Defenders' Experts
Grazing Permit Buyouts
Domestic livestock have been allowed to graze on federal public lands in America's West for more than a century. Grazing of sheep and cattle often has negative impacts on wildlife and the environment for it can result in alterations of plant community composition, massive loss of topsoil, degradation of watersheds and riparian habitats, transmittal of livestock diseases to native wildlife or unacceptable conflicts with imperiled wildlife species.
Federal grazing permits are issued by the U.S. Forest Service (FS) and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and determine the number of head of sheep and cattle and the timing and duration that livestock can be grazed on a certain area (called an allotment). Grazing permits issued for allotments on FS and BLM last 10 years. A fee is paid by the rancher for each Animal Unit Month (AUM) authorized by the permit. An AUM is the amount of forage needed to sustain one cow and her calf, one horse, or five sheep or goats for a month. The current grazing fee is $1.35 per AUM.
For various reasons, many ranchers are facing financial difficulties and are finding that it is no longer profitable to run their cattle and sheep operations. Moreover, as habitat monitoring techniques become more refined, wildlife biologists are better able to identify where conflicts between grazing and imperiled species are high. One solution that provides mutual benefits to both ranchers and wildlife involves the buyout of federal grazing permits by conservation organizations with the intent of ending livestock grazing on the corresponding allotment. Ranchers are paid a fair market value for their permit and the FS or the BLM agree to end grazing on that specific allotment.
In 2002, Defenders helped secure a grazing allotment on national forest land, where conflicts between recovering grizzly bear populations and sheep were increasing. For more information on this grazing permit buyout, please see our press release.
Defenders believes voluntary grazing permit buyouts are an effective way of ending conflicts between ranchers and wildlife and we plan to continue to work cooperatively with other ranchers to achieve such conservation benefits in high priority areas such as wolf recovery zones.
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