Last Stand for Headwater Lahontan Cutthroat Trout – Part 2

Part 2 – Enforcement

Why are Lahontan cutthroat trout populations still declining 50 years after being listed as a Threatened Species? Here are some points to consider.

1. Agencies and organizations
2. Laws and regulations – water allocation
3. Public and agency values
4. Funding
5. Consensus, Collaboration and Partnership
6. Capture
7. Capacity

Agencies and Organizations

Lahontan cutthroat trout (LCT) numbers have been diminishing since the 1800s by over-fishing and by habitat destruction, and they were listed in 1975 as Threatened by the Endangered Species Act. Yet their populations are estimated today to be only 8% of what they were in 1800. Here I review some of the factors that explain the failure of public agencies to protect them.

We should note that LCT were first listed in 1970 as Endangered, but were down-listed to Threatened in 1975 even though their populations had not begun to recover. The reason given was that more “flexibility” was needed in their management, which meant that recreational fishing of them would be allowed, for example, in Pyramid Lake where the lake form is very large.However, this also permits “take” of small form in streams, which translates to destruction of their habitat. The special regulation (allowed with threatened but not endangered) is 50 CFR 17.44(a). The 2010 Business Plan for LCT admitted that:

“Landowners were worried about federal restrictions being placed on private lands if LCT were present, and it was obvious that this concern was limiting LCT recovery efforts.”

That veto power by landowners is the consequence of the down-listing.

The land management agencies have given attention to the ongoing population decline by producing many documents over the decades since the listing. But what most of the LCT recovery plans and reviews amount to are Wish Lists, without inserting the practical power to enforce the meaningful aspects of them. For instance, how often has there even been a serious reduction in stocking rate – let alone removal – which could be done under “change in management”. Recommended management actions often require an “upward trend” in the amount of grass or shrubs left after being grazed, but I learned that some regrowth of grass or willows does not equal the healthy hydrologic system the trout need. The phrase “Upward Trend” is meaningless when it is used over decades of assessments and there still is no trout habitat.

Habitat loss, habitat fragmentation, degradation and “land-use problems” [USFWS 1995] are vague terms until you see their meaning at headwater streams: warm, shallow, open, silty-bottomed, algae-strewn channels in cattle pastures. Below is a common condition of headwater streams:

In 2021, I was invited as a Stakeholder to participate in a BLM-sponsored LCT Recovery meet in Elko, Nevada, organized by the BLM’s National Riparian Service Team (NRST).  Of the invited participant list of 72 people, 6 were from environmental organizations (including The Nature Conservancy and Trout Unlimited (both of which have supported livestock presence), 13 were ranchers or ranching organizations, 29 were agency staff, and 19 were other government entities or businesses. I’ve learned that these agency-sponsored meetings as well as County Commissions and State agencies usually have large majorities of pro ranching people and small numbers, if any, of wildlife advocates. More on this below. 

I was surprised and disappointed when I learned years ago that The Nature Conservancy (TNC) has bought into the hope that we can have both livestock and healthy ecosystems in the west. Under their Regenerative Grazing Lands site, they state:

“Livestock grazing on intact, working grasslands can help secure clean water, enhance habitat, address climate change and sustain rural communities.”

This statement is counter to scientific studies and data in all those areas. Their position ignores the cattle-degraded land and water all over the west not to mention the significant public subsidies that livestock operations receive that enable them to survive. Twenty years ago the full cost to the public of the federal grazing program was estimated to be over $500 million a year, and this did not include the degradation of water, soil, and vegetation by cattle. [Assessing the Full Cost, p.23 ] The Nature Conservancy and other grazing supporters do not emphasize that what is being “secured” is private incomes gained by extraction. 

Even The National Audubon Society has bought into ranching myths, as though native birds need ranching when they evolved without cattle for thousands of years. Audubon ignores the fact that livestock production is a significant factor in Species Endangerment in the West given that it occurs on a majority of public lands in the arid west and that cattle especially impact riparian areas so important to native biota. Although a conservation organization like Trout Unlimited (TU) criticizes “grazing practices”, they imagine cattle can still be present. For instance, TU supports restoration of streamside vegetation using grazing and beavers citing a study that found that “conservation-oriented grazing approaches and livestock exclosures” increased floodplain vegetation. What is “conservation-oriented grazing”? Note in this referenced study that it took an exclosure to even increase floodplain vegetation, which does not in itself actually make viable trout habitat. Here are the recommendations from the study that TU cites:

“Examples of grazing practices that promote rather than impede recovery include

1. altering the timing of cattle use to outside the growing season (i.e., spring or fall),
2. limiting duration or intensity of use within seasons,
3. resting pastures during some years,
4. using rotation among pastures,
5. and excluding some areas from use completely.

