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Livestock and the Public Lands
Livestock and the Public Lands
BY N. KEITH ROBERTS AND B. DEL WORTH GARDNER
Nature's precarious balance in the high arid country that is today's Utah went relatively undisturbed until 1847. Prior to then, Indians had been the only residents in the area. And the Indians tried to blend with nature rather than to change her.
The Mormon pioneers, however, looked upon the land with a far different perspective. They thought in terms of security and permanence, and this necessitated irrigation systems and herds of cattle and sheep. By the mid-1880's, all of the accessible range areas of Utah were being grazed by domestic stock. The increasingly heavy and uncontrolled usage was soon visibly exhausting nature's capacity to rejuvenate herself each year.
The need for some sort of regulation of the use of the public range soon became evident. Each rancher knew that every blade of grass his stock did not harvest would be taken by some other rancher's animals. With free and unrestricted access of the range to everybody, the resulting competition inevitably produced range destruction. Thus, farsighted individuals, both ranchers and non-ranchers, turned to the federal government as the only agency powerful enough to exercise control over this rich and widely used resource. Governmental agencies became increasingly involved and the elements of today's public land policy began to take shape.
HISTORICAL CHANGES IN PUBLIC LAND POLICY
Originally, governmental land policy in the United States was concerned primarily with the disposal of land. Thus, the federal government gave land to states and private agencies to encourage expansion of transportation and communication facilities, broadening of educational opportunities, and attainment of other socially desirable goals. As with other states, Utah benefited from railroad grants, school grants, and grants to other state institutions when she attained statehood in 1896.
The key law which influenced all subsequent settlement was the Homestead Act of 1862, signed by Abraham Lincoln. This act permitted settlement of 160 acres by anyone who would reside there and cultivate the land for five years. More than a half-century later, in 1916, a stock raising homestead law permitted settlement of 640 acres and eliminated the 1862 cultivation requirement. In 1934, the Taylor Grazing Act forbade settlement of public land in advance of classification by the United States Department of Interior.
The problem was that the acreages permitted under these laws were too small to sustain private farming enterprises in the range areas. The demand for homestead on range lands was pretty well limited to ranchminded individuals who were interested in using the surface resources of these lands for grazing. Thus, it was largely livestockmen who homesteaded the livable areas of the West, including Utah, and established a ranching system that necessarily combined public and private land resources. This system is still predominant. During the winter a rancher grazes his stock on publicly-owned desert range, or feeds the animals on his home ranch. He shifts them to the publicly-owned forest lands when these become accessible in the summer.
In recent years population pressures and changing philosophies have shifted the emphasis of government policy from one of land disposal to one of land management. Improved transportation facilities, rising personal incomes, and more abundant leisure time all have whetted the popular interest in the public lands. Public agencies have been asked to assume more and broader based management responsibilities.
The development of this concept came slowly. The first national park (Yellowstone) was not established until 1872; the Forest Service was created in 1905; the Migratory Bird Conservation Act of 1928 provided for lands to be used as bird refuges; and in 1934, the Taylor Grazing Act provided for governmental management functions to be associated with public range lands. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) in the Department of the Interior traces its origin to provisions of that act.
LAND OWNERSHIP IN UTAH
Before describing the evolution of the policies of the BLM and the Forest Service in Utah, it might be useful to note Utah's present pattern of land ownership. This pattern effectively emphasizes why the policies of these two agencies are so important to all of Utah's citizens.
As can be seen in Table 1, in 1961 the federal government controlled about 73 per cent of Utah's land area of 52.7 million acres. Almost half the total land area in the state was administered by the BLM that year. The state-owned lands, which also support considerable livestock grazing, are generally scattered throughout the BLM lands and are administered to a large extent by the federal government. Lands held by the other governmental agencies, except the Forest Service, are used for special purposes and trusts, and relatively small amounts of grazing are permitted. Obviously, then, the range livestock industries in Utah have been and are vitally concerned with the policies of two federal agencies — the Bureau of Land Management and the United States Forest Service. Because the lands administered by these agencies also supply such things as water and recreation, the rest of Utah's citizens and other people throughout the nation are becoming increasingly concerned with their usage.
