Getting Cows out of Wilderness

Many people are unhappy when they find livestock grazing inside designated wilderness areas on national forest lands. People hiking the Continental Divide Trail encounter cattle in the Colorado national forests or in northern New Mexico wild lands. Cows in wilderness?

But aren’t wilderness lands highly protected and supposed to be free of commercial activity? Why are people making money with cattle in wilderness when it damages the ecology, streams and experience of the outdoors? Isn’t wilderness per-se the last places to experience primal America?

The Wilderness Act of 1964 closed wilderness areas to motorized vehicles and even prevents the use of chain saws and other motorized tools to maintain trails. Wilderness is a special legal category for lands set aside by Congress to be managed by any federal agency. Yet the Act allowed cattle grazing to continue on lands designated as wilderness because the livestock industry lobby was powerful enough to block the Act’s passage if grazing could not continue. So, we are stuck with cattle and sheep in wilderness areas… or are we?

The Wilderness Act says wilderness is: “where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man…retaining its primeval character and influence…which is protected and managed so as to preserve its natural conditions.” Yet livestock grazing decimates plant communities, damages the structure of streams, pollutes lakes and streams and covers the land with long-lasting fecal material. Cattle spread weeds and ruin the natural ways of fire on the land.

And ranchers are often allowed to drive trucks and ATVs into wilderness areas for routine work such as fixing fences or feeding cattle. If the public operates motors in wilderness, we face strict sanctions. Yet ranchers maintain fences and other things that destroy the wild character of the place and hurt native animals. And the fences and cattle ponds, water pipelines and other things are only part of the damage ranchers do to wilderness.

Ranchers also call in the US Department of Agriculture’s Wildlife Services to kill coyotes, wolves and bears that kill cattle on lands that belong to all Americans, not the ranchers. Even if these predators are rare or if the public wants to see them in the wilds, they can be killed by poisoning or shooting in wilderness to help the business interests of the ranchers. Yet killing predators damages the ecology of the whole wilderness area, from the plant life to the birds and mammals.

To make matters worse, federal agencies consider grazing allotments in wilderness areas as unmovable, almost sacred allotments. These leases are much harder to close, vacate or regulate than public lands outside of wilderness. Because Congress said that grazing “shall be allowed to continue” in the Wilderness Act, agencies feel obligated to allow grazing in wilderness. The word “shall” is a strong edict in legislation. It means the activity is not optional. In this case, agencies even feel they need to maintain the numbers of animals that were on the land in 1964 even if those animals are decimating the landscape and rendering it a biological desert.

Changes Coming?

A coalition of conservation groups are pushing Congress to change Congress’ guidance to federal agencies early in the Biden administration. Wilderness Watch, a Montana group focused on protecting wilderness areas, is circulating a letter to hundreds of organizations that would force agencies to allow grazing allotments to be bought out and closed, to remain vacant, to have the number of animals reduced. The groups want to have strong restrictions on ranchers using motorized vehicles, building structures, and killing native wildlife on behalf of their business interests inside wilderness.

Generally cattle grazing happens on Bureau of Land Management and US Forest Service lands designated as wilderness. All federal land management agencies have wilderness designated on their lands. For example, Yosemite National Park is highly protected, and it also has wilderness lands protected within the national park. National parks don’t have livestock grazing. For example, the San Juan National Forest in Colorado, has some of its land designated wilderness but most is open to grazing and other uses.

The public has to follow different rules in general national forest land than we do in wilderness lands. But ranchers can largely ignore wilderness boundaries as they pursue their business activities on lands owned by all Americans.

Business and wilderness do not mix. Wilderness is a place we leave alone. Let wildlife live. Let fires roam. Let rivers cut canyons and fill the air with the music of their flow. Ranching or other money making can take place on the vast majority of lands outside wilderness and national parks. As people flood into the outdoors, we need places where we can truly go and find wild America. We need places free of the ranching subculture (subsidized by the government) and free of the noise of other humanity.

To read the letter from Wilderness Watch, click here.