A BLM (U.S. Bureau of Land Management) decision to allow livestock grazing to grow up to three times in the Owyhee Country of southwest Idaho has been blocked for now by a Dept. of Interior judge. Dickshooter Cattle Company, owned by J.R. Simplot an Idaho-based agricultural conglomerate, asked to increase cattle grazing by up to 300 per cent in an area the BLM itself said was “some of the best sage grouse habitat in southwestern Idaho.”
The BLM decision was on public land in the Owyhee that currently is failing Idaho rangeland health standards for water quality and sensitive species. Despite this, Dickshooter Cattle Co. requested and BLM granted, a permit to increase grazing up to nearly three times the previous actual livestock use of the allotment. The judge ordered interim protection to priority sage grouse habitat and the rare and easily disturbed wildflower, Bach’s calicoflower.
“J.R. Simplot is embarking on a hostile takeover of public lands to convert them to industrial-scale beef production,” said Patrick Kelly, Idaho Director for Western Watersheds Project which brought the appeal. “This ruling recognizes the fragile and irreplaceable ecological values found in the wild Owyhee country, and also holds the agency accountable for not following its obligations under the law to protect public lands – including sage grouse and rare wildflowers – from degradation at the hands of corporate agriculture conglomerates like J.R. Simplot.”
It should be added that livestock produce 14.5 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions. By far the largest share of these gases come from cattle.
According to a news release from Western Watersheds Project, “The judge issued a strong rebuke to the BLM for what she called several ‘eyebrow raising’ features of the agency’s decision, and highlighted the ‘imprecise, untested, and unanalyzed nature’ of BLM’s plan to prevent the ecological damage that will result from such a drastic increase in grazing pressure. Citing the likely extirpation of one population of the rare Bach’s calicoflower, as well as a ‘direct negative impact’ to sage grouse, the judge ruled that the ‘risk of immediate harm’ to resources in the area ‘from which it may never recover’ warrants a stay of BLM’s decision.”
“[An] appeal is wending its way through the Office of Hearings and Appeals, an administrative law court within the Department of Interior, and was brought by Western Watersheds Project and Wilderness Watch. A second appeal challenging the same decision was brought by Wildlands Defense.”
The BLM manages more public land than any other federal agency in the West. It might be added that the BLM’s new national director is Tracy Stone-Manning. She has been billed as an environmentalist.