The land needs to rest from cattle grazing for several seasons after a range fire, but here they are on the tablelands above Jackpot, Nevada, grazing part of the Murphy burn.
The sagebrush area is unburned, the rest is obviously burned. Grazing a burn weakens the newly sprouted perennial grasses — the good grasses — in favor of the fire prone annuals. I did notice the cows left the lupines and death camas completely untouched. I had to wonder if the future of this draw will be pretty poisonous flowers?
Grazing the Murphy burn the very next year. Photo Ralph Maughan. June 16, 2008
I saw quite a few pronghorn in the general area, and it is also obviously important deer and elk transitional and maybe winter range, but cows seem to come before everything else.
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Update. June 24. The BLM is going up to the area to get the cattle off the burn. They are not supposed to be there.
Ralph Maughan
Dr. Ralph Maughan is professor emeritus of political science at Idaho State University. He was a Western Watersheds Project Board Member off and on for many years, and was also its President for several years. For a long time he produced Ralph Maughan's Wolf Report. He was a founder of the Greater Yellowstone Coalition. He and Jackie Johnson Maughan wrote three editions of "Hiking Idaho." He also wrote "Beyond the Tetons" and "Backpacking Wyoming's Teton and Washakie Wilderness." He created and is the administrator of The Wildlife News.
it’s shameful that they’re stocking that burn.
Just more proof that they don’t give a damn.
a state legislator – burt brackett (appointed to state legislature by Otter), whose daughter was a staffer for larry craig grazes out there. simplot cattle run in the area as well. that district has been under a lot of political pressure not to do its job