Common examples of tools and techniques which improve livestock distribution and management include

1. offsite water developments,
2. fencing,
3. use of supplements such as salt blocks, and
4. implementing herd management and animal husbandry practices such as herding and riding, culling, and changing class of livestock.”

Except for #5, exclosures, all these recommendations have been promoted for decades while trout populations with cattle present are marginal or gone; over 90% of original LCT streams are now unoccupied. Trout Unlimited criticizes “historical” grazing practices and hopes that now we know how to have great trout habitat with cattle, but the reality is that cattle continue to have heavy impacts. As range ecologist James Young wrote about the introduction of cattle to the arid west, “the plant communities did not adapt; they shattered” (Cattle in the Cold Desert 1985), and a large published literature continues to document ongoing cattle damage, especially in riparian areas.

Even if the above list of recommendations to improve trout-friendly habitat magically worked, they all cost money. Taxpayers usually pay for the fencing and water developments that ranchers use, but the more intensive herd management actions do cost the rancher. If pasture use-time is limited, if cattle must be moved around between pastures or from streamside; these are time and labor costs that add to expenses, and the rest-rotation method is especially costly if feed has to be bought to make up for lost grass during pasture “rest”.

The recommended methods such as rest and rotational grazing do not restore habitat. Restoration processes take many years in sage steppe, often decades in deeply incised riparian areas, and except for the total exclusion of livestock, none of these methods have shown they restore trout.

The study by Carter et al (2017) found that:

“As a result of this change in management [to rest-rotation], post-grazing riparian stubble heights decreased; bank alteration was unchanged; upland residual grasses were reduced; there was no change in residual herbaceous vegetation in the riparian zone; and utilization remained excessive in both upland and riparian areas”. [emphasis added]

The repetition of the recommendation over these many decades to use rest-rotational grazing does not make it work any better. This former beaver- and trout-inhabited creek below had been under rest rotation management for 12 years when this photo was taken:

Laws and Regulations

All of the land management agencies have permitted grazing, but the Endangered Species Act requires an agency to request a formal consultation with US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) if a permitted action is likely to affect a listed species. The Biological Opinion (BO) produced then allows the proposed action or requires modifications to it. The BO has the power to not permit a project, but I’m not aware of a project permanently denied. When I first started reading Biological Opinions I was heartened by the language in them that stated the likely harm to the fish by the action under consideration in the cases where grazing was involved. Sometimes too, there were detailed descriptions of the habitat needs of LCT, so the biological facts were officially out there. A typical BO contains statements like this: “Non-native trout, habitat loss and fragmentation, and habitat degradation remain the greatest threats to this species” [USFWS 2022 Review Status LCT ].

They are puzzling to read because a Biological Opinion can lay out the needs of the species under concern, and yet allow the destructive activity to proceed.  But a finding of Jeopardy by the BO would apply to the entire species, and it’s highly unlikely that any one agency project will rise to the level of putting the entire species at risk. The requirement to consult with USFWS satisfies a legal process but has not restored LCT habitat.

The latest USFWS review of LCT, in 2022, after assessing the health of the remaining populations – only 5 of 71 (7%) are likely “resilient” – concludes:

“Overall, the status of this species continues to decline. Yet, there is no clear indication that reclassification is necessary at this time.” [USFWS 2022 p.19].

How few individuals would it take before USFWS would recommend these fish should be relisted as Endangered?

A Biological Opinion in 2020 concerning grazing on eight allotments listed the BLM’s Standards for Rangeland Health, none of which are enforced in the headwaters of Hanks Creek. Hanks Creek is one of the LCT creeks in the proposal [Programmatic Consultation, p.8]. In the 68 pages of this BO, USFWS concluded that the BLM may proceed with its proposed projects, even signing off on the Hank’s Creek grazing schedule, which permits cows to graze from April 1 to Dec 30. Below is the South fork of Hanks Creek, formerly inhabited by LCT:

In spite of the unambiguous violations of soil, plant and water standards in this allotment, the BO stated, “adaptive livestock management will be employed to the extent allowable under existing permits to maintain or improve riparian habitat conditions for LCT.” This permission to continue livestock grazing in the face of obvious disastrous impacts on LCT habitat constitutes a refusal to enforce the ESA, as well as kicking the can down the road yet again. How is it that the USFWS, as well as BLM and Forest Service have been approving these forbidden, damaging activities since 1973?

