BLM has unwisely targeted ranchers

By Clarence M. Bush, Boulder City

Monday, April 28, 2014 | 2:01 a.m.

Everyone is jumping on Cliven Bundy for not paying grazing fees and saying he is stealing from them. No one is looking at the cause of the whole thing.

About 20 years ago, the Bureau of Land Management jumped on the bandwagon of misinformation put out by environmentalists, most of whom have never seen a cow or a tortoise on the range.

The BLM decided to remove Bundy’s cattle from the range on the guise of protecting the tortoise, essentially putting Bundy out of business.

Cattle and tortoises get along just fine. They eat a few of the same plants, but the tortoise regularly dines on numerous plants that a cow will not touch. The same goes for removing the cattle from the range to protect the sage grouse. They do not eat the same thing. A cow may stop and sniff a grouse nest but will never step on it.

If you want to increase the grouse population, take the protected species designation off the raven and have open season on them. You would see an immediate explosion of the grouse population.

The BLM for years has been putting small ranchers and farmers out of business on environmentalists’ say-so.

Congress needs to put a stop to bureaucratic rule and make the BLM go back to being a service agency, assisting and helping the people instead of putting them out of business.