TABLE 1 LAND OWNERSHIP STATUS, UTAH, 1961*
THE UNITED STATES FOREST SERVICE IN UTAH
Not until March 3, 1891, did Congress give the President of theUnited States power to establish forest reserves from land taken from the public domain. Less than a month later, on March 30 of that year, President Benjamin Harrison created the first reserve, the Yellowstone Timberland Reserve, an area of 1,239,040 acres in Wyoming. Over the next few years seven Utah forest reserves were set aside. These are listed in Table 2. Approximately 8 million acres are presently included in these national forests in the State of Utah.
An act of Congress in June 1897, officially gave the federal government the legal authority to administer grazing. Soon after that, Forest Reserve lands previously claimed by individual ranchers were available for grazing only to those who qualified for government issued permits. Permits were allotted on the basis of prior use of forest lands, ownership of commensurate property, and the need for forage to satisfy the feed requirements of a sound ranching program. These permits became a valuable asset, and forest permits in Utah came to have a market value of $20.00 to $25.00 per animal unit month (AUM).
Fees have been charged for this grazing since about 1906, when fees ranged from 35 to 50 cents per head for cattle and 5 to 8 cents per head for sheep for a season's grazing each year. Following a study in 1927, fees were set at 14.5 cents per animal unit month for cattle and 4.5 cents per animal unit month for sheep. After 1933 grazing fees varied with livestock prices. In 1962 fees in Utah averaged 60 cents per animal unit month.
In order to facilitate and simplify the administration of grazing in the national forests, Congress approved the Granger-Thye Act in 1950. This provided for the election of local advisory boards and defined a framework which these boards could operate. Range improvements were also authorized, and a 10-year duration was established for grazing permits.
In bringing forest lands under protection and management, government officials sought to bring the depleted range back to its pristine productivity by gradually reducing the number of cattle and sheep that were permitted to graze. There was an increase in the number of cattle and sheep grazed during World War I. In 1924, 150,642 cattle and 749,825 sheep (equaling 300,607 animal units) grazed Utah's forests. Throughout the twenties, cattle numbers were rather sharply reduced while sheep numbers increased and reached a peak in 1930. By that year cattle numbers had dropped to 119,946 while sheep numbers had increased to 797,722.
Since 1930 both cattle and sheep numbers allowed to graze the forests have been constantly reduced, with sheep being cut back even more sharply than cattle. In 1940, for example, permitted cattle numbers fell to 118,192 and sheep to 713,331. In 1950 the respective figures were 119,- 380 cattle and 545,662 sheep. In 1963 cattle grazing national forests numbered 105,580 head while sheep equaled 397,547 head. In terms of animal units, the 1963 total was only 62 per cent of the 1924 total.
Grazing on the national forests has been decreased even more than these reductions in sheep and cattle numbers suggest. The reason is that the length of the grazing season has also been varied. In 1923, for example, the length of the grazing season in the country as a whole was 5.36 months; in 1933, it was 4.92 months; in 1943, 4.64 months; in 1953, 4.34 months; and in 1960, 4.22 months. Although data for Utah are not as complete, the average grazing period for cattle in the state in 1940 was 5.08 months; in 1950, 4.48 months; and in 1960, 4.07 months. For sheep in Utah the corresponding figures are 3.25 months in 1940; 2.98 months in 1950; and 2.82 months in 1960.
These sizeable grazing reductions on the national forests seem to rest primarily on two basic policy decisions. The first involved an attempt to correct the depletion of the forage resources that had resulted from unregulated, excessive grazing. The second involved recognition of the large increases in the uses that compete with livestock grazing for access to these lands.