I discovered from reading through many of these BOs that mitigation might be required – another fence built or a road moved – but that the proposed actions were always approved in the end. Although these required consultations are sometimes spoken of as though they hindered or stopped the proposed project, I have not seen one BO concerning LCT that actually stopped a proposal for a private extractive activity.

Although the facts on the ground cannot be denied, they can be ignored. Here are a few of my reports of conditions of LCT streams.

• Toyn Creek Report 2018
• Toyn Creek Report 2021
• Hanks Creek Report 2019
• Hanks Creek Report 2021
• Green Mountain Creek Report 2019
• Granite Mountain Pasture Report 2019
• Dixie Creek Report 2018
• Conners Creek Report 2020

I took photographs and sent reports of what I saw on the ground and sent them in to the BLM or Forest Service. Usually there was some acknowledgment of receiving my report, but in one case for Green Mountain Creek in the Ruby Mountains, the Forest Service sent people out to see the condition and proposed changes in livestock management. Green Mountain Creek had been occupied by LCT in 2010 but was no longer when I was there in 2018. How was my report received? The Forest Supervisor sent me a letter in which he stated, “I am committed to maintaining and improving conditions for Lahontan cutthroat trout across the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest,” including “a new recovery planning process that addresses climate change and predicted rise in stream temperatures”.

Two of the pictures I sent them in my 2018 report of Green Mountain Creek looked like this, a former riparian meadow and the main creek channel where LCT used to live:

In answering my questions about enforcement of standards, the Forest Service made some troublesome statements. The Forest permitted 45% utilization: “rates intended to produce high bank stabilities as well as promote optimal fish production”. Suddenly we are in la-la land. Cows using a riparian area enough to eat 45% of grass and forbs are going to seriously impact the banks. An animal weighing 1000 lbs compresses the surface with each hoof step, resulting in heavy soil and water impacts everywhere it steps. Detailed measurements are not needed to see this impact, but the Forest Service’s response letter stated that the required monitoring would only be done “as staff time is available”, so, not a high priority. There is a disconnect between actual conditions and the words agencies use to describe them, so that what may sound okay in the abstract has little relationship to actual conditions nor is needed for recovery.

I went back to Green Mountain Creek three years later and retook the same scenes:

And

In spite of the nice words from the Forest Supervisor, little had changed on the ground; the meadow was still bare soil and the main channel was still dry.  There were a few more leaves on the young willows. Is this what is meant by “upward trend”, a common entry on monitoring documents? The required conditions for LCT are pretty simple: cold, clean water with gravel bottom, some pools, overhanging banks and woody debris for hiding. These are seldom present in any headwater streams that I have seen except where cattle are successfully excluded from sufficient lengths of streams.

Water Allocation

Not only the direct use and damage by cattle affect LCT streams. Irrigation of livestock crops is a large proportion of water use, and arid land the waterways suffer. Dewatering reduces adjacent riparian vegetation as well as volume of water in the channel. The 2010 Business Plan identified this problem: “Stream de-watering and diversion for irrigation or hydroelectric facilities has decreased the amount and quality of accessible habitat for many LCT populations and has also contributed to habitat fragmentation” (p.9).  Yet nothing is done to stop these withdrawals. It is not against the law for irrigators to kill fish, destroy river ecosystems, degrade the beauty of our publicly owned waterways or even extirpate threatened species like the Lahontan cutthroat trout, if the use is legally defined as “beneficial”. Water is owned by the public, so we are giving away this precious resource to a use which can be shown not to be “beneficial” to a threatened species.

Stream and spring water is also pumped out for troughs, even if doing so dries out the original spring site as in the photo below. A spring used to be at the right, at the chokecherries; all the water is now piped to the trough.

When I questioned the BLM about this, I was referred to the Nevada State Water Board who had approved this piping. I talked to an attorney there who knew nothing about the dewatering issue. Water for troughs is business-as-usual.

