, HTTP://IO9.GIZMODO.COM

D

eer aren’t the slim, graceful vegans we thought they were. Scientists using field cameras have caught deer preying on nestling song birds. And it’s not just deer. Herbivores the world over may be supplementing their diets.

When researchers in North Dakota set up “nest cams” over the nests of song birds, they expected to see a lot of nestlings and eggs get taken by ground squirrels, foxes, and badgers.

Squirrels hit thirteen nests, but other meat-eaters made a poor showing. Foxes and weasels only took one nest each. Know what fearsome animal out-did either of those two sleek, resourceful predators?

White-tailed deer.

These supposed herbivores placidly ate living nestlings right out of the nest. And if you’re thinking that it must be a mistake, that the deer were chewing their way through some vegetation and happened to get a mouthful of bird, think again.

Up in Canada, a group of ornithologists were studying adult birds. In order to examine them closely, the researchers used “mist-nets.” These nets, usually draped between trees, are designed to trap birds or bats

gently so they can be collected, studied, and released. When a herd of deer came by, they deer walked up to the struggling birds and ate them alive, right out of the nets.

This behavior is not limited to one species or one continent.

Last year, a farmer in India made a video of a cow eating a recently-hatched chick. Some scientists speculate that herbivores turn to meat when they’re not getting enough nutrients in their diet. It’s possible. A biologist in Scotland documented red deer eating seabird chicks, and concluded it was how they got the dietary boost necessary to grow their antlers. The same researcher also documented sheep eating the heads and legs off of seabird chicks. And then there’s another cow in India, which reportedly ate fifty chickens. There may be a specific need that drives herbivores to occasionally eat meat. It’s also possible, experts say, that eating meat, when it can’t run away from them, is just something supposed “herbivores” do, and we’re finally getting wise to it.

The famous line from The Simpsons might be accurate – If a cow ever got the chance, he’d eat you and everyone you ever cared about.

Sources: Herbivores Busted Preying on Birds Nests, Scottish Deer are Culprits in Bird Killings.

diverse group of local governments, landowners and industry representatives has challenged the U.S. Fish & Wildlife FWS (FWS) by filing a petition to remove the Western Distinct Population Segment of the Yellow-billed Cuckoo (YBCU; Coccyzus americanus), from the federal endangered species list. The western segment is currently listed as threatened.

The group of petitioners includes American Stewards of Liberty (ASL), National Cattleman’s Beef Association (NCBA), Public Lands Council (PLC), Arizona Cattlemen’s Association (ACA), and Arizona Mining Association (AMA). Additionally, the Winkelman and Hereford Natural Resource Conservation Districts in Arizona joined the effort, as well as WestLand Resources, and Mr. Jim Chilton from Arizona.

The petitioners believe the original listing under the Obama Administration in 2014, was made in error and falsely created a Distinct Population Segment (DPS) resulting in the federal threatened designation. When the FWS prepared their analysis, they carved out the western population giving it the DPS designation. It was a controversial move criticized in part because genetic studies did not support the distinction. This has created unnecessary and costly restrictions on landowners within the designated critical habitat for the bird.

The YBCU is a neotropical migrant bird that winters in South America and breeds in North America during the summer. When the YBCU migrates north in the summer months, it splits into two groups – one to the west of the Rocky Mountains and one to the east. It’s the group that flies west the FWS erroneously determined was a “distinct population segment” giving it the ability to make a “threatened” determination. According to the FWS, the western DPS can be found in 12 western states.

The petition includes new genetic and morphological data as well as new analyses of older data supporting the conclusion that the western segment of the YBCU is not a discrete and significant population segment that meets the requirements for listing under the Endangered Species Act (ESA).

An additional concern for the petitioners is

that the FWS used the same data to draw two different conclusions when making their original decisions. The FWS relied on the assumption that YBCU habitat requirements in the Southwest and northern Mexico were largely restricted to areas with expansive tracts of riparian vegetation along major river systems. This, in part, led to their listing decision.

Later, when designating the critical habitat area subject to federal restrictions, the FWS proposed to designate thousands of acres of the Southwest as critical habitat that greatly expanded what was considered habitat in the FWS’s listing decision.

WestLand Resources biologist, David Cerasale, explains: “When threats to the species were analyzed in the listing decision, the FWS concluded that the species was largely limited to expansive blocks of riparian vegetation along large riverine systems in the Southwest. However, when proposing to designate critical habitat for the species, the FWS considered as critical habitat numerous smaller drainages that are considerably different than those contemplated in its analyses in the listing decision, including some areas that are almost completely devoid of riparian vegetation.”

The new survey data that has since been collected further affirms that much of the YBCU’s habitat is outside of the large river systems and is substantially larger than the FWS acknowledged when they listed the species.

Additionally, the new data not only expanded the understanding of the amount of suitable habitat, but it also showed the threats analyzed by the FWS did not rise to the level supporting their decision to list the DPS under the Endangered Species Act. The petitioners believe they have provided substantial scientific and commercial information demonstrating delisting is warranted, and are asking the FWS to make a positive 90-day finding. If the FWS makes this ruling, a 12-month review period will be opened allowing the FWS to thoroughly analyze the status of the species and seek additional information from the public, which petitioners believe will lead the FWS to reverse the prior administration’s decision.

Two Colorado Dogs Test Positive for Rabies, First Since 2003

BY JOHN INGOLD, THE DENVER POST

T

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wo pet dogs in northeastern Colorado have tested positive for rabies, a first in more than a decade in the state and a finding that worries health officials who are also seeing a rise so far this year in the number of rabid skunks.

The dogs lived in Weld and Yuma counties, and their infections were confirmed earlier this month. Neither dog had a current vaccination for rabies. Both dogs were euthanized.

The dog in Weld County was a puppy that was infected after a run-in with a rabid skunk near Hudson, said Eric Aakko, a spokesman for the Weld County Department of Public Health and Environment. The dog in Yuma County was a mixedbreed adult that a family near Wray had rescued, said Dr. Tony Cappello, the public health director for the Northeast Colo-

rado Health Department. It was also infected by a skunk.

In Weld County, four dogs and six people who came into contact with the infected puppy are receiving post-exposure preventative treatment. In Yuma County, three people who had contact with the dog are receiving the treatment. So far, health officials in both counties said, it does not appear that the dogs spread rabies to other animals or people.

The last time a dog in Colorado tested positive for rabies was in 2003, but that dog had apparently been infected in Texas, according to the state Health Department. The last time a dog acquired a rabies infection in Colorado was in 1974.

But health officials worry that such infections could become more common — and that they could lead to human cases, too.

Prior to about 2006, rabies in Colorado was primarily spread

by bats, Cappello said. But since then, the state has experienced an onslaught of rabies in skunks. So far this year, the state has recorded 41 cases of rabies in wild animals, but that counts only animals that were collected and tested. Cappello said this year has been especially bad for rabid skunks in northeastern Colorado, and rabid skunks have been found along the Front Range, too.

Rabies is a virus that is spread through the bite of an infected animal and can cause changes to behavior. It is almost always fatal, in both humans and other mammals, if untreated. Skunks can be particularly aggressive when stricken with rabies, and can spread the virus by attacking other animals, including dogs and people, Cappello said.

Up-to-date rabies vaccinations provide protection, though, and pet owners are encouraged to have their dogs or cats vaccinated.

June 15, 2017

Livestock Market Digest

EPA, Army Corps Want State Input on WOTUS Rewrite

BY ARIEL WITTENBERG, E&E NEWS REPORTER

T

he Trump administration is asking states for advice on how to define which wetlands and small waterways are covered by the Clean Water Act. U.S. EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt and acting Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil Works Douglas Lamont sent letters to governors today asking for “input and wisdom” on how to redraw federal jurisdiction.

“Consulting with state and local government officials, or their representative national organizations, is a priority for us and President Trump,” the letter says.

The letter is the latest step in the Trump administration’s efforts to roll back federal jurisdiction over wetlands and small waterways following the Obama administration’s 2015 Clean Water Rule.

That controversial regulation, also known as the Waters of the U.S., or WOTUS, rule, was opposed by farmers, land developers and the energy industry, who labeled it government overreach.

The Trump administration has already moved to repeal the WOTUS rule, which is currently stayed by the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. A proposal

to revoke WOTUS is pending White House review.

But the Trump administration says it won’t stop there.

After repealing WOTUS, it wants to replace the regulation with one that will line up federal Clean Water Act oversight with the views expressed by the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.

In the 2006 Rapanos v. United States case, Scalia wrote that federal protection extends only to “relatively permanent” waters and wetlands with a continuous surface connection to larger rivers and streams.

In their letter, Pruitt and Lamont ask states how a Scalia-based regulation would affect them.

“We want to clearly under-

stand what definition will work best for your state as we develop a new federal definition of ‘waters of the U.S.’ consistent with the Scalia opinion,” they write.

“In addition, we are interested in understanding how your state might respond to a reduced scope of federal jurisdiction under the Clean Water Act.” The Trump administration’s approach is a significant departure from how the Obama and George W. Bush administrations defined “waters of the United States.” They both relied on Justice Anthony Kennedy’s Rapanos opinion that waters must have a “significant nexus” to navigable rivers and seas. That nexus could include not just surface connections but also biological or chemical ones.

Page 7

Wild Horse Population Needs to be Controlled SOURCE: BENDBULLETIN. COM

T

hink of wild horses, and the image you’re likely to get is of sturdy animals galloping across the Eastern Oregon desert, tails and manes blowing in the wind.

Reality is more complicated.

While the horses are beautiful, there are more of them than the land can support.

Managing their numbers is a problem.

