stillatmaxpoints

The grazing fee's fluctuate, depending on cattle price for a year. The cost of infrastructure development and maintenance of ranch improvements for roads, water and fence's etc is much higher per animal unit than the grazing fee's. The cost to raise a calf to a point he is marketable on todays market with today's expenses can be anywhere from $500.00 to $800.00 per head, depending on the ranch, that would be about $60.00 per cow and calf per month to maintain that animal unit not complaining that is just real world cost on todays market, and everyone has to deal with it. The point is elk utilize just about as much feed and water as a cow does, so they have to be figured into the expense cost for the ranch. That is not an issue if there is not a large herd of elk on the ranch, say 4 or 5 hundred, but when you get into the thousands, that is a cost that any business would could not tolerate. Simple example if you were in the restaurant business and you owned the building(private property) or say you leased the building and 30 to 40 percent of the the people came in and had a meal and beverage than just left with out paying for anything, i suspect you probably would not like the outcome. The trespass fee is just to help off set some of these expenses. Private land on the ranch is about 500,000 acres, 99.9 percent of the water for wildlife and cattle on private and state trust lands is owned by the ranch. The road system on the ranch is owned and maintained by the ranch.

270 you missed the point of the entire post, as far as drought that is part of the business, you missed the point there to.

FYI, correct information concerning the Boquillas ranch First i am not a employee of the ranch or hunt program, and i am not a outfitter. I have done business with the present lessee, and i was involved with the hunt program early on. The ranch is right at two thirds private land and one third Arizona state trust lands. Arizona state trust lands are not public lands, you can go to the Arizona state land department web site and read there mandate, they are not multiple use lands like federal lands are(forest service BLM) All of the improvements on these trust lands are built and maintained by the lessee and owned by the lessee, examples dirt stock tanks, metal water storage tanks, water troughs, pipelines, fence's etc. The water runoff that collects in the dirt stock tanks is owned by the state of Arizona, all of the pumped water(400 miles of pipeline on the Boquillas) is owned by the ranch, it is piped from a private well at considerable expense, again we are talking about state trust lands, on the private lands the ranch owns the grass, water, and all improvements. Any water trough or metal storage tank on trust lands, the water is owned by the ranch. The Boquillas ranch pays the Arizona state land dept, approximately $130,000.00 per year for the grazing fee's, that is for the grass only, all other expenses on trust lands is paid for by the ranch. All dirt roads on the ranch be it private or state trust lands are built and maintained by the ranch, there are no county maintained roads on the ranch. As many of you know this is a dry arid part of Arizona, with no live streams, very few springs or seeps. There is a book written by Dave Brown former G&F employee about the history of wildlife in Arizona in the !800"s, the early explorers found little or no wildlife in this part of Arizona which now the Boquillas. Realistically there would not be a huntable population of any big game animal on the Boquillas if not for the millions of dollars spent on this ranch for water development and maintenance over the years. The ranch is not anti wildlife or anti hunter, but the impact of hunting and wildlife, (mostly elk) is a huge cost on water and grass on private lands, and water on trust lands. If you go back to say 1989 and look up the amount of permits for elk(i have)from 1989 until present you will see each year the permits were increased as the elk herd grew from a couple of hundred permits up to present where it is over 2000. Game and Fish grew the elk herd for hunter opportunity at the expense of the ranch. The ranch over the years has had to reduce its carrying capacity because of the increase of elk. This ranch is a very serious large cattle business operation, and the bottom line on the balance sheet is important. Just so you know in 2002 one of the driest rainfall years on record, the Boquillas had to ship all of the cattle off the ranch, at a cost of a over a million dollars until it started raining again. The lessee left all of the pumped water on for the wildlife during that dry time when the cattle were off the ranch. The cost to just pump the water at the well is over $3000.00 per month.