Nevada, the driest state, gives 78% of its water to agriculture, the largest proportion of water being used to grow alfalfa and hay, the leading cash crop of the state [see Water and Agriculture links below].

“We find irrigation of cattle-feed crops to be the greatest consumer of river water in the western United States, implicating beef and dairy consumption as the leading driver of water shortages and fish imperilment in the region,” is the conclusion of Richter and other authors of “Water Scarcity and Fish Imperilment Driven by Beef Production.”

Protected by senior water rights, generous subsidies, loyal politicians and the cultural iconography of a family ranch, alfalfa and hay growers are big depleters of habitat for native fish and other wildlife as well as healthy native plant communities in the arid west. Even when cattle are removed from public land, these water rights will remain and the users likely to continue to grow and ship cattle fodder here and around the world. Given their provable destructive effects to nature, can livestock be removed from the “beneficial” use category, at least in our arid west?

Public and Agency Values

A combination of factors – money, power, history and current attitudes – work together to prevent putting wildlife, even ESA listed species, before extractive uses. Polls show the public does want places protected and wildlife present and supported, but our culture also projects the romantic image of cowboys and ranches, and ignores the severe ecological consequences of livestock. We might ask, why is this cowboy culture worth preserving? And do ranches really support small communities and preserve open space? [see Maughan, Wuerthner below].

Public lands have not loomed large in public attention, so the answers to these questions do not intrude on the historical narrative. Where land management agency values (extraction before preservation) do not conform to public values – and to facts on the ground – the agency can ignore negative impacts because ranching currently has low political and ecological visibility. However, public attitudes to wildlife are shifting toward more conservation. In a 2016 report, 79 percent of Americans identified themselves as conservationists, and 82% endorsed the idea that wildlife possesses intrinsic value beyond simply being considered a natural resource. How to translate this to agency change?

Ranching is not the cornerstone of western rural economies as is so casually repeated. The public subsidies that enable livestock grazing are never mentioned by the entities that support grazing. University of Montana economist Thomas Power’s west-wide assessment found the livestock industry accounted for only 0.1% of western economies. Even with taxpayer subsidies, second incomes are often required [Power. 1996.]

Note the inherent contradiction between valuing wildlife and also wanting to support the family rancher. Many people want to preserve the romance of western ranching, but are not acquainted with the facts, which are the public subsidies needed and the degradation of land and water so severe that wildlife are diminished or gone. Also, private, not public land, ranches grow most of the beef raised in the west because 79% of grazing is on private lands; these are usually much better watered.

Power’s figures show that public lands ranching in the West is a very small industry, that the loss of all jobs associated with it would hypothetically cause income growth in eleven western states to pause for only six days, and that nor­mal economic expansion in the West would absorb the unemployed ranch­ers in a week and a half. (Power, 1996. pp 183-185). The reality is that western economies have changed from dependence on extractive industries to a focus on environmental quality. This is seen as a major stimulus for a healthy economy, one whose strength is based on a high quality of life, where people want to go to live, work, raise families, and recreate.

The financial impact of public lands grazing versus alternative uses of the public lands has been measured. Jon Souder estimated the benefits of four uses of the Central Winter Ecosystem Management Area on the Kaibab Plateau and found that deer and turkey hunting is worth $1,324,259 a year to the local and regional economies; fuelwood is worth $48,984; livestock grazing is worth $45,988; and dispersed recreation is worth $6,400,000. Page 21 in Souder’s study has a chart with the above numbers.

In Assessing the Full Cost of Federal Beef Production, Karyn Moscowitz and Chuck Romaniello detail the public expenditures that keep public lands ranching afloat. The public pays to support the commercial operations of approximately 18,000 permittees, which include some very large corporations whose primary business is not beef production. While the media tell us small-family-rancher stories, they rarely cover the extent of public subsidies and never report the corporate permittees on public land. No fewer than four oil and mining companies, two Forbes billionaires, and one national brewery hold federal grazing per­mits. Not surprisingly, the wealth and political power of large public lands ranching interests make achieving real reform very difficult. Almost 30 years ago Mark Salvo reported the decline in the importance of western ranching in the west, citing Taxpayers for Common Sense, Why are Federal Taxpayers Subsidizing Corporate Grazing on Public Lands?