According to the federal Bureau of Land Management website, there were nearly 73,000 wild horses and burros in 10 Western states as of March 1, an increase of about 8 percent

from the previous year. That number includes 4,302 wild horses and 49 wild burros roaming in Oregon on land that can handle only 2,715 of them.

The BLM spent $80.5 million to manage the animals last year. Most of that money went to house thousands of horses and burros captured and penned in places such as Hines, near Burns.

As of early March, some 576 horses were being held in the Hines pens.

Keeping herds in check is neither easy nor cheap.

Captured animals legally cannot be sold for slaughter, continued on page eleven

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Texas Senate Approves Hunting Feral Hogs by Hot Air Balloon SOURCE: WWW.NBCDFW. COM

T

exas lawmakers have approved hunting feral hogs and coyotes from hot air balloons.

The state already allows shooting feral hogs from helicopters. The latest hunting twist comes as the state looks for new ways to control a growing hog population that causes millions in damages to crops every year.

Hunting by helicopter has proven expensive and difficult to hit anything, and often scares the animals away. Hot air balloons are quieter and offer a more stable line shooting platform.

The bill requires the state to license hot air hot hunting. Texas has an estimated two million feral hogs. Their high breeding rate and lack of natural predators has seen their population explode The bill passed the Senate and now goes to Governor Greg Abbott for his consideration.

Call Ron Archer today at 505/865-6011 or email archerron@aol.com

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Page 8

Livestock Market Digest

June 15, 2017

Same Philosophy, New Name: Noble Research Institute SOURCE: NOBLE.ORG

T

he Samuel Roberts Noble Foundation announced May 10 that it has separated its research and education operations from its philanthropic activities to advance its mission and better serve agriculture.

The organization’s research, education and consultation activities will continue forward under a new name, the Noble Research Institute, LLC. The philanthropic activities, including grant-making and scholarship programs, of the original organization are being placed in a new, private foundation, which will carry the name traditionally associated with the organization’s community giving, The Samuel Roberts Noble Foundation.

Members of the Oklahoma nonprofit’s leadership team held two special announcements (one in Ardmore and one in Oklahoma City) and explained that this decision was

made so the organization could better serve the agriculture sector; expand collaborations; and better pursue opportunities to bring innovation, technologies and discoveries to agricultural producers and consumers.

“As a single entity, the organization served many audiences with diverse interests,” said Bill Buckner, president and chief executive officer. “By separating our activities into two organizations, each new organization can now build its respective name around its specific operations and build new relationships that were otherwise unavailable.”

Concurrent with this transition, the Noble Research Institute has sought to be recognized by the Internal Revenue Service as a nonprofit, 501(c) (3) agricultural research organization. The option to pursue this designation was enabled in 2015 when Congress modified the Internal Revenue Code to create agricultural research

organizations, a new form of 501(c)(3), public charity focused on the conduct of agricultural research.

“Through the Noble Research Institute, we are continuing the vision of our founder, Lloyd Noble,” Buckner said.

“He challenged us to explore new frontiers in innovation to help solve agriculture’s most pressing challenges, and this change will open up new possibilities.”

The Institute will seek to add to its existing collaborations with government research organizations, universities and industry, to solve problems and deliver solutions. Additionally, the Noble Research Institute will seek funding and support to complement its own investments in agricultural research and education.

While the organizational transition will help create new opportunities, the Noble Research Institute will continue to embrace the key activities

that have been the cornerstones of the organization’s work for more than seven decades. The Institute will continue to conduct agriculturally focused research, provide education from youth to adult, offer no-cost consultation to regional agricultural producers, and manage demonstration and research farms.

“While there is considerable excitement about the changing structure, the focus areas of our organization and our culture will not change,” Buckner said. “We remain committed to our culture of hard work, innovation and philanthropy. Additionally, but through a separate organization, the new Noble Foundation is committed to fulfilling the philanthropic legacy of Lloyd Noble by awarding scholarships and making charitable grants that advance agriculture, cultivate good health, support education and build stronger communities.”

Moving forward, the new

Noble Foundation will continue to conduct grant-making and scholarship activities.

Grant requests will be submitted, processed and reviewed by the Noble Foundation’s board of directors as they always have.

“This is an exciting time for Noble,” Buckner said. “This evolution places us in an even better position to meet local, national and even global agricultural challenges. We are grateful that our founder had the vision to create this organization and that its board has shared and stewarded such vision. Today, more than ever, we are well-positioned to expand our network of global collaborations and deliver transformational knowledge and outcomes to benefit a hungry world.”

For more information, visit www.noble.org to learn more about the Noble Research Institute’s operations and personnel.

For grant seekers or scholarship applicants, please visit www.noblefoundation.org.

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THE TURKEY TRACK RANCH: First time offering of one of the largest cattle ranches within the state of New Mexico. The historic Turkey Track Ranch, once owned by Cap Mossman, the famous lawman, has been under one family ownership for over 70 years. The ranch is situated in three southeastern New Mexico counties and encompasses over 253,000 acres. The ranch extends from the Pecos River Valley on the ranch’s western bound-ary for over 40 miles to above the “Caprock Escarpment” in Lea County. The acreage includes, 37,000 +/- deeded acres, 167,625 federal BLM lease acres and 48,800 NM State lease acres. The grazing capacity is set by the BLM at over 3,000 AUYL. The ranch is operated from a headquarters located above the Caprock in Lea County and two additional cow camps all complete with living facilities and working pens. The pasture design includes 13 larger pastures and numerous smaller pastures and traps. Livestock water is provided by approximately 30 serviceable wells and miles of buried pipeline. In addition there are numerous large earthen tanks scattered throughout the ranch. The terrain and vegetation is diversified ranging from shinnery oak lowlands to tight grama grass turf.

This is a must see. It could be one of the last opportunities to own a large piece of history. Call for an appointment to come take a look. Price: $18,500,000 cash Scott McNally Bar M Real Estate, LLC P.O. Box 428, Roswell, NM 88202 Office: 575-622-5867 • Cell: 575-420-1237 www.ranchesnm.com

SCOTT MCNALLY www.ranchesnm.com 575/622-5867 575/420-1237 Ranch Sales & Appraisals

Missouri Land Sales NEW LISTING! - 80 ACRES - 60 ACRES HAYABLE, LIVE WATER, LOCATION, LOCATION. Only 8 miles west of Norwood, 3 miles east of Mansfield, 1/4 mile off Hwy 60. Well maintained 3 bed, 1 1/2 bath, 1432 sq. ft. brick/vinyl home, nestled under the trees. Full basement (partially finished), John Deere Room. This is your farm! MLS#60059808 139 Acres - 7 AC stocked lake; hunting retreat. Beautiful 2 BR, 1 BA log cabin. Only 35+ miles northeast of Springfield. MLS# 60031816.

See all my listings at: paulmcgilliard.murney.com

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114 Acres - MLS# 60053027 114 acres m/l 25 miles north of Springfield, live water, spacious 3600 sq ft custom built home state of art dog kennel; 2nd older home, many possibilities, needs updating HOBBY FARM Deluxe 30 acres, 3 bed, 3.5 bath 3100+ sq ft custom built, 1 owner home, Webster Co, Rogersville Schools, 13 miles from Springfield R/V drive through barn, horse barn, large hip roof barn, kennel, & small animal barn, year-round spring-fed creek. This farm has it ALL! MLS# 60043538

For advertising information contact RANDY SUMMERS at 505/243-9515 or by email randy@aaalivestock.com

June 15, 2017

Livestock Market Digest

Page 9

PLF Steps Up to Defend Congressional Review Act

T

he Pacific Legal Foundation has just stepped forward to defend the Congressional Review Act (CRA), the 1996 statute that allows Congress to rein in bureaucracies by voiding harmful regulations.

PLF is the first of two groups to move to intervene against a federal lawsuit by an environmental activist group — the Center for Biological Diversity — which claims, astonishingly, that Congress and the president violate the Constitution when they pass a law that rescinds a bureaucracy’s regulation. With its motion to intervene, PLF has also filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit, arguing that CBD’s challenge has no basis in the Constitution, the Congressional Review Act, or court precedent and should be immediately booted out of court. PLF is the only group in the litigation that has sought a dismissal.

“CBD’s lawsuit seeks to turn the Constitution on its head, placing unelected, unac-

countable bureaucrats above Congress,” said PLF attorney Jonathan Wood. “Under our Constitution, administrative agencies only have power that Congress chooses to delegate to them. Congress is free to limit its delegation of power as it sees fit. What Congress gives, it can take away, or curtail. Using the Congressional Review Act to strike down an agency’s regulatory decrees is an example of that constitutional principle in action.”

Under the CRA, agencies must submit every rule they adopt to Congress for review.

Congress then has a brief time to use expedited procedures to enact a resolution of disapproval and send it to the president for his signature. Congress and President Trump have used the CRA 13 times to void Obama Administration rules. CBD’s lawsuit focuses on the rescinding of a regulation against hunting and trapping of predator species in Alaska’s national ref-

uges — a restriction that interfered with the state’s ability to manage wildlife and outlawed responsible hunting practices, undermining opportunities to responsibly hunt for food or pursue income from guided hunts.

In seeking to intervene in Center for Biological Diversity v. Zinke, in defense of the CRA’s constitutionality, PLF represents itself along with several key hunting organizations and individuals. They include: Alaska Outdoor Council, Big Game Forever, and Alaska Master Guides Kurt Whitehead and Joe Letarte, both of whom also hunt in their personal time.

CRA is fully consistent with the Constitution Schoolhouse Rock has taught generations of children how a bill becomes a law under the Constitution,” said Todd Gaziano, PLF’s DC Director and Senior Fellow in Constitutional Law, as well as the director of

PLF’s Red Tape Rollback project. “CBD could use a refresher.