FORAGE DEPLETION
One of the most interesting sources of evidence for widespread range depletion in Utah around the turn of the century comes from the diary of Albert F. Potter. Potter made an extensive survey of the forest lands in Utah and recorded careful daily observations relative to grazing practices and the general condition of forage and timber resources. He comments on badly depleted ranges in all areas of the state which he visited. The following is an example recorded on August 7, 1902, in the Hobble Creek Daniel's Canyon area in Utah County.
An extensive study of range condition by the United States Department of Agriculture (published in 1936 under the title of The Western Range) provides another valuable source of historical data. Both public and private ranges are evaluated in the report. With respect to forest grazing throughout the United States, the report includes the following observation : "On the national forests a reduction in stocking averaging 6.5 percent is necessary to reach the present grazing capacity of the range." If the recommended 6.5 per cent reduction is accepted as accurate, forest ranges are hardly overstocked at the present time, since reductions of about 35 per cent have actually been made.
Of about 80 million acres of grazed forest lands, the report indicated that about 33 per cent was still being depleted, suggesting that depletion had been arrested or reversed on 67 per cent. The USD A report further stated that public domain and private grazing lands were in much worse shape than forest land. It would seem, therefore, that 30 years of Forest Service management had considerably improved the productivity of the forested mountain ranges over the rather serious state of depletion that existed in 1905. While the report admittedly was concerned with the national picture, the observations were also applicable to Utah.
RECREATIONAL USE
As early as 1899, Congress passed an act providing for recreational use of forest reserves. In 1908, three years after the Forest Service had been created, six district offices came into being as a way to bring the administration of field work closer to the forests. The six included the Intermountain district office, which was established at Ogden. In more recent years there has been a truly phenomenal rate of increase in the various outdoor recreational activities taking place on forest lands. This has been due to the population explosion; the greater mobility of that population because of better transportation; higher incomes and more leisure time; and a general burgeoning of the tastes and preferences of the public for outdoor recreation.
For example, hunting on Utah's forests has increased markedly since World War II. It has been estimated that 5,650 big game hunters were in Utah in 1925. By 1940 this number had increased to 60,000; by 1950 to over 93,000; and in 1962 to over 163,000. One interesting facet of the hunting picture is that the proportion of hunters bagging a deer has not diminished over time, implying increased numbers of big game animals. Numbers of fishermen have increased at a rate somewhat comparable to that quoted for hunters.
According to the Forest Service records 1,318,000 visits were made to national forests in Utah in 1945. These records note people visiting the national forests for camping, picnicing, winter sports, and for other miscellaneous activities wherever a stop is made for some specific recreational purpose. In 1950, 2,975,000 visits were recorded; in 1955, 3,918,000 visits; and in 1960, 6,233,000 visits. The most recent estimates indicate that 8,881,000 visits were made to the nine national forests with land in Utah in 1963. Obviously our forest recreational resources are subject to great pressures.
Consistent with this important use, the Forest Service, in 1957, started Operation Outdoors, a five-year program to improve and expand recreational facilities in the national forests. The Multiple Use Sustained Yield Act, signed June 12, 1960, by President Eisenhower, is the most recent pertinent legislation. This act declares that national forest areas are to be used for outdoor recreation, range, timber, watershed, and wildlife and fishing purposes.
The difficulty is that the recreational uses of public lands often conflict with livestock grazing. Livestock and game animals compete for forage under some circumstances. In addition, many recreationists do not enjoy being thrown into contact with range cattle, and range stock often diminish the attractiveness of camping and picnic sites. It seems inevitable that the Forest Service will be subject to steadily increasing pressure to divert larger quantities of forest resources from grazing to recreation. How these pressures are met will obviously affect a far broader segment of society than just the livestock industry.
THE BUREAU OF LAND MANAGEMENT IN UTAH
The Bureau of Land Management was established as an entity in the Department of Interior on July 16, 1946. It consolidated the functions of the General Land Office, which had been created by an Act of Congress in 1812, and of the Division of Grazing (renamed the Grazing Service in 1939), which had been established in 1934 with passage of the Taylor Grazing Act.