We know that the political footprint of public lands grazing is way out of proportion to the size of the actual permittee population. The 18,000 permittees on public land appear to control both U.S. policy and dialogue. This is through the power of their political representatives, elected and appointed, with the near absence of political challenge by an informed public. The fact is that both elected and appointed powers in the west – legislatures, county commissions, state agencies – maintain majorities of livestock friendly members. Elections and budgets flow in a way to keep this going.

Although in polls the general public wants wildlife protection, healthy ecosystems, and attractive places that are not beat out by cows, it is largely ignorant of the cause of the damage and susceptible to a romantic image of the past. This is Culture Capture by cowboys: the imagined freedom and independence, working outside in a big landscape, and perhaps nostalgia for a Frontier. [Donahue p.769]. (My own parents’ experience with cowboys in the 1930s was that cowboys were rough, uneducated and poorly paid – not a romantic view.) The Cowboy Myth is an example of Culture Capture – shaping of assumptions, vocabularies, history. These myths influence public perception and are useful in the service of weakening the enforcement of environmental/conservation regulations. An example is the management of language, the use of words like “green”, “sustainable”, “working lands”, “stewards of the land”.

Perhaps the most important psychological factor in ignorance and acceptance of the degradation of habitat is the long human evolutionary history of extraction and increasingly clever technology. Living with humility and respect toward Nature has not been valued so much since our tools appear to give us all we need and want. This deeply human attitude is reflected everywhere in the loss of habitat that wildlife need.

Funding

This attitude of extraction explains some of the resistance of institutions to protect LCT habitat, but what about the conservation nonprofits whose purpose is protection of wildlife and wild places and yet either support livestock grazing or stay quiet about it? Why do environmental organizations that project themselves as “protecting lands and waters” (The Nature Conservancy) or announce, “Our Mission Is To Protect, Reconnect & Restore The Places People Love To Fish” (Trout Unlimited) sometimes forsake these missions on the ground? We expect the livestock industry and supporters to fight hard to maintain their oversized influence but why should organizations ostensibly protecting nature refuse to oppose the obvious degradation and damage from grazing?

“How The Most Powerful Environmental Groups Help Greenwash Big Meat’s Climate Impact” explains how the power of the beef industry works. The narrative is controlled so that the hopeful push of words like “sustainable” and “regenerative agriculture” shapes our thinking. By means of crafted language and “round table” meetings, the result of the beef industry’s influence has been no meaningful change that would benefit cutthroat trout and all wildlife on the planet. This approach relies on public ignorance of real conditions on the ground.

With massive amounts of money managing stories in the media, the public remains largely unaware of the reality of cattle impacts to pollution, wildlife/biodiversity, carbon storage (deforestation) and climate. “Large organizations like The Nature Conservancy closely collaborate with large meat and dairy companies, ranchers, and trade groups on a range of initiatives.” Silvia Secchi, a natural resource economist and professor of geographical and sustainability sciences at the University of Iowa wrote in the greenwash article, “it’s pretty obvious that the industry is using them to greenwash, and whether willing or not, they’re letting themselves be used.” There is also a fear of the political backlash that could come if they are seen as criticizing farmers and the powerful agribusiness lobby, given the enduring myths we tell ourselves about American agriculture. Given the extant narrative of hard-pressed family ranches, nonprofits doing conservation work may find themselves without funders if they are critical of ranching.

Funders of nonprofits are similarly affected by this pressure from the industry and backlash if they support groups critical of beef production. (Note that less than 2% of US beef comes from public land, so that 98% of cattle operations would not be affected by ending public lands grazing.) Many organizations that fund “conservation” work retain anthropocentric values: they support programs and projects that benefit human endeavors like production of food, energy, “working” forests, communities, human health, low-impact development. To see examples of these, look at the mission statements and what is funded for EarthRights International, Hewlett Foundation, Packard Foundation, and MacArthur Foundation.

Consensus, Collaboration and Partnership

These terms sound like fairness and inclusion. People are so much more comfortable with getting along than they are with confrontation. The shallow assumption is that everyone will benefit by these arrangements (not counting wildlife or wild lands, which don’t vote). This outlook greatly benefits extractive industries like grazing and logging who are adept at selling the lure of “jobs” to help local communities.

The lack of public attention to conditions on the ground also permits terms like “collaboration” to have a positive connotation, when in my experience in public land issues it means a priori acceptance of continued livestock grazing. If you attend agency-sponsored public meetings advertised as a collaboration, look for what the assumptions are.