When a majority of both houses of Congress pass a bill disapproving an agency rule and the president signs it, we call that a law, and this applies as much to legislation passed under the CRA as to any other form of legislation. Laws enacted using the Congressional Review Act’s procedures are fully consistent with the Constitution.”

PLF’s intervention in this litigation reflects its established role as a leading CRA champion.

The Red Tape Rollback project, founded and overseen by PLF, is a multipronged program to educate Congress and the public on dynamic ways to deploy the CRA against regulatory overreach. A significant coalition of think tanks and public interest groups has joined this project, including The Club for Growth, The Heritage Foundation, The Buckeye Institute, Competitive Enterprise Institute, and State Policy Network as Founding

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Ranch Properties now available through Bottari & Associates Realty, Inc Mason Mountain Ranch: 3782 deeded acres plus small BLM permit. Summers up to 300 pair in the past. Recent improvements to stockwatering sources and new set of corrals. Landowner Elk Tag. $1,750,000.

Elko County 566 acre Organic Farm: this farm is located approx. 15 miles South of Wells on the east side of US Hwy 93. There are 249 acres under three pivots, one full and two wipers.

Price: $725,000.

Clover Valley Z Bar Ranch: 598+- deeded acres at the foot of the mountains and on paved state route. Approx. 150 acres with harvest and pasture surface water rights out of several streams. Four (4) homes from 1100 sq.ft to 6,320 sq.ft., 3 shops including 2 heated the larger being 5000 sq ft. Green house and gravity flow water system served by two wells that supplies water with and without power. A truly unique property.

If you’re looking for a family ag property that can be self-sustaining or a corporate retreat this may be the one you’re looking for. Price: $2,400,000.

acres and permits for 285 acres of underground water for irrigation. On paved road. Some improvements Price: $950,000.

Fish Creek Ranch: 2957 deeded acres in Eureka Co. Nevada. This ranch has approx. 2000 water righted acres and is being irrigated with a combination of flood, center pivot, and hand line irrigation. Paved access to the ranch property. Located 20 miles south of Eureka. There are 5 homes plus a bunkhouse, a cook house and an office.

Currently being used for a cow-calf operation at approx. 350 head year. Has potential to increase production. Price: $4,000,000.

Bar O Ranch: Elko County, Nevada. Approx. 500 deeded in Pilot Valley at the foot of Pilot Peak plus summer and winter range on BLM. 3 homes plus other improvements. $1,200,000.

Cove Springs Ranch: White Pine County, Nevada. 2,568 acres with BLM permits adjoining the Ranch out the gate. Rated at 400 head year around. Two homes good water with approx.

1800 acres water righted. Two pivots with good Ruby Valley Ranch: 937 Acres at foot of the Ru- shallow well. Price: $3,500,000. bies with surface water rights for approx. 160+

O’NEILL LAND, llc P.O. Box 145, Cimarron, NM 87714 • 575/376-2341 • Fax: 575/376-2347 land@swranches.com • www.swranches.com

WAGONMOUND RANCH, Mora/Harding Counties, NM. 4,927 +/- deeded acres, 1,336.80 +/- state lease acres, 2,617 +/- Kiowa National Grassland Lease Acres.

8,880.80 +/- Total Acres. Substantial holding with good mix of grazing land and broken country off rim onto Canadian River. Fenced into four main pastures with shipping and headquarter pasture and additional four pastures in the Kiowa lease. Modern well, storage tank and piped water system supplementing existing dirt tanks located on deeded. Located approximately 17 miles east of Wagon Mound on pavement then county road.

Nice headquarters and good access to above rim. Wildlife include antelope, mule deer and some elk. $2,710,000

MAXWELL FARM IMPROVED, Colfax County, NM. 280 +/deeded acres, 160 Class A irrigation shares, 2 center pivots, nice sale barn, 100 hd feedlot. Depredation Elk Tags available.

Owner financing available to qualified buyer. Significantly reduced to $550,000

MIAMI HORSE TRAINING FACILITY, Colfax County, NM. Ideal horse training facility, 4 bedroom 3 bathroom approx. 3,593 sq-ft home, 332.32 +/- deeded acres, 208 shares of irrigation, all the facilities you need to summer your cutting horse operation out of the heat and far enough south to have somewhat mild winters.

Approximately 6,200 ft elevation. $1,790,000

RATON MILLION DOLLAR VIEW, Colfax County, NM. 97.68 +/- deeded acres, 2 parcels, excellent home, big shop, wildlife, a true million dollar view at end of private road. $489,000

MIAMI HORSE HEAVEN, Colfax County, NM. Very private approx. 4,800 sq-ft double walled adobe 4 bedroom, 3 bathroom home with many custom features. 77.50 +/- deeded acres with 77.25 water shares, large 7-stall horse barn, large insulated metal shop with own septic, large hay barn/equipment shed. $1,500,000

MIAMI 80 ACRES, Colfax County, NM. 80 +/- deeded acres, 80 water shares, expansive views, house, shop, roping arena, barns and outbuildings. $485,000 COLD BEER VIEW, Colfax County, NM 83.22 +/- deeded acre, 3,174 sq ft, 5 bedroom, 3 ½ bathrm, 2 car garage home situated on top of the hill with amazing 360 degree views. $485,000

FRENCH TRACT 80, Colfax County, NM irrigated farm with home and good outbuildings, $350,000 MIAMI 20 ACRES, Colfax County, NM. 20 +/- deeded acres, 20 water shares, quality 2,715 sq ft adobe home, barn, grounds and trees. Private setting. This is a must see. $425,000 Reduced to $395,000 COLMOR PLACE, Mora County, NM 354 +/- deeded acres, I25 frontage, house, pens, expansive views. Ocate Creek runs through property. $275,000

505-507-2915 cell 505-838-0095 fax

Partners; and Cause of Action Institute, R Street, Independent Women’s Forum, and Center of the American Experiment as Partners.

“The Congressional Review Act is essential to restoring our elected representatives to their proper role overseeing the administrative state,” Gaziano said. “As the foremost independent advocate for strategic use of the CRA, and as a leading litigator against regulatory abuses by the administrative state in general, PLF brings a unique interest and expertise to this litigation. For this reason, PLF’s intervention is more than appropriate — it is essential.”

The case is Center for Biological Diversity v. Zinke. More information, including PLF’s motion to intervene, PLF’s motion to dismiss the CBD lawsuit, and a blog post is available at: www.pacificlegal.org. PLF’s Red Tape Rollback project is headquartered online at: www. redtaperollback.com.

We invite you to WWW.BUENAVISTA-NM.COM to view descriptions and photos of rural listings.

#5 Plaza PO Box 1903 Socorro, NM 87801 www.socorroplazarealty.com dbrown@socorroplazarealty.com

Shop Building over 4,300 sq. ft. w/ concrete flooring and 8 RV storage bays 12 x 40 ft.

This is a clean property built right w/ I -beam, C purlin and good roll up doors. This can be income producing property, located at 1013 Spruce in Portales, NM. ................. $275,000

1,7OO± HEAD RANCH PRICE REDUCED!

Country Home at 1509 Davis Rd. East of Portales in a small subdivision with coop water, Just off pavement and at end of street 2500 sq ft w/ 3 bdrms 2 bths 2 car attached garage And detached cinder block w/ wood shop building just out back door, fenced yard & horse shed priced at $219,500

2,830± Acres irrigable. 5,285± Acres deeded. 41,000± Acres with seller’s interest in BLM.Owner may be willing to finance buyer OAC, cash or terms.

Make offer! $8,500,000 (Incl. some cattle & equip.) $7,500,000 (No cattle or equip.)

KNIPE LAND COMPANY

Nice 3 bdrm 2 bath brick home in Tucumcari, NM, 1616 S. 6th St ......................... $79,000 3 bdrm 1 bath w/ recent HVAC system, outside city limits of Portales, NM has over 2 acres. Situated on corner lot, could be development property. 309 Spruce ........... $92,500 40 acres vacant land fronts on Hwy 236 just west of Portales, NM - has co-op water and windbreak trees along hwy. Small shed for animals priced at ................................ $45,000

208.345.3163 • www.knipeland.com

TEXAS & OKLA. FARMS & RANCHES • 100 acres, Kaufman County TX, Long County Rd frontage, city water, excellent grass. $3750 per acre.

• 240 acres, Recreation, hunting and fishing. Nice apartment, 25 miles from Dallas Court House. $3250 per acre.

• 270 acre, Mitchell County, Texas ranch. Investors dream; excellent cash flow.

Rock formation being crushed and sold; wind turbans, some minerals. Irrigation water developed, crop & cattle, modest improvements. Just off I-20.

Price reduced to $1.6 Million.

• 40 acre, 2 homes, nice barn, corral, 30 miles out of Dallas. $415,000.

Joe Priest Real Estate

1-800/671-4548

joepriestre.net • joepriestre@earthlink.com

Scott Land co.

Ranch & Farm Real Estate

1301 Front Street, Dimmitt, TX 79027 Ben G. Scott – Broker Krystal M. Nelson – NM Qualifying Broker #15892 800-933-9698 day/eve. www.scottlandcompany.com • www.texascrp.com

BANKRUPTCY COURT SALE - DVR RANCH - Quay/Harding Co., NM – Located on both north & south shores of the Ute Lake reservoir – Logan, NM is a 22,429.44 ac. +/- ranch (10,444.44 deeded – 12,385.5 State Lease) watered not only by wells & pipeline but also the lake itself on both shores. Excellent location on all weather roads & pvmt.

