The Prairie Star: Montana Ag Newspaper

BOZEMAN, Mont. - In response to a request from Fergus County Farm Bureau to help with this “urgent fight,” the Montana Farm Bureau Federation (MFBF) has submitted comments regarding the Four Draft Management Alternatives being proposed for the Charles M. Russell National Wildlife Refuge (CMR).

“The livestock industry is a very important part of Montana’s history and economy, and it relies on the continued use of public grazing as public lands cover a large part of our state,” said MFBF Executive Vice President Jake Cummins.

Cummins pointed out that Farm Bureau members have raised livestock on private property and public lands for many years and in many cases, the private lands and public leases have passed through several generations.

Norm Bellows, an ag loan officer with Stockman Bank in Miles City, said ranchers he works with in that area are concerned by all four of the draft management alternatives. “Livestock grazing looks to be replaced largely with prescribed burns,” Bellows points out. “Reducing private livestock grazing becomes a very large economic drain to the local communities and the Fort Peck area affects six Montana counties. The area producers are also concerned about wildlife management issues in the area, including the potential introduction of buffalo and wolves.”

In its comments, Farm Bureau explained that the values of public grazing permits are capitalized into the private land values of the ranches they are connected to, and taking away their right to use those permits is not only unfair after so many years of use, but it is essentially a ‘taking.’

“The people who use these public lands for grazing have actively participated in the conservation of the land and have enjoyed recreating on it, be it for picnics, wildlife viewing, or a variety of other things,” Cummins said.

MFBF is most concerned that all of the Four Draft Management Alternatives reduce or take away the ranchers’ ability to use the public land for grazing, which is one of its intended uses. Cummins pointed out that according to Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Executive Order on CMR, the lands must be “reserved and set apart for the conservation and development of natural wildlife resources and for the protection and improvement of public grazing lands and natural forage resources.”

“Reducing the number of animal units allowed on the land, closing roads that allow ranchers access to care for their livestock, and other proposed items in the draft alternatives that adversely affect public grazing, not only go against the traditions of the West, but are capricious, arbitrary, and unlawful,” Cummins noted. “Montana’s ranchers and livestock producers must be allowed to continue using public ground for grazing, be it on the CMR, Bureau of Land Management lands, U.S. Forest Service lands, or state lands.”

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