Deer & Cattle

[Huntn coues]

All I know is I shot my Coues buck off a tank that had cattle on it

[TAM]

If I remember correctly Steven Ward shot his 110 inch archery buck around a herd of cows. I think the cows actually pushed the buck out of thick cover and made it possible for him to get his shot.

 

My opinion is that deer will hang around even with cows in the area. Sometimes they may change there patterns to work around the cattle, but they're still there.

 

I know up on the Kaibab this past fall I watched a mule deer doe and a cow water together at the same time at the same water trough.

 

Just my .02

[couesdog]

Wow, what a shame that we have to talk about cows in coues habitat! How about all the cows I see in bighorn habitat! Cows are grazers- they have no business in canyons. They should be limited to large grasslands like God intended them to live. In Arizona, large grasslands are hard to find and so should cattle. I am all for beef, but I for one am sick of our public lands being raped. Maybe in some areas of southern AZ ranchers are helping to keep access open and I thank them for that, but in central and northern AZ it is sickening what a hundred years of over grazing has done to our land. What a shame!

[wklman]

yes! lets get rid of all the cattle ranchers and while were at it why don't we get rid of all the miners, mountain bikers, bird watchers, oil companies, hikers, snow boarders,skiers, loggers, anglers,4-wheelers,campers and last but not least us hunters that way we can all stay at home and watch the nature channel to get our outdoor fix. our public lands are just that "Public", they're not just there for us hunters.

 

 

[couesdog]

Agreed and good point- however, if our "public" lands aren't managed better, then many of those activities that you have listed (including hunting) will go away. Hi impact use, such as cattle leases, alter the environment. In the big picture, large grazers (including elk) don't fulfill a historic niche in the mountains or canyons. I believe that large grazers should be limited to areas where they could actually benifit the environment, such as Nebraska or Kansas. Arizona is just not setup to support these animals.

[.270]

then we can get rid of the farmers. then the developers. then maybe the miners. let's see what else is there that somebody doesn't like? anglers maybe? yeah, lets run them off too. hikers maybe next. campers. yeah, they gotta go too. dirt bikers, get rid of em. birdwatchers. yep, they're harrassin' the birds lookin' at em all the time. get outta here birdwatchers. i guess after we get rid o' everybody, the last guy can just jump off a cliff and turn it all back over to the animals. even tho humans have been here just as long. it's called joint use. and if everyone will work at true joint use, it's a pretty good thing. but when folks who use the joint use want to push off folks who also use it, it's sorta like fighting ourselves. Lark.

[AzHunt]

Agreed and good point- however, if our "public" lands aren't managed better, then many of those activities that you have listed (including hunting) will go away. Hi impact use, such as cattle leases, alter the environment. In the big picture, large grazers (including elk) don't fulfill a historic niche in the mountains or canyons. I believe that large grazers should be limited to areas where they could actually benefit the environment, such as Nebraska or Kansas. Arizona is just not setup to support these animals.

 

I respectfully disagree with your statement. Yes, many many many years ago, land was often overgrazed. However, after years of research, instruction, new land practices put into effect, along with strict regulations in effect, this statement is no longer valid. Ranchers across Arizona with leased lands have taken the upmost care of the land which they lease. They have to. Face it, if they don't, they will have no food base for their animals.

 

In part, a very good smear campaign by certain "groups" have in-grained into many peoples thoughts and ideas that ranchers are raping they public's land. They did a very good job at it. However, many ranchers have begun fighting back and proving not only their value at land stewardship for their own sake, but for wildlife's sake as well. The Chilton's down by Arivaca went through the legal system a few years back and proved in a court of law how one of these groups were making false statements in an attempt to get their grazing leases revoked. In the end, a court order made the group pay a lot of money to the Chilton's because quite simply, the group lied about the status of the land.

 

Historically, elk have been in Arizona a very long time. Running around the canyons and mountians, well, that is what elk do. To say they do not fill a historic niche in the mountains or canyons, well, in my opinion, is simply not true.