CANYON VIEW RANCH – 1,542 deeded ac. +/- just out of Clayton, NM, beautiful, good country, well watered, volcanic rock mining operation offers addtl. income, on pvmt.

BOX CANYON RANCH – Quay Co., NM – well improved & watered, 2,400 ac. deeded, 80 ac.

State Lease, excellent access from I-40.

LAKE VIEW RANCH – San Miguel Co., NM UTE LAKE SUBDIVISION – beautiful, new 9,135 ac. +/- (6,670 +/- deeded, 320 +/- BLM, custom built home, 5,046 +/- sq. ft. on 3.230 40 +/- State Lease, 2,106 +/- “FREE USE”) ac. +/-, 4 bdrm., 3 ½ bath & an attached two well improved, just off pvmt. on co. road., car garage. two neighboring ranches may be added for BUY THE IMPROVEMENTS – LEASE THE additional acreage!

LAND! Union Co. – 640 ac. +/-, nice home G BAR FARM – Tuc., NM, 194 ac. +/-, well w/landscaped yard w/mature trees, nice shop, improved w/home, barns, pens, 138.6 ac. Arch cattle pens & modern pivot sprinklers.

Hurley conservation district water rights, well EXCELLENT OWNER FINANCING! suited for combination farm/livestock operation!

ABERCROMBIE RANCH – Huerfano Co., CO AIRPORT DRIVE – Tucumcari, NM – Choice – 7,491 ac. +/- of choice grassland watered by 160 ac. +/-, on pvmt. w/beautiful home, roping wells & the Cucharas River, on pvmt. arena, steel pens & 139.5 ac. +/- of water MESA DEL GATO RANCH – 6,423.45 AC. rights. +/- in two tracts of 3,735 ac. & 2,688.45 ac., BIRD HUNTERS HAVEN - Quay Co., NM all deeded, approx. 7 mi. apart offered as one 258 ac. +/-, in easy driving distance of Ute & ranch, broker will assist w/contracts on either or Conchas Lakes, all in native grass w/home, both of the tracts, good country for year-round barns, good fences, well watered, on pvmt. cow/calf operation or summer yearling grazing.

Please view our websites for details on these properties, choice TX, NM & CO ranches (large & small), choice ranches in the high rainfall areas of OK, irr./dryland/CRP & commercial properties. We need your listings on any types of ag properties in TX., NM, OK & CO.

Page 10

Livestock Market Digest

June 15, 2017

EPA Launches New ‘Waters of the U.S.’ Website SOURCE: MILITARY-TECHNOLOGIES.NET

g•u•i•d•e angus

BRANGUS

Bradley 3 Ranch Ltd. www.bradley3ranch.com

Annual Bull Sale: February 10, 2018

at the Ranch NE of Estelline, TX Ranch-Raised ANGUS Bulls for Ranchers Since 1955

M.L. Bradley 806/888-1062 Fax: 806/888-1010 • Cell: 940/585-6471

R.L. Robbs 520/384-3654 4995 Arzberger Rd. Willcox, Arizona 85643 Willcox, AZ

HEREFORD

Registered Polled Herefords Bulls & Heifers

Cañones Route P.O. Abiquiu, N.M. 87510

FOR SALE AT THE FARM

MANUEL SALAZAR P.O. Box 867 Española, N.M. 87532

575/638-5434

RED ANGUS

T

he EPA launched a new website (www.epa.gov/wotus-rule) on May 15, 2017 to provide the public with information about EPA’s review of the definition of “Waters of the U.S.” (WOTUS) as set out in the 2015 “Clean Water Rule.”

The site replaces the website developed for the 2015 rulemaking process.

“EPA is restoring states’ important role in the regulation of water by reviewing WOTUS,” said EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt. “The president has directed us to review this regulation to address the concerns from farmers and local communities that it creates unnecessary burdens and inhibits economic growth.

This website aims to provide the public with information about our actions to meet the president’s directive.”

In the spirit of transparency, the site will provide the public with relevant information explaining the Agency’s actions, along with the Department of the Army and the Army Corps

14298 N. Atkins Rd., Lodi, CA 95240

BEEFMASTER

209/727-3335

Phillips

RED ANGUS

Spring & Yearlings For Sale CECIL FELKINS • 209/274-4338 Email: CWCOWBOY@ATT.NET 5500 BUENA VISTA RD. IONE, CA 95640

CLASSIFIEDS KADDATZ

Auctioneering and Farm Equipment Sales New and used tractors, equipment, and parts. Salvage yard, combines, tractors, hay equipment and all types of equipment parts.

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ter Rule (promulgated in 2015) for consistency with these priorities and to publish for notice and comment a proposed rule rescinding or revising the rule, as appropriate and consistent with the law. Further, the Order directs the agencies to consider interpreting the term “navigable waters,” as defined in the Clean Water Act at 33 U.S.C. 1362(7), in a manner consistent with the opinion of Justice Antonin Scalia in Rapanos v. United States, 547 U.S. 715 (2006). “Waters of the United States” are those waters that are protected under the Clean Water Act. To meet these objectives, the agencies intend to follow an expeditious, two-step process that will provide certainty across the country: 1) an initial rulemaking to rescind the 2015 rule and recodify the regulatory definition that had been in place for decades and is currently being used in light of a nationwide stay of the 2015 rule, and thus maintains the status quo; and 2) a rulemaking to revise the definition of “waters of the United States” consistent with direction in the February 28, 2017 E.O.

Snakes found hunting in packs Scientists aren’t yet sure if this is a unique phenomenon or if it’s something all snakes are capable of.

A SOURCE FOR PROVEN SUPERIOR RED ANGUS GENETICS

of Engineers (the agencies), to review the WOTUS rule, including how the agencies are working with our local, state and tribal partners, to examine our role in the regulation of water under the Clean Water Act. All the pages, information and documentation from the Clean Water Rule site will remain available in the EPA archived site, archive.epa.gov.

EPA is initiating consultation and coordination with stakeholders and the public as the agencies implement the February 28, 2017, Presidential Executive Order on “Restoring the Rule of Law, Federalism, and Economic Growth by reviewing the ‘Waters of the United States’ Rule.”

The February Order states that it is in the national interest to ensure that the Nation’s navigable waters are kept free from pollution, while at the same time promoting economic growth, minimizing regulatory uncertainty, and showing due regard for the roles of Congress and the States under the Constitution. It also directs the agencies to review the existing Clean Wa-

SOURCE: WWW.MNN.COM/ EARTH-MATTERS

S

nakes are most commonly thought of as solitary ambush hunters, and there’s something mildly comforting in that. The only way you’re likely to get attacked by a snake is if you accidentally stumble upon one. The thought of being surrounded by a team of snakes that have been systematically hunting you down doesn’t usually factor in to the average person’s snake fear.

But maybe it should. A new study out of the University of Tennessee has documented a real-life case of coordinated snake pack-hunting, and researchers believe the behavior might be far more common than biologists ever realized, according to a press release.

UT animal psychologist Vladimir Dinets witnessed the

unexpected behavior during a trip to Desembarco del Granma National Park in Cuba, where he was recording how Cuban boas (Chilabothrus angulifer) hunt Jamaican fruit bats in sinkhole caves. These boas are particularly interesting in that they hunt by snatching bats right out of the air as the bats fly in and out of their cave homes. The snakes are more than capable of hunting solo, but Dinets noticed that they also tended to congregate at particular hunting locations. Most curiously, the snakes tended to be more successful with their strikes when hunting in these groups.

So Dinets took a closer look.

After witnessing 16 different hunting events, he noticed that whenever the boas hunted at the same time in the cave, they chose positions in the same area, as if it was a planned, coordinated effort. The snakes’ formations were also highly efficient at covering space, such that they formed a sort of net or funnel that made it easier to grab passing bats.

Could the snakes really be hunting as a team? If so, it would imply that snakes may have a far higher level of behavioral complexity than they have previously been given credit for. Dinets thinks the evidence speaks for itself, and behavior like this might be more common among snakes than we realize.

“It is possible that coordinated hunting is not uncommon among snakes, but it will take a lot of very patient field research to find out,” he said.

Despite the fact that snakes are found throughout the world, only a few of the 3,650 snake species have ever been observed hunting in the wild. So it’s very possible that pack-hunting could have escaped the eye of scientists until now.

We can only hope this isn’t some kind of newly evolved behavior — a precursor to a kind of “Planet of the Snakes” uprising. At the very least, it’s a reminder not to underestimate the mentality of these surprisingly wily reptiles.

June 15, 2017

Livestock Market Digest

Page 11

Obama Team Divulged Harassment Cases, Policy Prospects

BY CORBIN HIAR AND SCOTT STREATER, E&E NEWS REPORTERS

S

hortly before last year’s election, the Obama administration put together an Interior Department briefing book for its successors that detailed a flood of sexual harassment issues, cast doubt on the prospects for Endangered Species Act reform and made the case for imperiled energy regulations.

Department attorneys had received about 120 new matters in the previous few months that “relate to new allegations of harassment, reprisal and/or management abuses,” Karen Richardson, the director of Interior’s Employment and Labor Law Unit, wrote in a Sept. 19, 2016, briefing paper.

Those included new sexual harassment and reprisal cases, requests for training and for advice on disciplinary actions, Freedom of Information Act requests about allegations, investigations related to alleged whistle-blower retaliation, and allegations of Privacy Act violations related to sexual harassment reporting.

Richardson said that her unit’s “existing resources were inadequate to manage and litigate these cases, as well as to undertake efforts necessary to ensure such cases do not recur in the future.” As a result, she said, Interior’s Division of General Law “requested client funding to hire six new experienced employment and labor law attorneys to fill two-year term . . . positions and client funding to hire one additional attorney with experience with” open records and information laws.

