The Armed Oregon Ranchers Who Want Free Land Are Already Getting A 93 Percent Discount

[Quixote1818]

By Leah Libresco Fivethirtyeight

Snip> Now his son has furthered the fight by seizing the Oregon refuge. In a news conference Sunday, Ammon Bundy explained that he was there in protest of the “unconstitutional transactions of land rights and water rights.”

Those transactions, though, can be a pretty good deal, regardless of their constitutionality. According to a 2015 report by the Center for Biological Diversity, the Bureau of Land Management’s fees for grazing cattle on public land are much lower than the fees charged by private landowners, and they’ve only become cheaper in recent years.

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Snip> So getting to buy grazing rights from the Bureau of Land Management is a steal, unless, like the Bundys, you think the government is trying to charge you for what’s rightfully yours. Or, at the very least, not rightfully theirs. The Bundys claim the land because their ancestors worked on it before the bureau even existed.

The federal government owns over 80 percent of all land in the Bundys’ home state of Nevada and over half of all the land in Oregon. If that land were privately owned, the market price for grazing rights might be lower than it is today, as more private land owners competed with each other. But, for now, the government is using its clout to lower costs for ranchers, if they’re willing to accept the aid.

Link: http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-armed-oregon-ranchers-who-want-free-land-are-already-getting-a-93-percent-discount/?ex_cid=538fb

[enough]

1. Glad this issue is getting some discussion.

[2naSalit]

2. Thank you for posting!!!

And for a lot more on this and the Hammonds and the Bundys and public land grazing issues I suggest browsing this web site:

http://www.thewildlifenews.com/

[Bluenorthwest]

3. And yet they are not Oregon Ranchers but a bunch of out of state Mormon infused gas bags who

have done this with impunity in Nevada and now taken their show on the road.

[Kali]

4. the comparisons are not fully legit

Last edited Mon Jan 4, 2016, 10:36 PM - Edit history (1)

what you get and have to deal with on a typical BLM lease and what is provided on a private lease are WAY different.

it is like comparing the rent at dry campground with no toilet and a condo in a gated community at the beach. sure it is cheaper, and could even be considered "subsidized" but you are going to have a lot more work at one and comfort and ease at the other.

[Quixote1818]

5. How did you come to this conclusion?

Sure, there are some very small lots owned by private ranchers that are really nice but the vast, vast majority of private property out West is just vast barren land that could just as well be BLM or National Forest land. My parents use to lease land to cattle ranchers and horse owners near Cedaredge, CO. Their land was no different from any of the land around it.

[Kali]

6. I am a rancher.

In general private leases will include water and protections not available on public land. Sometimes even guarantees of weight gain for calves. Fencing, other improvements are included. Often there are few or no water sources on public lands - most of the water in the west is on patented land.

In addition, and especially BLM and Forest allotments have to be shared with the public, including recreation, hunting, mining and so forth.

Yes the land may be similar looking, especially to someone not attuned to the sorts things a rancher or range specialist would see, but in general it was the better lands that got homesteaded and the shitty less productive left to the Feds - especially the BLM.

A typical allotment in the same county may only support 6 head to the section where on private it might be 10 or 15. We have a small BLM lease, one section of pretty much creosote flats and another 80 acres on the side of a mountain. Neither is fenced and neither has water on it, though they are, like much land in the west, intermingled with other ownership/management types and those do have water nearby. The full section is bordered all around by State Trust land that tends to have a lot more feed on it and a dirt stock pond. The 80 is bordered by a section of State Trust with grass, and the rest is bordered by private (where the water is). BLM allowed a sand and gravel operation on the full section a few years back without bothering to notifiy us. This is not atypical of them. I have many stories about my experiences with the BLM, few are happy.

I don't know the type f country you are talking about in CO but around here, in southern AZ there are often vacant BLM leases while it is hard to even find private ground to rent at any price.

[Recursion]

8. Worked on my grandfather's ranch for years; Kali is right, it's apples and oranges

I have no doubt it can fairly be called "subsidized" in some sense, but then again that's kind of the point of a government, right?

[okojo]

13. My Adage for power in much of the West,

It is not how much land one owns, it is how much water one has access to.. Power for these ranchers is access and rights to water.

I have been to the area where these Arizona Terrorists are camped out. It is barren, rough hardscrabble existence, where water is king. It is very isolated, desolate and it takes a huge amount of land, like one square kilometre to feed one head of cattle.

One reason I don't eat red meat, because I dealt with many of these type of ranchers in the Northwest, where they are horrible stewards of the land, and tend to shoot any wildlife that they deemed a threat to their herd. Besides cattle consume a huge amount of water. Besides they can't survive without Federal Government help without subsidized BLM land.

[Nirgendwo]

12. The difference doesn't matter.

They just want it for free.

[niyad]

7. k and r

[L. Coyote]

9. And, if anyone gets some money, it should be the Native owners, not the first thieves.

In the case of Malheur, the Paiute were there and Natives were in the area 14,000 years before the land was stolen from them.

[ffr]

10. But, but, it's unfair. Waaaaaah!

The occupiers are nothing less than land thieves, out to enrich themselves at our expense.

[Sunlei]

11. Those are Americans public lands & our Federal gov. is tasked to manage OUR public land.

yes, they need to raise the 1950 grazing fee and stop spending millions to reseed, repair cattle/sheep trample damage and fence for those welfare 'ranchers'