 

[.270]

you did a good job with this post. i wanted to try and put it in words, but i ain't too good at that sometimes. people always holler "overgrazing". technically, a rancher on public land can't overgraze. they graze things down, which has been scientifically proven to be beneficial to the range. but grazing is a set practice that is governed by all kindsa rules and even if a place looks pretty bare, it ain't overgrazed. they watch it real close. and like you say, what's the benefit to overgrazing? these guys are in business to make a living. hard to do with starving cows. some years back i knew of a guy that really overstocked his permit. it was heavily forested and hard to count the cows. the officials had warned the guy plenty but he just told em to prove it. well, they come in with a buncha cowboys and rounded the place up. he was overstocked by about 2x+. he had a 1500 head permit and he had over 3000 head on it. to put it nicely, he got hammered. he was lucky to keep his permit, but they cut it in half and he had to spend a fortune to fix the riparian damage the cattle had done and in some really hefty fines. 6 figure fines. i come from an agricultral background. farming and cattle. my ancestors built the first roads and fences in this state. my great grandad left his family here to go back east to fight in the civil war. tells you how long we've been here. so i know cattle have been here for at least 150 years. there have been a lot of ranchers who overstepped what the rules allowed, and some of them for a long time, but they all ended up paying heavily for it later. in the rotten little piece of desert we deer hunt in the deer herd has increased tremendously because the rancher piped water everywhere. now there is water close to anywhere there is feed. a thing that doesn't always happen in the desert. he turned some crummy country into a pretty good place to hunt. that wasn't his intention. he wanted his cattle to get along better, but so do the deer as a consequence of his hard work. Lark.

[couesdog]

I am not here to stir things up, I respect everybody's opinion and realize that this is a sensitive situation. I also realize that things will never be the way they used to be before we screwed things up. The fact is that we used to have thousands and thousands of buffalo and elk that roamed the great plains. When white man came accross they killed the buffalo and forced the elk to adapt to live in the mountains and canyons. Look at the color of elk, they are designed to live in the great plains, look at how big thier antlers are. Look at Mormon lake in the summertime- that is where elk perfer to live. We had a system similiar to what is seen in Africa with the Cape Buffalo, Wilderbeast and Tompson's Gazelle. We screwed that system up. We brought a large animal over from India (the cow) and threw it into the mix. In my opinion, we should only see cows where buffalo have historically roamed because that is the niche that they fulfill. When I am glassing for bighorn sheep and see a cow, I am quite certain that there were not any buffalo in that canyon historically. There are some ranchers who are better at managing thier leases then others. The example of the rancher who had double the number of cattle on his lease and was still allowed to keep the lease is a good example of how strong the cattleman's assosiation is and is why we will not see a change in the near future. Cows will out compete elk and force elk to compete with deer and antelope. Elk will out compete deer and antelope everyday.

 

Bottom line is that I stand by my opinion that cows have no business in much of Arizona. They need to be in Kansas or Nebraska where buffalo were found by the tens of thousands. I don't like all the fences across our public lands. Ya there is more standing water, but I think sportsmen's groups and other outdoor organizations do a good job at maintaining those waters and add waters where they are needed. I agree that there is no good data to support the overgrazing aspects. The fact is that we are seeing alarming levels of juniper encroachment to our grasslands. We are seeing a decrease in forb diversity in our grasslands, we are seeing an increase in useless plants such as snakeweed and rabbit brush in our grasslands. It is no wonder that the antelope and mule deer in this state have taken it in the shorts (no that is not all from cattle). We all need to be more involved with how our land is managed.

 

 

[coueshunter84]

Should proabably point the finger at Smokey The Bear, more then todays ranchers, which have gon e a long way to fix things that had happened in the past. Now foks need to figure out that fire is a good thing instead of the Smokey The Bear approach. Grasslands were designed to burn , and burn, and burn, and burn. Kali hasent figured this out yet. Forests were designed to burn every few years, not every 30-40 years when they reach catastrophic porportions. Granted the ranching of the past ties into everything else. But its not the only thing. not at all.

[Buckhorn]

People shouldn't live in the desert either but they do. And as long as people inhabit a certain area you are going to have the introduction of animals; that way you can sustain life. And as said before we wouldn't have near as much wildlife in Arizona if it wasn't for the ranchers.