The intent of the Taylor Grazing Act was to: 1) stop the degradation of public grazing lands through improper usage, 2) stabilize the range livestock industries, 3) classify lands in order to assure proper use, 4) facilitate land transfers between federal and state governments, 5) establish grazing districts and permits to graze, and 6) facilitate the charging of a "reasonable" fee for use of grazing lands.
Although the act recognized as legitimate public land uses other than grazing, ranching was considered the dominant use. The framers of the act were primarily concerned with establishing an orderly and conservative use by livestock operators. Today's problems in the ranching communities of Utah, relative to BLM lands, result from three factors: the long period of uncontrolled usage of range resources prior to 1934, the public private land relationships imposed by the Taylor Grazing Act, and the increased demand that uses other than grazing be made of these public resources.
Even before the Taylor Grazing Act was passed, livestockmen in Utah clamored for the creation of grazing districts. Following passage of the act, hearings were to be held in each area of the country in which a petition for a district was submitted. During these hearings producers were to elect men to represent them. In 1939 advisory councils were established on national and state-wide bases.
On October 22, 1934, a hearing was held in Salt Lake City concerning the establishment of the proposed West-Central Utah Grazing District. About 300 cattle and sheep producers met at that time with Division of Grazing personnel. The chief grazier, whose office was in Salt Lake City, reported the following to the secretary of the interior: "This was the most enthusiastic and unanimous meeting we have held. The Utah people wanted to debate it very thoroughly but once ready to act, they acted quickly and in a body." Comparable hearings were ordered for Price, Vernal, Brigham City, and other towns in Utah. The Utah hearings and others held throughout the West made it apparent that considerable confusion existed as to how grazing districts and their boundaries were to be developed and defined. The Division of Grazing suggested that the Geological Survey classify the grazing lands and recommend administratively feasible district boundaries.
About 200 livestock producer representatives attended the December 19 hearing in Salt Lake City. The Division of Grazing recommended eight districts for the State of Utah. After considerable discussion, the suggestion was accepted unanimously by the delegation of producers. These Salt Lake hearings superseded decisions made previously on individual and association applications for establishment of grazing districts.
Upon a recommendation of the secretary of the interior, executive orders were then issued for the creation of eight grazing districts in the State of Utah (Table 3). In April, May, and June of 1935, districts were established. Permits were issued so that the restrictions imposed upon grazing by the Taylor Grazing Act became effective in Utah on October 2, 1935. District offices were set up in 1937.
Almost immediately, the secretary of the interior was petitioned for changes in district boundaries. Some requests for boundary changes were made because certain ranchers found themselves required to graze their stock in two districts. State lines generally delineated grazing district boundaries, and in some cases ranchers were involved in districts in two states. Other petitions were made because certain ranges were hard to administer from the assigned district office, or because range-use conflicts existed between users.
The advisory council system played an important part in arbitrating disputes between districts and between ranchers and in settling overlapping claims. Some districts were later split and districts 9,10, and 11 were created. These rearrangements resulted in better range management and also reduced the friction between livestock producers.
TABLE 3 THE ESTABLISHMENT OF GRAZING DISTRICTS IN UTAH*
Immediately after the Taylor Grazing Act was passed, permitted usage was often established by the number of animals a man had to graze rather than by the carrying capacity of the range. Readjudication has continued through the years in an attempt to bring livestock usage into line with appraised range potential productivity.
The Taylor Grazing Act specified that ranchers, to be eligible for permits to graze the public domain, had to have enough privately-owned land to produce the amounts of feed required during the seasons that livestock were not permitted on public lands. This and other requirements effectively linked BLM permits to graze public range to private property. Over time, the public grazing permits inevitably took on value to the rancher over and above the cost of the forage. For instance, in Utah today, BLM permits sell for $8.00 to $12.00 per animal unit month. This means that ranchers have considerable capital invested in permits. Today's ranchers actually go to considerable lengths to protect their allotted AUM's regardless of whether they use all of them over a long period of time. Animals are often removed from a range before the required date if the rancher decides that the forage has been sufficiently grazed. Also, especially in drought years, ranchers voluntarily put fewer animals on the range than their permits stipulate.