Rick Meis explains in The Public Lands Collaboration Process: Failing Management 101 that:

“Collaboration is a process of playing two sides off against each other in order to create enough guilt in one or all parties that a compromise is reached. The primary problem is that it is specifically not based on science or best available data, thus eliminating the concept of best management practices and the long-term needs of the resource to maintain the natural values of the landscape. It becomes about me-now. Collaboration is not about right and wrong or about intrinsic values.”

A similar result ensues from use of the term “stakeholders”. While we should keep inclusion as a standard, in practice some groups are not represented or the agenda is already controlled. The Nevada Board of Wildlife Commissioners may be typical of many public agencies. In a study by Donnelly and Martin (2024) the list below compares percentages of people in the general population in Nevada to those on its Wildlife Commission:

Note that only 3-4% of the public hunt or fish but over half of the Wildlife Commission are hunters or fishers, so the agency has 18 times the number in the general population. The farming/ranching group has 44 times the representation on the Commission that they have in the general population. Contrasted to this, conservationists have only 7% of their numbers on the Commission that they do in Nevada’s population. The Commission does not fairly represent residents of Nevada.

Agency Capture

Under the Endangered Species Act of 1973, a worldwide landmark in species protection, federal agencies are required to participate in conserving Threatened and Endangered species. LCT have Threatened Status, but no critical habitat was designated for them, although that is supposed to be a part of their status. Even without critical habitat designation, Section 7(a)(2) of the ESA requires the agencies to ensure their activities are not likely to jeopardize the continued existence of federally listed species or destroy or adversely modify designated critical habitat. Yet these trout populations have continued to decline because what sounds like protective measures have loopholes to continue activities like fishing and water removals.

Its the classic “death by a thousand cuts”. The USFWS gets away with rubber stamping degradation because its extremely rare that any single action is going to jeopardize the existence of a species.

In answer to my questions to the Forest Service about consequences to the permittee of over-utilization, I was told that the permittee “may get a notice of noncompliance”, and “if the situation is not addressed within an identified timeframe, permit action may be necessary. The staff work with the permittee to address identified concerns.”

But any “permit action” applied does not seem to be serious enough to prevent continued or future impacts that are out of compliance with the permit terms and conditions. In my experience this can result in repeated trespass (unauthorized use) over many years by the same permittee.

There is no systematic method of detection of trespass, nor does the BLM keep systematic records of trespass, so that the GAO report 1990, BLM Efforts to Prevent Unauthorized Livestock Grazing Need Strengthening, found that trespass was almost always handled informally (which is not provided for in the BLM regulations and Handbook) and without the BLM-required penalties levied. BLM’s grazing regulations (43 C.F.R. 4100) provide that for willful trespass, BLM may suspend or cancel all or portions of the grazing permit. For repeated willful trespass, the required penalty is three times the commercial value of the forage consumed plus compensation for violation-related expenses. BLM must also suspend or cancel all or portions of the grazing permit. These regulations have very rarely been enforced, and penalties sufficient to deter trespass rarely applied or trespass would not be as common as it is.

This is a system of unlimited agency staff discretion on enforcement. Without enforcing the requirement of trespass consequences, agency behavior falls under the concept of Capture, in which the entity (public land ranching) that is supposedly being regulated by the land management agency is itself in control of the rules and enforcement [see Donahue 2005]. Agencies tasked with protecting the public interest come to identify with the regulated industry and protect its interests against that of the public. This power wields the regulatory power of the state and can be used as a weapon to block the entry or success of other interests, conservation in this case [Carpenter and Moss 2014].

Without delving too deeply into regulatory capture, we might skip ahead and ask that if reform is unlikely or impossible, argue for abandoning the current system and create a comprehensive replacement that better served the public interest. With respect to grazing, the agency has come to be a barrier between regulating grazing and the public interest.

The current grazing system is financially supported by large taxpayer subsidies to livestock operations, beginning with the grazing fee of charging $1.35 per AUM (= Animal Unit Month, one cow/calf to use public land for one month). The average fee on private land in 2023 was $22.60 [Plummer 2023].