It is unclear how the Trump administration responded to that call for additional resources. Interior didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

But it seems unlikely that the divi-

sion received the money or approval necessary to hire new lawyers. Shortly after taking office, President Trump imposed a hiring freeze. While the White House lifted the prohibition last month, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke maintained it for most jobs in Washington, D.C., where most of the department’s lawyers are based (Greenwire, April 21).

Richardson’s briefing on “defense and management of sexual harassment claims and other misconduct” was tucked into the 786-page briefing book E&E News obtained via a FOIA request.

Another notable briefing paper in the book offered a candid assessment of congressional efforts to reform the Endangered Species Act. “The prospects are poor for successful legislative action,” wrote Gary Frazer, the assistant director for endangered species at the Fish and Wildlife Service. That was why the Obama administration focused on administrative reforms of the law, he said in the Sept.

16, 2016, paper.

Frazier also warned the incoming administration that Fish and Wildlife’s endangered species program was likely to face a barrage of lawsuits and budget cuts in the coming years.

Because a settlement agreement that guided which species were considered for the endangered or threatened species lists was poised to end that month, “the Service may soon face an increase in litigation seeking to challenge the priorities and timelines reflected in our new listing work plan for [fiscal 2017] and out years,” he said.

“In addition, both the House and Senate appropriation bills reduced funding for listing activities,” Frazier wrote. “If those reductions carry

through to the final FY17 appropriation, we will have to revise our work plan accordingly and again face increased deadline litigation as a result of the reduced ability to make progress on our existing workload.”

Elsewhere, the sprawling briefing book touted policies intended to address climate change and to prepare for its impact that the Trump administration has already rolled back or begun to reconsider because it believes they may slow energy development.

Over the past four years, several Interior bureaus “finalized rules to improve the management and reduce the impacts of conventional energy development on Federal, Indian, and [outer continental shelf] lands,” Rich Cardinale, the chief of staff for the assistant secretary for land and minerals management, wrote in a Nov. 1, 2016, issue paper. “The success of these rulemaking efforts will hinge on thoughtful and thorough implementation, outreach, and enforcement.”

But the Trump administration has moved to rescind the Bureau of Land Management’s hydraulic fracturing rule and promised to take similar action on its methane waste rule. At least two other oil-and-gas-related Interior regulations remain on the potential chopping block (E&E News PM, May 10).

As part of its energy development push, the Trump administration is also re-evaluating many climate-focused efforts at Interior. That may put a stop to “the process of building organizational capabilities to address climate change” that Joel Clement, the director of the Office of Policy Analysis, highlighted in a Sept. 27, 2016, issue paper on “resilience and climate adaptation.”

“While bureaus have made signif-

icant advancements in their efforts to address climate change, many opportunities remain,” he wrote.

Sage grouse conservation efforts that the Obama administration highlighted are also now in doubt. They amended 98 BLM and Forest Service land-use plans to incorporate sage grouse conservation measures covering nearly 70 million acres of grouse habitat in 10 Western states.

“Implementing the plans will require a multi-decadal effort, requiring sustained staffing and budget and continued active engagement with partners,” Cardinale wrote.

BLM has been working to fully implement the plans, though many have speculated whether the Trump administration would scale them back or seek to overturn them.

Zinke has vowed that changes “are going to come on sage grouse” (E&E News PM, March 28).

An issue paper on grouse conservation written last October by Jim Lyons, Interior’s former deputy assistant secretary for land and minerals management, warned that these plans “are critical” to reversing the decline of the grouse and their sagebrush steppe habitat.

Former FWS Director Dan Ashe also said in a transition section for Fish and Wildlife that the ongoing effort to promote “a healthy sagebrush landscape” is “a national priority for FWS and offers an unprecedented opportunity to conserve the largest ecosystem type in the contiguous U.S., much of which remains relatively intact.”

The transition briefing document, however, states that the requirements “for full implementation of these strategies continue to be reviewed and evaluated.”

Reporter Kevin Bogardus contributed.

Alltech Acquires Montana-Based WestFeeds

S

trengthening its commitment to bringing the latest field-proven technologies to Western U.S. livestock producers and companion animal owners, Alltech has purchased WestFeeds, a leading animal nutrition company in Montana.

WILD HORSES

“WestFeeds has a strong reputation of providing producers with high quality animal nutrition products,” said Michael Castle, COO of Alltech. “We believe there is great benefit for our customers in our teams joining forces for the future.”

With state-of-the-art manufacturing

plants in Billings and Great Falls, as well as outlets in Billings, Dillon, Great Falls, Lewistown and Miles City, Montana, WestFeeds has a demonstrated commitment to local support.

“Our WestFeeds team is embracing the opportunity to join Alltech because

continued from page seven

and there are more captured animals than willing and able adopters. The BLM cannot round them up and humanely euthanize them. Birth control is generally a one-animal-at-atime proposition, time-consuming and expensive.

Yet, it’s difficult to argue that the animals are being treated well, despite the BLM’s best efforts. There are simply too many of them, and real herd control is, at this point, not possible. Changing that would take an act of Congress, and that’s where things get dicey.

Too many Americans see the mythical horse when the discussion begins and recoil at solutions that reduce wild horse herds. But it’s doing wild horses no favor to allow their population to overwhelm the landscape.

we can see very clearly how our companies’ strengths complement one another, to the benefit of our customers,” said Jerry Begger, general manager of WestFeeds.

Begger will continue leading WestFeeds, assisted by ten-year Alltech veteran Kyle Klimpke.

Page 12

Livestock Market Digest

The View FROM THE BACK SIDE

Progress Against the Progressives

BY BARRY DENTON

B

efore we get into this, I hope you all made it over to Tucumcari, New Mexico for their “Rawhide Days” celebration during the first weekend in May. They had a great time there with lots of great music, a cattle drive, a Longhorn photo shoot, a beauty pageant, a blacksmith competition and art auction.

If you missed it put it down to go next year! I know some of you do not like crowds, but if the crowd includes horses, cattle, cowboy music, pretty girls, and the artisanal blacksmiths, how could you go wrong?

Let’s talk about the term progressive which means to go forward. How did the left get that moniker? To me going forward is to give the individual more freedom.

The progressive movement wants to take your freedoms away so we are all the same. I would call that the retardant movement, because it retards progress. Think about it in terms of training a horse. The better your horse works on his own, the more the rider needs to leave him alone.

It looks to me like Washington, DC is all abuzz! President Trump just continues to tick off the Washington establishment and they just do not know how to handle it. They are trying their best to discredit the President, but he just keeps on firing back at them.

The media has to be the funniest victim, as he is always calling them out for reporting “fake news”. They have not figured out that with social media they are not nearly as important as they used to be. It would be nice to

get a half honest media once again, but will that ever happen? If you happen to know any Washington lobbyists, have you talked to them lately? They are mad, too. When they line up at the Congress for their alms, they are not getting half of what they did the last eight years.

Believe me, if our President can drain even half the swamp it will be nothing short of a miracle.

Of course, the man that did an abysmal job of running for President a few years back, Arizona Senator John McCain cannot seem to figure out which party he belongs to.

From his latest actions against Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and the firing of the FBI Director James Comey, I guess he misses the Democrats being in charge. Of course, McCain’s boy, the junior Senator from Arizona, Jeff Flake joined right in there with him. I just cannot figure out how Arizona elected two progressive senators in the Republican Party.

All I can say is, the western ranchers need to thank Environmental Protection Agency Chief Scott Pruitt for rolling back President Obama’s overreaching “Waters of the United States” rule that claimed to even regulate puddles. By rolling this back we have all regained our water rights that we paid for when we purchased the land we live on.

One thing about it, President Obama wanted to make sure the government had complete control over you, your land, and your water. The rule was held up at the Supreme Court, but there is no longer a need for them to even look at it now.

Water is such a vital issue to all ranchers and farmers. The government grabbing your wa-

June 15, 2017 ter rights is criminal in my book.

Someone forgot to remind President Obama that government agencies are not supposed to be activists.

Another large concern to residents of the rural west has to be the 1906 Antiquities Act which allows presidents the right to designate national monuments on federal land without the approval of Congress. In the West this greatly affects us because of the amount of land we need to run cattle on, mine, and for oil leases. These seem to boil down to nothing other than federal land grabs.

In Arizona only 16 percent of the land is owned by private citizens. That means that 84 percent of this state is owned by the federal government. I know other western states are similar.

How preposterous is this?

Why would anyone that resides in Washington, DC know anything about how we should live on this land? It should be left up to the residents that live here. Other than owning a land to place their government facilities on, why would the federal government ever own any other land? It certainly should be left up to the states.

Local control is much more effective than governing from afar. Open your eyes and look at how incapable the United States Forest Service is in taking care of its charges. If you are in love with the work of the EPA, have you looked at the Animas River lately? Also, I just saw a proposed bill that would strip the Bureau of Land Management of policing its lands.

These overreaching government agencies need to be reined in and start leaving hard working people alone, so they can make a living. Many city dwellers think

they are saving the land by having it under federal control, but once again they do not live there.

They can be fed mountains of political misinformation and they will believe it, because they do not see it everyday. Those of us that live here know how it really works.

The good news is that our new Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke has a proven record of supporting President Teddy Roosevelt’s multiple use vision of public lands. Just so I am clear, multiple use meaning economic, recreation, and conservation. He is a fifth generation Montanan and former 23-year US Navy Seal Officer. Zinke is praised for co-authoring the Resilient Federal Forest Act which initiated new reforms to revitalizing timber towns across America. The bottom line is he will help those of us that have to deal with the government trying to run us off of public lands. Secretary Zinke just came on board on March 1st, so give him a little time to get this right.