The Taylor Grazing Act specified that the secretary of interior should charge "reasonable" fees for the use of public lands by ranchers. The first fee was set in 1938 at 5 cents per animal unit month. This fee was increased to 8 cents per animal unit month in 1947. In 1958 a formula was established whereby the past year average price for lambs plus the past year average price for beef was divided by two. The formula-calculated fee in 1962 was about 19 cents per animal unit month. In 1963 the fee was 30 cents per AUM, with about half of the money earmarked for range improvement practices.
RECENT TRENDS
In recent years the BLM has been increasingly concerned with other than just custodial objectives. Range improvement activities have been receiving greater emphasis. Reseeding projects, water development, erosion control, and other measures have been introduced on a cooperative basis with the ranchers concerned. In many cases these undertakings have improved the long run forage productivity of the ranges and increased their carrying capacity.
Cattle numbers in the state have grown through the years and give every sign of continuing to do so. This has occurred in the face of more and more stringent limitations on permitted animal unit months on public lands. For example, animal unit months of grazing by cattle on BLM lands declined from 1,005,223 in 1939 to 829,174 in 1961 —an 18 percent drop.
By contrast with cattle, sheep numbers in the state have been steadily decreasing. Animal unit months of grazing by sheep on BLM lands declined from 2,051,490 in 1939 to 927,925 in 1961, a 55 per cent drop. The decreases in numbers of sheep have been influenced not only by limitations in access to public range but also by other economic pressures.
It is significant that most of the decrease in animal unit months of grazing by cattle and sheep has been accomplished by limiting the number of animals rather than grazing time. Grazing time for cattle has fluctuated between 4.5 and 5.5 months a year and was about the same in both 1939 and in 1960 — 4.9 months. For sheep, grazing time has varied from nearly 4.0 to almost 5.0 months a year, but no consistent trend either up or down has been evident.
How can the ostensible paradox of increasing cattle numbers and decreasing animal unit months on the public range be explained?
For one thing, the number of permitted AUM's has never been an accurate gauge of actual animal numbers. In fact, the permitted AUM's on the public ranges, especially those managed by the BLM, have often exceeded the ranchers' use. For example, the director of the Utah BLM office once estimated that permitted AUM's in Utah in 1960 were approximately 15 per cent greater than actual usage.
Another explanatory note is that the ranchers have been utilizing intensive land management practices on their base property holdings. As a result they have substantially increased the carrying capacities of these lands and have been able to shift their livestock from public to private lands.
These recent trends, although manifestly inconsistent, do seem indicative of the general tendency to foster wider use of public lands by interests other than the livestock industry.
TOWARD TOMORROW
Utah's pattern of land ownership has decreed that not only her history and present, but also her foreseeable future must be tightly tied to the public land management philosophies of two federal agencies — the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management. In the past the policies of these agencies have been of prime concern only to relatively small, rather specialized groups both in the state and in the nation. Recently, however, the BLM and the Forest Service have found it increasingly necessary to heed the insistent voices of an ever widening cross section of citizens. Most of these citizens have been particularly interested in promoting recreation-oriented uses of the public lands. The possible uses they cite may or may not be competitive with grazing in given instances.
As a result of such public pressures, both the BLM and the Forest Service have been adjusting their land management policies to more adequately reflect the nation's changing system of value judgments. One procedure they have used has been to cut livestock AUM's while allowing big game AUM's to increase.
In addition, livestockmen as well as agency personnel have recognized that no one segment of our economy, regardless of historical precedence, can monopolize the potentially varied productivity of the nation's public lands. To implement this realization, the advisory councils of the Forest Service and the BLM have been increased in membership. Representatives from the diverse interested groups in our society have been included in the councils at the national, state, and local levels.
The foundations are in place — a transition is in process — tomorrow's style of living is in the balance.
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