Below is the public lands grazing fee as a percentage of private lands grazing fee [from Costs & Consequences p.26]:

The fee system based on the Public Lands Improvement Act of 1978 is entirely focused on financial calculations of the production of livestock. No ecological costs are included. After acknowledging that the land was in “unsatisfactory condition”, the Improvement Act has no language requiring good health of the land but rather hoped that charging a fee would improve management. But that did not happen. After decades of fees, the managing agency (BLM) described its assessed range lands in 2018 (the last year that BLM released data) as “42% fail to meet BLM Standards for Rangeland Health, and 70% of range health failure is due to livestock” [see PEER] .

From my experience looking at ground conditions, either the 42% failure is an underestimation of poor conditions or the Standards are too low or both. At the same time, the revenues produced by permittees have always fallen far short of covering administration costs. [Donahue p.757]. All the subsidies given to maintain grazing on public lands amount to hundreds of millions of dollars per year [from Costs & Consequences].

I do not think or claim that all agency staff are captured, but those staff who are serious about enforcing regulations may not be supported by managers and may be transferred or fired. Pages 46-48 in the GAO 1988 Report, Some Riparian Areas Restored But Widespread Improvement Will Be Slow reveal the internal culture and politics.

Capacity

Congress has reduced and limited financing for the land agencies over many decades, but the BLM has never had adequate resources for supervision of livestock on public land [Donahue pp.754, 756]. We know tight funding is one way of reducing action, enforcement, and power. The BLM admitted this in its LCT Recovery meeting materials in 2021: “Range management is a huge workload with hundreds of grazing allotments on most BLM/USFS Districts and limited staff to address planning, monitoring and compliance. Range staff turns over frequently and incomplete records concerning allotment information and data is a serious problem in terms of transitioning new staff.”

They also stated, “USFS and BLM units in Nevada are among the most poorly financed and staffed; high levels of turnover exacerbates this situation. Many of the changes and new projects needed to meet UGOs are on lands managed by these two agencies. Success will require additional funding and staffing along with strongly focused leadership from USFS, BLM, NDOW and USFWS” .

So, the BLM agrees it is unable to do its job. Short of replacing this agency system, the obvious solution would be to remove their most demanding time-user, livestock, and then have staff focus on first, removal of grazing infrastructure from allotments, then monitor recovery of plants and animals, introduce beavers when recovered habitat is adequate, and so on. This work could be done on a small budget because it would free the staff of the unending negative demands and problems with a destructive exotic animal. After decades of seeing what the official LCT restoration efforts consist of, one yearns to begin actual habitat restoration by just removing cattle.

The removal of cattle from public land may seem like a daunting task for activists – where to begin? The best way is to get out and look at conditions on the ground. Walk out to springs and streams and to exclosures or other not-grazed wild places if you can find any. This will show you the truth and make you immune to the endless blandishments about all the wonderful things cattle do for us on public land. Keep in mind that public land grazing provides 1.9% of US beef.

We see articles and research promoting cattle grazing as the magic elixir that can repair damaged riparian areas, eliminate cheatgrass and other weeds, reduce wildfires, increase soil carbon storage, and improve habitat for endangered species like sage grouse. Livestock operators call themselves “stewards of the land”. Common sense and observations will question those statements because livestock graze the majority of public lands in the west and yet cheatgrass has greatly increased and wildlife greatly diminished. Sage grouse are no longer are present in flocks of thousands, darkening the sky (p. 19 in Patterson, 1952). Go out and look. You will be the expert on a certain place because the agency staff rarely have time to get out and look at the hundreds of allotments whose management they are assigned.

Where cattle can be shown to remove certain unwanted plants, in my experience these are intensively managed and subsidized projects in which the animals are moved to a pasture for a limited time such as two weeks and then taken off. Few ranchers can afford this kind of intense management. Also, what and where will the cattle be eating the other 50 weeks of the year? What other collateral damage, such as soil disturbance, happens in the intensively managed area?

When statements about livestock’s benefits to an ecosystem appear, it is rare that their big negatives are also mentioned: destruction of the the soil biocrust, pollution of water and soil with manure and urine, compression and erosion of soil, alteration of the hydrology, the herbivory of plants that pollinators and many native species need, and social displacement of native grazers and browsers. In the case of LCT, cattle destroy the banks of creeks by eating and trampling on the plants. The resulting erosion of soil into the water smothers fish eggs and fry that were laid in clean gravel bottoms of streams. Cattle excrement and urine pollute the water, degrading its quality by removal of oxygen. We have to keep our focus on ground truth and its evidence.