Don’t think that the fight is over just because we won the White House. Mr. George Soros and his left wing groups are doing everything they can to undermine this administration.

However, since you are a westerner, you are required to fight back every chance you get. I think a great outlook is in our future, but we cannot rest on our victories. We need to get to work and keep the swamp dwellers out of our lives. Our biggest fear should be the Washington establishment which consists of both parties in many cases.

Editor’s Note: The views expressed in this column are not necessarily those of the New Mexico Cattle Growers’ Association or the New Mexico Stockman magazine.

NSIP Launches Certification Program

I

n 1986, the National Sheep Improvement Program, secure in the knowledge that quantitative genetic selection works, began its efforts to collect pedigree and performance data and create a database of Estimated Breeding Values. Other segments of the livestock industry, such as beef and swine, had proven the theory and approach.

Yet, only a small number of early adopter seedstock producers subscribed to the program. Others relied on their own in-house systems of genetic tracking. Others, still, resorted to visual assessment of desired breeding stock.

That changed in 2013 when the Sheep Industry Roadmap identified quantitative genetic selection as a priority and the push to bring the entire industry on board began. With funding from ASI, the American Lamb Board and the Let’s Grow Initiative, NSIP began in earnest to spread its message and method, and producers – both seedstock and commercial - began to see results.

“The main breeds that have used the technology effectively

have made considerable commercially relevant progress,” says NSIP Program Director Rusty Burgett, citing 10 years of data from NSIP-adopting breeds to prove the point.

Over the last decade, the Polypay breed has increased total weight of lambs weaned per ewe by 10 pounds. The Suffolk breed has increased market weight by five pounds, while increasing loin eye area and decreasing fat. The Targhee breed has increased total weight of lamb and wool produced per ewe by 10 pounds, while maintaining wool quality. And the Katahdin breed has increased total weight of lambs weaned per ewe by more than six pounds, while increasing internal parasite resistance.

In addition, a 2016 study conducted in Utah by the Leading Edge Sheep Production Group, proved NSIP-sired lambs weighed an average of 3 lbs. per lamb more at market than those in the non-NSIP control group.

“Enhancing the genetic potential of an animal is the foundation for improvement in productivity,” says Burgett. “We want to help create market demand by improving lamb and wool consistency, quality and quantity.” That includes using terminal sires selected for carcass merit to produce lambs with specific product characteristics like lean meat at an accelerated rate of gain and maternal sires to raise those lambs and shear a premium wool clip.

“It also means improving industry collaboration by aligning seedstock providers with the needs of commercial producers and lamb feeders to assure all lambs entering the production chain have the genetic potential to produce a high-quality product, thus helping all segments achieve a common goal,” he adds.

To facilitate that goal, Burgett

says NSIP is ready for the next step – a certification program that will allow all segments of the industry, up and down the line, to have increased confidence when purchasing feeder and market animals bred based on NSIP Estimated Breeding Values (EBVs).

The Certified NSIP Lamb Sires, Certified NSIP Maternal Sires, and Certified NSIP Fine Wool Sires programs are the result of a needs assessment study conducted by Demeter Communications, also funded by the American Lamb Board. The certification program’s main focus is to improve utilization of EBVs in the commercial sector, and then pass those benefits onto feeders and packers.

“The designation offers commercial producers an additional marketing strategy for their feeder lambs, as well as added confidence when purchasing breeding stock with the ability to increase their productivity,” says Burgett.

This first of its kind initiative for NSIP includes a logo to help continued on page fourteen

June 15, 2017

Livestock Market Digest

Page 13

King Ranch Institute’s Clay Mathis Talks Technology on the Ranch & How to Make Money Using It SOURCE: BEEF BUZZ

Budgets, good and bad, and monuments get their review Budget Flop

R

emember those budget cuts Trump recommended for EPA and Interior? Well you can forget that. The recently negotiated budget deal passed by Congress and signed by Trump does no such thing.

The EPA is funded at 99 percent of last year’s budget. The Park Service got an $81 million increase mostly earmarked for the maintenance backlog. The Fish and Wildlife received an $11 million increase, much of which is earmarked to address their endangered species delisting backlog. And the USGS received a $23 million increase for water and other studies. The BLM received a total budget of $1.2 billion. That’s an increase of $15 million, which includes $9 million for the sage grouse conservation project.

One item of controversy in the BLM budget is the creation of a congressionally chartered foundation for the bureau. ASI, PLC and NCBA have written to the appropriating committees asking they “rethink” this proposal.

“Buried in the hundreds of pages of bill and report language is Section 122 which creates a new, Congressionally-authorized Bureau of Land Management Foundation,” the letter states. “This Foundation was championed by Obama Administration officials like former Sec. Sally Jewell and BLM Director Neil Kornze.

There are several parts of this language that are of great concern. The language creates a new quasi-governmental foundation that has broad authority, and a board of directors that is not overseen by Congress. The BLM Foundation would have the ability to hold real property, including land, water, or interest in land or water, essentially adding to the federal estate.

While funding is to be by private donation, funds to establish an office and meet administrative, project and other expenses are appropriated through the FY 17 appropriations bill. It is simply inappropriate to include authorizing language for a brand new entity in a short-term spending bill.”

Earlier drafts of the bill didn’t include this provision, so it was snuck in at the last minute. Bottom line: A Republican congress has increased the budget for BLM and smoothed the

way for more private money and land acquisitions.

There was a positive in the budget deal. I have written here several times about Michelle Obama’s Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act, which placed such onerous standards on the school lunch program. Those standards included calorie ranges for each age group, sodium limits, zero tolerance for trans fats, and specific ounce amounts for meats and grains. The result? Less meat. The kids revolted and hundreds of school districts dropped out of the program. Finally, and mercifully, Congress is catching up to the countryside. The budget deal ends these regulations.

This whole program goes back to 1946 when it was started after WWII to sop up surplus ag commodities and morphed over time until it became the former First Lady’s personal social engineering party. It was misguided in the beginning and is still wrong today.

The monument’s moment President Trump signed the E.O. mentioned in my last column, requiring a review of all national monuments of over 100,000 acres and designated since 1996. “Today, I am signing a new executive order to end another egregious abuse of federal power, and give that power back to the states and to the people, where it belongs,” said the President.

Trump required that Bears Ears and Grand Staircase Escalante in Utah be reviewed first, and Secretary Zinke has since spent an eventful week touring those two sites.

Beginning with Bears Ears, Zinke met with Utah officials and the Utah Congressional Delegation, followed by meetings with Tribal leaders and local government folks. Having toured Bears Ears by plane and horseback, he then moved on to the Grand Staircase Escalante, which had been created by President Clinton in 1996.

His tour of that unit began in Kanab, where he started the day with a roundtable discussion. Leland Pollock, a County Commissioner and rancher, said prior to the designation of the monument he was able to run 260 head, but for the most recent grazing season he had been cut back to 64 head. Pollock explained the other animal units had been placed in “suspension”, which meant they still

I

t’s not your grandfather’s business anymore.

The beef industry has evolved dramatically from what it was, even just 20 years ago, and it’s likely to continue evolving. Dr. Clay Mathis of the King Ranch Institute for Ranch Management says with all the technology available today, producers are able to breed the highest performing cattle ever to make the best possible product for consumers. He told Radio Oklahoma Ag Network Farm Director Ron Hays, that these new technological capabilities, are a real game changer for the industry.

“A manager’s challenge is, ‘How do I look at all the technologies available that are in front of me; figure out what I can utilize; and have a positive return on investment?’ and implement that,” he said. “That means we’re going to have to spend a lot of time really digging into these technologies when we use them.”

In addition to incorporating the right tech-

showed up on paper in the BLM office. “That,” said Pollock, “is how the federal government is getting rid of the rancher on the monument.”

Later that day, on a hike to the once-proposed Smokey Hollow Mine, Utah Rep. Mike Noel explained that while an employee of the BLM he had overseen a “bulletproof” EIS on the project which, “would have generated 9 billion tons of clean high-quality coal, hundreds of jobs and millions of dollars in revenue.” That all came to a screeching halt when Clinton designated the monument.

The theme that day seemed to be one of optimism. “I’m very excited. I think there’s hope, hope for the people who want change on the monument and who want the boundaries reduced dramatically,” Pollock said. And Zinke said, “I’m an

nologies into your operation, he says it is vitally important to manage all your costs and expenditures as tightly as possible, too. Keep in mind, though, no two ranches are the same and neither are the goals of each individual rancher.

“When you put all those pieces together, that’s where we get the highest efficiency and the most profit,” Mathis concluded. “But there is no silver bullet. There is a different solution for every single ranch, and we can’t forget that.”

Listen to Dr. Mathis talk about understanding the technology available today and how to use it to maximize your profits on the ranch with Farm Director Ron Hays, on Beef Buzz. http://www.oklahomafarm report.com/wire/news/2017/ 04/01930_BeefBuzzClayMathisTechProfit04192017_110142. php#.WPfZekXyvIV The Beef Buzz is a regular feature heard on radio stations around the region on the Radio Oklahoma Network and is a regular audio feature found on this website as well.

optimist and I think there’s enough common ground to move forward. So we’ll gather our thoughts, break out the maps and make a good recommendation to the president.”

Zinke also said something I found very interesting.

“Monuments should never be put in a position to prevent rather than protect…”

I believe this perfectly describes what happened here in southern New Mexico when they went beyond the Organ Mountains. The objective was to prevent certain activities such as land exchanges, rights-of-way for utilities and pipelines, geothermal development, water development, placement of Border Patrol devices, etc., rather than to protect objects. Boundaries were drawn and then the hunt was on for objects to justify those boundaries. Let’s hope

Zinke visits here and makes this observation himself.

