I was shocked to read, in the winter 2014 edition article on sage grouse, the statement that the State of Wyoming has broad authority to enforce the core area policy on non-federal land. While the State of Wyoming has authority over state lands and most permits required by state agencies, the State of Wyoming has no authority over private land and private minerals. There is no state law that gives the Governor the power to regulate private property for sage grouse. Absolute arbitrary power over private property by state government is specifically prohibited by the Wyoming Constitution (Article 1, Section 7). Private property was included in the sage grouse core areas without notice to the owners or any opportunity to speak at a hearing. The Governor’s Sage Grouse Implementation Team (SGIT) established the core boundaries but kept no minutes of where or how these boundaries were established. The SGIT did not have to adhere to Wyoming’s Administrative Procedures Act. In one case the state protected wind leases on state land by moving the boundary just outside of the area leased for wind development. Private mineral leases were not allowed the same consideration and were included in core areas. The Legislature has not addressed the sage grouse core areas in statute. The Legislature did encourage the core strategy by use of a pass around resolution that has no legal standing. I have asked the SGIT many times to provide me with the statutory authority for their actions and have been ignored. Unlike wolf recovery, the core area strategy is not established in state law. The idea that sage grouse has brought the West together is entirely false.

Doug Cooper
7L Livestock Company
Casper, Wyoming

As Mr. Cooper’s letter illustrates, and indeed, as the article itself pointed out, broad disagreement exists regarding the appropriate management of sage grouse and governmental roles in doing so. And, in states such as Wyoming, where public lands are extensive, private land holdings relatively limited, and wildlife respect no property boundaries, the costs of sage grouse conservation (or wildlife conservation more generally) are not necessarily uniformly shared.

The Core Area Policy adopted by Governors Freudenthal and Mead provides that then-existing land uses within Core Areas “should be recognized and respected by state agencies,” and assumes that such activities existing prior to August 1, 2008 will not be managed subject to Core Area stipulations. It further provides that activities occurring after that date for which state agency review or approval is required by federal or state law are subject to review under the Policy. The Executive Order further contains a list of activities, predominantly relating to agricultural and ranching activities, which are exempted from review under the Policy. Whether this balance represents an appropriate policy determination is certainly open to debate.

The broader question, however, remains whether the sage grouse states, working together and with both the federal government and the private sector, can accomplish the goal of making a federal listing of the greater sage grouse under the Endangered Species Act unnecessary, or whether divisions among us over these and similar issues will continue the cycle of species conservation driven and overshadowed by litigation.

Michael J. Brennan, P.C.
Conservation Law and Policy

I was shocked, and honestly appalled, at your article “Conservation Grazing: Ranchers Lead the Way.” You have created a totally false dichotomy between season-long grazing practices and what you call “rotational” grazing. It is certain that “high intensity, short duration” grazing, even in a rotational system, does not work in the western US. We never had the same native ungulate ecology as Africa. However, it is absolutely scientifically documented across the western US, that rotational grazing systems, utilizing proper use standards, are far superior to the previous season-long grazing practices. Rotational grazing systems, utilizing proper use standards, can rapidly restore degradation in stream conditions, as well as riparian and meadow vegetation; the degradation that occurred under “high intensity,” season-long grazing systems. I have worked with ranchers applying rotational grazing systems, including proper use standards, for over 20 years, with monitoring and scientific review, and the results are clearly evident and well documented.

Edith Asrow
Modoc County, CA

As Ms. Asrow’s letter points out, strategies for rotational grazing have many forms, and cannot be simplified to represent a dichotomy between livestock rotating among pastures vs. season-long grazing. The article “Cattle as Ecosystem Engineers” by Drs. Derner, Augustine, and Kachergis in the last issue, makes it clear that indeed, grazing strategies that implement rotations with different timing and intensities can improve wildlife habitat to increase biological diversity, and be used as conservation strategies. Indeed, the article “Conservation Grazing: Ranchers Lead the Way” shows that ranchers are receiving tangible benefits when they adjust grazing strategies and apply adaptive management, and that these strategies are benefitting wildlife as well. The article elaborates the difference between the way that ranchers know and understand systems, and the way that range scientists do.

The scientific community, as evidenced in much of the recent literature, grapples with how to study the results of adaptive management, constrained in many ways to traditional approaches of experimental designs, including replicates and “controls” and peer-reviewed evidence. Through our title, about ranchers leading, we hoped to explore the contrast between the responsiveness of ranchers to new ideas, and the skepticism of the scientific community. It was not our purpose to make too much of the “rotational grazing” vs. “season-long grazing” issue. Thank you very much for helping us to clarify this.

On a related note, in March, we (two range scientists from Wyoming) took students from both the UW Haub School of Environment and Natural Resources and the University of Buenos Aires on a field trip of rangelands in Patagonia (photo above). We met with ranchers and consultants practicing holistic management (adaptive management that includes rotational grazing), and with university scientists and national agricultural scientists of both Chile and Argentina. It was a provocative and productive experience for all of us, as we explored the communication gap between rangeland scientists and holistic grazing managers in South America as well as here in the western US.

Indy Burke
Director, Haub School of Environment and Natural Resources
University of Wyoming