A mountain of literature documents the destructive impacts of cattle on ecosystems, but you can see examples for yourself by walking out and looking. However, it can be difficult to imagine a beaver wetland or pond where is now eroded bare ground with a few stunted shrubs. Look for old gnawed stumps or the mounds and sticks of old beaver dams.

After educating ourselves on what conditions are on the ground, we can show and tell the responsible agency the facts and press for meaningful change. Ask for compliance records. Publish your observations and photos in Opinion sections. We can be the experts on a particular place.

We should note: While it is important to oppose agencies’ projects that obfuscate or worsen the situation and ignore real restoration, we don’t want to get bogged down in responding to these proposals and never focus on real recovery actions for LCT where they used to be. We have to ask for what we want.

Changes Needed for LCT

As of 2009, 95% of the few surviving stream LCT are still forced to live with cattle presence [USFWS 2009 p.29]. This does not mean these are healthy, increasing fish populations, but rather that almost everywhere is grazed and the fish are hanging on for the moment. Cattle-free drainages on public land are rare. To recover LCT, many headwater streams could be declared Preserves and restored to LCT-occupied after livestock are removed. Then they might look like this:

Public Land ranching’s heavy dependence on taxpayers could be a big vulnerability if it were more widely publicized, especially if coupled with the resource degradation and loss of wildlife that grazing causes. Ranching might not retain the prestige status and political power it has today if the real costs were more widely known [Foss, 1960 p.752].

We supporters of native species can also be voices in local agency offices and in state and national elections. We can advertise the votes and positions of elected and appointed officials, whether they supported extractors or preservationists on public lands. We can embarrass extractors by the public subsidies they receive and make known the wildlife costs as well. State level action may be more fruitful than national efforts because it is easier for individuals and organized groups to enact meaningful changes at a state level rather than a national one.

As for results, if subsidies were removed, many public land livestock producers might be much more interested in the Voluntary Grazing Permit Buyout proposal. The Voluntary Grazing Permit Buyout proposal would establish a voluntary grazing permit buyout program for commercial livestock operators on federal land. It also provides for the permanent retirement of grazing allotments which have no valid grazing permits or allotment leases. Removal of cattle would leave more water in creeks that used to be dewatered for troughs. There are questions about the ramifications if this became law: Would it mean less removal of water for irrigated crops? Would the cost of forage increase? What proportion of forage is now shipped out of state and the country?

Large protected watersheds are required in order to give Lahontan cutthroat trout a good chance to recover their habitat. The minimum population for genetic health is 2500 fish [USFWS 2022]; these will also need connectivity with their relatives. Given their incompatibility with livestock, the fish only thrive with livestock removal. The institutions which have been responsible for the trout’s survival have not shown themselves to be capable of this. To keep the trout, we have to remove the livestock and stop water extraction from LCT creeks – these two actions would cover the most destructive human factors.

References

Carpenter and Moss. 2014. Preventing Regulatory Capture: Special Interest Influence and How to Limit It. Cambridge University Press.

Foss, Philip O. 1960. Politics and Grass: The Administration of Grazing on the Public Domain. 236 pp. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1960.

Patterson, Robert L. 1952. The Sage Grouse in Wyoming. Sage Books, Wyoming Game and Fish Commission.

Power, Thomas M. 1996. Lost Landscapes and Failed Economics. Island Press.

Water and Agriculture

Public Policies Affecting Water Use in Nevada Water Issues Education Series – No.1

Agriculture in Nevada

EDITOR’s NOTE

Learning how to read the land is a critical skill in being an effective advocate. The plant community is an open book to read, telling you the story of the history of impacts and current conditions. The upper soils are harder to read but can give you tremendous insight into what has happened on the land.

I highly recommend attending agency training courses such as MIM (Multiple Indicators Monitoring), PFC (Proper Functioning Condition), IIRH (Interpreting Indicators of Rangeland Health) and some basic botany courses (not the kind where the botanist focuses on showy and rare plants, but one with a focus on grasses, grass-likes and shrubs)

Sage Steppe Wild hosted a 3 day training session in 2024 and will likely do another in 2025.

Waste of the West and other resources on the Resources page are also highly recommended.

If you would like further information about training courses and resources contact us at the email address at the bottom of the main Sage Steppe Wild page.