Here we go again Just as I was wrapping this up Trump released his budget for FY 2018. Here’s a quick rundown: Interior -$1.6 billion; BLM -$162.7 million; FWS -$202.9 million; Park Service -$296 million. And leading the pack was EPA with a 31 percent cut.

It appears Trump doesn’t give up easily, and neither should we.

Until next time, be a nuisance to the devil and don’t forget to check that cinch.

Frank DuBois was the NM Secretary of Agriculture from 1988 to 2003, is the author of a blog: The Westerner (www.thewesterner. blogspot.com) and is the founder of The DuBois Rodeo Scholarship and The DuBois Western Heritage Foundation

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Livestock Market Digest

June 15, 2017

Victory for Family Farmer in Right to Farm Case SOURCE: BUDD-FALEN LAW FIRM, CHEYENNE WYOMING

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n June 1, 2017, in less than two hours after the parties’ closing arguments following a two-week jury trial, jurors rendered their decision and Edwin Hostetler and Western Slope Layers, LLC won the right to continue their family farming operation on their agricultural property outside Hotchkiss, Colorado.

Even though this indoor, organic, chicken egg-laying operation had every county and state permit imaginable and had passed all environmental and safety inspections, Hostetlers were sued by a neighbor claiming that the dust particulates, mold and other “contaminates” were “physically trespassing” on her hobby farm and had caused her almost $600,000 in lost property value, medical expenses, annoyance and discomfort, and past, present and future bodily injury. A local jury, however, found that none of her claims were true and preserved the property rights of the Hostetlers and Western Slope Layers, LLC. Brandon L. Jensen of the Budd-Falen Law Offices, LLC represented the Hostetlers in this case.

While this case is an important vindication for this Colorado agriculturalist and private property owner, it is still troubling. The case has lingered on against the Hostetlers since 2011. The first suit came

when Delta County, Colorado approved the permit for construction of the Hostetler’s egg laying barn. That Delta County permit included requirements for construction of the facility, air and water testing, and other environmental and health protections required by the County’s regulations. The neighbor sued Delta County for granting the permit; the case ended in 2015 when the Colorado Court of Appeals upheld the County Commissioners’ determination to grant the permit and the Colorado Supreme Court refused to take the case. Budd-Falen Law Offices, LLC represented the Hostetlers in their intervention on the side of the County arguing that the County had properly granted the permit and that terminating the permit would cause irreversible injury to the Hostetler family business.

Unsatisfied with that result, the neighbor persisted by filing a case against the Hostetlers and Western Slope Layers personally for physical trespass by dust, mold and other contaminates. The problem was that the neighbor had absolutely no medical tests to prove that the existence of the enclosed egg-laying facility was causing her any physical problems; all of her medical tests were normal and she had never been hospitalized for asthma.

With regard to the her claims for trespass, expert witnesses for the Hostetlers proved that all “emissions” claimed to be from the Hostetlers’ enclosed

facility were well within normal levels for all agricultural settings and there was no proof that these emissions came from the Hostetler’s barn. Additionally, these emissions even were present on her property during the two year period that the barn was closed and there were no chickens present.

While this case does show that a family farmer can fight and win the right to continue the agriculture use of his property, it does make one wonder.

According to a 2016 Harris Poll, about 3.3% of the American population are vegetarians and 1/2 of those also exclude eating dairy or eggs. Thus, an over-

whelming majority of the U.S. population depends on meat, eggs and dairy for survival.

The problem is that there is a growing number of the population who do not want to live near an agriculture operation-including a self-contained, fully permitted, family-owned, cagefree, organic egg-laying barn (with baskets of flowers hanging from the porch of the facility). Americans enjoy the safest, healthiest, and cheapest food as a percent of consumer expenditures over any other country in the world.

However, a large percentage of Americans do not understand the basic process of

Zinke to Order Review of Sage Grouse Conservation Plans

BY JENNIFER YACHNIN & KELLIE LUNNEY, E&E NEWS REPORTERS

I

nterior Secretary Ryan Zinke announced in early June a review of federal greater sage grouse conservation plans to determine in part if they are hindering energy production on public lands.

Zinke, who has been a vocal critic of the Obama-era sage grouse plans, will sign a secretarial order tomorrow to establish a review panel to look at both federal- and state-level efforts to protect the birds and possibly recommend significant changes to how they are managed.

“While we in the federal government have a responsibility under the Endangered Species Act to take action, we also want to be a good neighbor, a good partner and recognize that a lot of the state agencies and the work that has been done thus far are really the forefront of the efforts,” Zinke said.

He added, “We just want to make sure first and foremost we work hand in hand with the states ... because no party that I know wants the sage grouse to be listed and no party that I know doesn’t want a healthy population of the sage grouse out West.”

But the review will also be conducted with an eye to the earlier Secretarial Order 3349, which aims to increase energy production on public lands.

Officials from three Interior agencies will be asked to identify plan provisions that may need to be adjusted or rescinded based on potential energy extraction and other development on public lands, the agency said in a statement.

“There have been some complaints by some of the governors that their ability to use federal lands — whether it’s from oil and gas, recreation, timber, across the board — that some of the heavy-handedness on habitats don’t allow for some of those uses, and they’ve come up with what they believe [are] innovative plans

and workarounds,” Zinke said.

The Interior and Agriculture departments finalized their greater sage grouse plans in 2015 — covering grouse habitat across 70 million acres in 10 Western states — including amendments and revisions to 98 Bureau of Land Management and Forest Service landuse plans.

The yearslong effort was an attempt by former Interior Secretary Sally Jewell and others to avoid a decision by the Fish and Wildlife Service to list the bird under the Endangered Species Act, a move seen as likely to stifle economic development in the affected states.

But Zinke, who has previously said that he prefers “state-driven solutions” for sage grouse, said the new review will consider “innovative ideas” such as whether captive breeding of the birds would be productive, as well as if the agencies could use alternate metrics for the animals, such as setting population targets by state and using unmanned aerial vehicles to conduct bird counts.

“This is a collaborative effort, the secretarial order does not change or alter existing work that has been done,” Zinke said. He later added: “We’re not going to ask the states to redo their plans but certainly give them the option to include more variables if we deem that appropriate.”

The review team will include officials from BLM, FWS and the U.S. Geological Survey and will focus on what Interior called the “principal threats” to the bird’s habitat, both invasive grasses and wildland fire.

Zinke said the team would be given 60 days to complete its review and then provide him with a summary and recommendations for any action the department should take.

Reopening any aspect of the sage grouse plan is expected to be a yearslong process — depending on public comment periods, reviews and legal challenges — potentially stretching beyond Trump’s first term in office.

NSIP

1-866-838-3647

who grows their food or how it is grown. There is also a percentage of people who simply do not like agricultural production and the families who make it happen. This mind set is the antithesis to the roots of this Country. Whether you are a soccer mom in Denver, a ski instructor in Vail, an accountant in Grand Junction, or a family living on 10 acres with a couple of horses in Golden, we all need to support agriculture.

The Hostetlers were able to persevere and win their case, but in a place where the “Right to Farm” means the right to grow food, these kinds of cases should not even happen.

producers readily identify animals bred with EBVs. “This logo will tell seedstock, market lamb, and wool buyers that these animals were bred with performance in mind,” says Burgett. “It’s a quick, visual credential that helps all segments of the industry know this animal meets the certification quality criteria.”

NSIP’s plan also includes an educational component. In-

continued from page twelve

formation will be presented to commercial producers, followed with heavy educational emphasis to feeders and packers. Burgett says based on previous participation in workshops and training sessions, NSIP plans to reach around 400 commercially oriented producers with the message.

Members of the Fine Wool Consortium and the Leading Edge Production Group will also be trained in program details to

help spread the information to their customers and others throughout the industry.

“Our goal with this, as with all our efforts, is to increase productivity and profitability throughout the sheep industry,” says Burgett. “Reaching that goal starts with using the best genetics possible. This will help producers identify those genetics and utilize them in their operations for maximum results.”

June 15, 2017

Livestock Market Digest

HOME SPUN

by Jim Olson

Going Above And Beyond

I

t had been a long and dusty morning of sorting cattle.

There were four of us “temps” hired to help for the busy season. We got done a little early that morning and decided to have an early lunch while we waited for the boss to return.

After lunch, we still had a little down time. As we lounged around the barn, one ol’ boy named Mike busied himself cleaning up old feed sacks and just tiding up in general.

A couple of the other guys started giving Mike a hard time. Saying he was just cleaning up to make himself look

good in case the boss drove up. Mike replied that it just needed doing, so he was going to do it. One of the guys who accused Mike of looking busy just in case the boss drove up said, “By golly, we’ve worked hard all morning sorting those cattle. I don’t need to look busy just so the boss thinks I’m working when he drives up. If he can’t look in those corrals and see what all we’ve done, without being told or shown, then he’s a bone-head anyway.” It was a feeble excuse to explain his actions of sitting there doing nothing while Mike picked up.

I watched this little exchange with interest. Being only eighteen, I was still very impressionable, and a little rebellious, so I was unsure which side to align myself with. After a little while, one of the guys who had been giving Mike a hard time, gave another little jab. He said, “You know, I’m sitting here earning the same money as you. Ha!” To which Mike replied, “If you never do any more than

you’re paid for, you’ll never be paid for any more than you do.” I later learned it was an old saying, but I thought that over for a moment and was convinced that ‘ol Mike was a sure enough wise one. A genuine cowboy philosopher.

