Elk Depredation Concerns Heard in Santa FeBy Ellen Wedum
Members of the Water and Natural Resources Interim Committee heard from Otero county ranchers, County Commissioner Mike Nivison, and Congressman Stevan Pearce on Wednesday November 28 on the subject of financial losses to allotment owners due to the elk population increase. The hearing was organized by State Senator Vernon Asbill, who represents portions of Eddy and Otero counties.
Charles Walker, who spoke first, is a third generation rancher in Otero county, and grandfather of the 6 th generation to come. His grandfather moved to the area in 1887, attracted like many others by the Federal government’s promise of water, grazing, and right-of-way rights to what became known as allotments. The pioneers established grazing units where there was water, and protected them with their lives.
About 1905 the US Forest Service (USFS), under the Department of Agriculture, formally established and recognized these allotments but also started the practice of charging the ranchers fifty cents a head annual grazing fees. The allotments were abused by eastern speculators, and miners and loggers who were allowed ‘free use’ permits for ten head of cattle, but typically had many more. With only one ranger to supervise the whole forest, enforcement of reasonable limits on the number of cattle was impossible. This led the ranchers to form the Grazing Advisory Board in the 1950’s. The GAB convinced the USFS to terminate the ‘free use’ permits and other abuses. The ranchers, with the help of John Hall, who was then supervisor of the Lincoln National Forest, brought in a range management specialist who taught them about rotation grazing. As the specialist explained, “We have a little bunch grass here, it’s depending on the weather and you to help it survive. So we’re going to give this little plant a rest.” The ranchers adopted rotation grazing and saw an improvement in the health of the grasslands.
Then about 1967 the Mescalero Apaches brought several truckloads of Rocky Mountain elk (about 158 head) onto the reservation specifically for the purpose of establishing a huntable herd. (The Merriam elk indigenous to the area were hunted to extinction prior to 1900.) Everyone immediately recognized that the elk were not going to realize that they were Mescalero Apache elk and were supposed to remain within the boundaries of the reservation.
In a Memorandum of Understanding filed in the Otero County Courthouse in 1994, Charles Walker, Paul Jones and Bill Edgar testified that according to the records of the GAB meeting of March 7, 1967, Supervisor Hall, who had a B.A. in wildlife management, stated that if the elk were allowed to become established in the Lincoln, they would destroy “the best deer herd in New Mexico.” Mr. Hall also promised that the USFS would not allow the elk to reduce the ranchers’ animal unit months (AUM) that were then documented to be on the Lincoln.
Forty years later, the elk population has increased to several thousand head (an independent study group that is part of the US Fish and Wildlife Department estimated 4,000-5,000 elk in 2003) and they have migrated both north to Ruidoso and south to Weed. The elk are crowding out the cattle, and the USFS is cutting the ranchers’ AUM.
Bruce Thompson, Supervisor of the NM Department of Game and Fish (NMDGF), stated that an average of 1,000 elk per year have been killed through ‘harvest programs’ in the last eight years (and indeed the numbers estimated by the USFW group in 2007 were down to 2500-2700 elk). He also stated that 60% of the DGF annual budget of $37 million comes from the sale of various hunting and fishing licenses.
Studies by the Range Improvement Task Force (RITF), headed by Dr. John Fowler, show that rotation grazing is not working any more. If a rancher keeps his cattle off of a portion of his allotment, the elk will just move in. The ranchers are required to move their cattle out of the high-altitude meadows after five months (June to October), but during milder winters, the elk just stay there. So that little bunch grass never gets a rest. The RITF studies have shown that if cattle are present, fewer elk will move in.
The elk also don’t differentiate between private property and allotments. Last year they ate all the alfalfa on Charles Walker’s 35 acres of private land, a loss of about 1500 bales of hay. Now the NMDGF did give Walker 8 bull elk permits, which were worth about $4,000 apiece, and 6 cow elk permits, that he could sell to hunters, to make up his losses that year. Charles Walker and Mrs. Jimmy Goss both agreed that they are not trying to get rid of the elk, they are trying to live with them while staying in the cattle business. However, thus far the NMDGF does not recognize their claim that they should be compensated for elk overgrazing on their allotments.
Mrs. Goss has looked into the legal status of the allotments. In the USFS office the documents read “Owner, Lincoln National Forest” on the allotment papers, but in the county records the USFS is not listed at all. After searching through thousands of documents at the county courthouse for nearly eight months, she went back to the USFS and asked to see the “Grazing Cards.” On these cards the name of the owner and the prior history of the allotment is given back to 1910. Of course she already knew that there was legal ownership involved, because the allotments can be bought and sold, and inheritance tax must be paid by the heirs when the owner dies. Mrs. Goss clarified that there is a difference between “public” land and “Federal” land. Federal lands are those where prior rights, such as mineral, oil, gas, or the water, grazing, and rights of way rights of the ranchers, have been established by Acts of Congress, such as the Homestead Act. But public lands have no pre-existing rights.
The Gosses in particular feel that they have been unfairly penalized by the USFS when the real problem is the elk. In 2000 their allowed AUM had been cut from 553 to 330 (partly due to the drought). By 2004 it had been cut to 230 AUM, because the USFS said their allotment was 85% depleted of forage, when the maximum depletion allowed is 35%. Dr. John Fowler of the Range Improvement Task Force has analyzed pellet samples from all the area allotments for the last 6-7 years, and estimates that 60% of the pellet material was from elk and the remaining 40% is from cows, deer, rabbits and other little critters. Since the elk actually consume less forage (70%) than cows, it appears that in 2004 the Goss allotments were supporting about 230 cows (plus deer, etc) and a minimum of 490 elk. The Gosses filed a lawsuit against the USFS in 2003.
Commissioner Nivison reminded the legislators that the loss of cattle means a loss of tax revenue for the county. He urged that any legislation proposed stipulate that the best available science be applied to the depredation problem. Congressman Pearce pointed out that the increase in the elk population, coupled with the decrease in available meadowland in the Lincoln, is not all the fault of the USFS. Lawsuits have prevented thinning from occurring, and even harvesting trees after a fire is hampered by paperwork. It can take five years to get permission to cut in burned areas and by then the trees are no longer of commercial value. All the sawmills but one in the Otero county area have shut down.
There was much discussion of possible solutions, but the only quick fix seemed to be for the NMDGF to compensate the ranchers for their losses by giving them hunting permits that they could then sell. Charles Walker estimated that an additional 10 bull permits per year, which sell for $3,000-$4,000 each, would probably cover his allotment losses. However, Director Bruce Thompson objected to this solution, saying that increasing the supply of permits would reduce their value. He also refused to accept that the ranchers were entitled to compensation for elk depredation on their allotments as well as on their private property.
But Senator Hardin of Clovis summarized the feelings of most of the legislators present when he said, “The elk are eating someone else’s property. The ranchers own the grass. Now, they don’t own the ground under the grass. But they aren’t getting any compensation for the grass the elk eat.”