After thinking for a minute, I decided to jump up and help out. While the two of us worked hard, cleaning up that dusty barn, those other fellows sat there on their duffs, giving us a hard time. Before long, we heard a pickup arrive. All of a sudden, those two guys jumped up and acted like they had been cleaning right along with us.

When the boss walked in, he looked around and commented that the barn sure looked great. One of the guys who had sat there giving us a bad time piped up and said, “Thanks.

It just looked like it needed doing.” What a counterfeit, I thought, but didn’t say a thing.

Neither did Mike. Then we all went out to the corrals.

While looking over the cattle, I became more upset

Page 15

by the minute. I told myself it wasn’t fair that the whole barn cleaning idea belonged to Mike and that he’d done most of the work. Then this other guy stepped right up to claim credit. It just wasn’t right!

After a bit, the boss was getting ready to leave. I had a chance to pull him aside for a moment without being too conspicuous. I told him, “You know Sir, cleaning that barn while we waited was all Mike’s idea and he did most of the work.” I figured that was the right thing to do without stepping over the line and becoming a tattle-tale against my fellow cowboys.

The boss grinned and said, “I figure as much.” I was puzzled and asked how so? He explained, “Those two over there are lazy and suck-ups.

While they do their jobs just fine, they wouldn’t have the initiative to go above and beyond what’s expected of them.

You—you’re too young and inexperienced to be a leader, so I figure it wasn’t your idea.

And I know ‘ol Mike, he’s the

kind of guy who knows you’ve got to chop wood before you can have a fire. Watch his work ethic when you’re around him.

It’ll do you good.”

At the end of the season, when extra help was no longer needed, Mike was kept on too fill an open position—the rest of us were let go. Later on, I heard Mike was promoted to boss and wound up overseeing a large cattle operation for a big-time operator. Those other two guys, well I heard they are still working for, basically what amounts to minimum wage. They spent their whole lives complaining about management and never doing any more that what was expected of them. And their paychecks still reflect it to this day.

Me. I’ll always remember that day. It was the day it finally sunk in, what several successful old-timers had told me along the way. The day I saw advice meet application. The fact that if you want to succeed, if you want to earn more, you have to go above and beyond what is expected.

Adaptive Management: Plan for drought while it’s still raining

BY TROY SMITH, FIELD EDITOR / ANGUS JOURNAL

A

ccording to conventional wisdom, managers of grazing lands should err on the side of conservatism. Many also find comfort in applying some kind of formula for determining stocking rate. Range Scientist Justin Derner thinks that’s why so many managers stock their ranges and pastures according to what he calls a “traditional” method.

“They want to use a moderate stocking rate — the old take half, leave half approach. So they plan to use 50% of their average annual forage production, and that works about a third of the time,” explains the Cheyenne, Wyo., based researcher for the USDA Agricultural Research Service (ARS).

According to Derner, the problem with always stocking grazing lands on the basis of average forage production is that so few years actually match the average. When growing conditions are most favorable — plenty of timely precipitation — forage production is higher. When rainfall amounts are low or are not timely, forage production will be less than average. Few people complain about abundance, but a drought-induced scarcity of forage can force a manager to make hard decisions.

Be proactive Derner says managers may then respond reactively by trying to rent extra pasture. It’s often hard to find and costly, too. The same may apply to hay purchased as supplemental feed. So, for some outfits, it may come down to selling off part of the herd. A drought-driven sale of cows may then result in a loss

of hard-won genetic improvement at a time when market prices are at a low ebb.

A USDA ARS survey conducted after the droughty summer of 2012 suggested that only 60% of Wyoming ranchers had drought-management plans for their operations. Derner suspects the numbers may be similar or worse in other states.

He encourages all managers of grazing operations to be more proactive.

“Let’s make drought the default management plan,” urges Derner, suggesting that a conservative approach can be enhanced by applying grazing management systems that allow for pasture rest, and by applying flexible stocking rates.

“We have to be adaptive managers and use flexible stocking rates to help match animal forage demand with fluctuating forage availability,” Derner adds.

An example of applying conservative stocking to an entire ranch property might include resting some portion of the total acreage during the growing season, such that ungrazed forage is stockpiled or forage-banked.

This leaves a forage supply as “insurance” and, long-term, this practice can increase diversity of plant communities, encourage development of plant root systems and improve drought resistance of the forage resource.

Setting stocking rates based on expected forage supply during dry or drought years may also increase resilience of the plantsoil community and will reduce the chance of having to sell cows during periods of unfavorable prices.

Producers can lend added diversity to their operations and increase management flexibility by utilizing forage resources

with more than one cattle enterprise, such as managing yearlings in addition to a breeding herd. A portion, perhaps a majority, of the grazing land can be devoted to the cow-calf enterprise with the remainder used to graze yearlings. Numbers of yearlings can fluctuate from year to year depending on expected forage availability. More yearlings could be managed during years of above-average precipitation and “extra” forage, and fewer yearlings would be grazed when a scarcity of rain limited forage production.

If worsening drought prompted destocking, yearlings could be marketed early, avoiding forced reduction of cow numbers.

Derner cites New Mexico State University research showing the potential for dou-

bling the long-term economic returns to a grazing operation, when flexible stocking rates are achieved with yearlings in addition to a cow-calf enterprise.

Nimbleness and economic benefits might also be gained by using part of a ranch’s forage resources for a custom-grazing enterprise involving cow-calf pairs or yearlings owned by others.

Numbers of outside cattle accepted could be adjusted from year to year according to fluctuations in forage production.

Prediction tools To better estimate what forage production will be, Derner recommends that producers take advantage of the available technology, including seasonal precipitation and temperature forecasts. The U.S. Drought

Monitor, released weekly, reports the geographic range of abnormally dry to extreme and exceptional drought conditions.

Monthly and seasonal drought outlooks offer probabilities for persistence or improvement of existing drought, as well as the likelihood of drought development in different areas. Additionally, the National Weather Service Climate Prediction Center provides one-month and three-month precipitation and temperature probability outlooks for climate regions.

“Let’s make drought the default management plan,” urges Justin Derner, suggesting that a conservative approach can be enhanced by applying grazing continued on page sixteen

Page 16

Livestock Market Digest

June 15, 2017

July Animal Disease Traceability System Stakeholder Meetings Announced

T

he USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS), in collaboration with local state animal health officials, is hosting two additional meetings regarding the Animal Disease Traceability (ADT) system with the primary focus of traceability in the cattle and bison sectors.

The initial ADT framework contained basic traceability components and was supported by the January 2013 regulation, “Traceability for Livestock Moving Interstate.”

APHIS and state officials will

provide information on what has been accomplished, as well traceability gaps or shortfalls.

The purpose of the meetings is to hear from the industry on their experiences with ADT: What areas are working well?

What aspects are challenging, confusing, or problematic? How can these obstacles can be rectified? In addition APHIS would like to obtain stakeholder views on the longer-term issues; in particular, what is the level of traceability that should be considered if we are to move beyond the basic

traceability framework.

The upcoming meetings will be held on July 18 and 20, 2017, from 8 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. (local time). The public meetings will be held in the following locations: • July 18: Embassy Suites Omaha Downtown, 555 South 10th Street, Omaha, Nebraska.

• July 20: Dallas/Fort Worth Marriott Hotel & Golf Club at Champions Circle, 3300 Championship Parkway, Fort Worth, Texas.

If you plan to attend a meet-

ing, we ask that you register in advance by visiting http://www. aphis.usda.gov/animal-health/ adt-meeting-registrations.

Same-day registration will also be available at each meeting site. We will accept written statements regarding the ADT system until July 31, 2017. You may also submit written statements using one of the following methods: Federal eRulemaking Portal: Go to www.regulations.gov/#!docketDetail;D=APHIS-2017-0016.

Postal Mail/Commer-

cial Delivery: Send your comment to Docket No. APHIS-2017-0016, Regulatory Analysis and Development, PPD, APHIS, Station 3A-03.8, 4700 River Road Unit 118, Riverdale, MD 20737-1238.

For more information you may contact Dr. Sunny Geiser-Novotny, Cattle Health Staff/ADT Veterinarian, Surveillance, Preparedness, and Response Services, VS, APHIS, 2150 Centre Avenue, Building B, Mailstop 3E13, Room 3E97, Fort Collins, CO 80526, (970) 494-7372.

MANAGEMENT continued from page fifteen

management systems that allow for pasture rest, and by applying flexible stocking rates.

An additional tool for estimating forage production is expected to become available soon. Derner says that, for many years, satellite-borne remote sensing technology has been used to measure photosynthetically active radiation (sunlight) absorbed by plant vegetation. Scientists used the data to establish the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) as an indicator of growing conditions relative to “normal” in a particular region, at a given time of year.

According to Derner, evidence suggests that early growing season NDVI in a particular climate region can be used to predict forage production. Efforts are under way to develop this technology for making forage production estimates at the county level.

Even with the application of technology, weather prediction is uncertain. Conditions can change rapidly and vary widely within a region. Due to localized variability of precipitation, Derner urges producers to maintain their own records, tracking precipitation received throughout the year. He notes that soil moisture at the end of the growing season significantly impacts the next year’s forage production.

“In most areas, of course, it is spring precipitation that is really important, and 25 percent fluctuations in precipitation can have huge impacts. If we don’t have favorable conditions for forage production at the start of the growing season, we need to make the decision to adjust stocking rates,” Derner adds.

Managing grazing lands involves science, but Derner believes it also requires art. Combining science, economics and consideration of alternative practices to make proactive decisions, that’s the art of adaptive management.

Editor’s Note: Troy Smith is a cattleman and freelance writer from Sargent, Neb. Justin Derner presented at the Society for Range Management Nebraska Section meeting in October 2016.