 

Buckhorn

[JHAM357]

i would take cattle in my hunting area over not being able to hunt or over populated hunting areas. i lived for a year and a half in texas where there is minimal public land, and the public land they had was too far for me and lots of money to hunt it. i know most of you this might not be an issue but when you dont make enough money to spend on day leases and yearly leases it really sucks! luckily i knew a guy that took me out for one weekend. one weekend of huntin in a year and a half. like i said some or most of would be able to afford it but when you cant, you appreciate the fact that you can atleast hunt where ever you choose, even if there is cattle al around. too many arizonans take for granite and dont aprreciate the free lands in which we have to hunt.

[AzHunt]

We all need to be more involved with how our land is managed.

 

That statement I completely agree with. However, like politics, apathy rules.

 

The rest of your opinions I will respectfully disagree with. Cattle, Elk, & Ranchers are here to stay. Hopefully the hunters who enjoy "public lands" on a daily basis will continue to enjoy them for a long time to come.

[.270]

so i guess we gotta revert to caveman days? this is 2008. man has changed his environment to suit him the best he can since the beginning of time. "white men" and cattle didn't displace buffalo. the gov't killed em off to control the indians. they created a market for the hides so that folks would shoot em. they advertised for rich folk to come out west and shoot em all day long from trains. etc, etc. that's a fact. the pioneers who came west shot buffalo when they needed one to eat. they didn't have time to just run around and shoot buffalo. they were too busy workin', buildin' something. and the only reason there is even one dang buffalo left is because charlie goodnight and a couple other cowboys herded a few up and protected em to keep the last few from getting exterminated. that's a fact. and elk never were big time plains animals in modern times. they liked to hang out in the meadows and high praries, that were surrounded by trees, just like they do today. they spent more time in the open, because there weren't roads and people everywhere. but they weren't ever like bison. they were never herded up in the vast wide open like bison. the way they act today is because of human encroachment, not cows. and what the heck do you think feeds us? and provides leather and countless other products? cows. that's what. i guess we could cover kansas and nebraska with cows, but where you gonna plant the wheat and corn? a couple other sorta important staples. guess you figgerd you just got that at the store, huh? and we ain't never had a similar system to africa. never. and the term is "wildabeest", not "wilderbeast". if yer gonna argue at least learn how to spell. sounds like larry the cable guy. there is nothing that is more regulated, monitored, supervised, changed, challenged, tinkered with, etc., than public land grazing. if a cowboy has a cow on public land he has to do more paperwork and put up with more redtape than (not "then", you guys learn some english) than you can even imagine and there ain't even any sense even trying to explain it to anyone who doesn't understand it. what's it hurt if a cow is in a canyon? i don't understand that one for sure. the noxious weeds and other stuff were brought in here by commerce. just like these stupid uranus doves. and crawdads. no we have the quagga muscles. things move around. things change. nothing stays the same. it's called dynamics. and they always have. and fences? there are more fences in any given subdivision than there is on grazing land. how you gonna do away with fences? you need to look at the benefit grazing does for country. and you need to look at how much land ranchers could lock up if they wanted to. heck, one woman with a gripe and a couple acres brought the lower aravaipa to it's knees for over 2 years with one gate. what if all the ranchers, that own virtually every bit of access into the galiuros, decided to lock it up? like they have in the past because of meddling by huggers. the same could happen in just about the whole southeast part of Az. instead of just deciding that some guy with a cow is the enemy. anti's gang up on one group at a time. they pretty much got logging, at least in the southwest. cowboys are next. guess who's next after that? us. like i said, this is 2008 and it ain't gonna go backwards. no matter what you and the rest o' the tree huggers want. i'm real sorry you see a cow in your scope every once in a while when you're glassing for sheep. tell ya what, you give up your air conditioned house, vehicle and gun, go back to nature (and probly starve) and i'll see what i can do about the cows in the canyons. Lark.

[KGAINES]

so i guess we gotta revert to caveman days? this is 2008. man has changed his environment to suit him the best he can since the beginning of time. "white men" and cattle didn't displace buffalo. the gov't killed em off to control the indians. they created a market for the hides so that folks would shoot em. they advertised for rich folk to come out west and shoot em all day long from trains. etc, etc. that's a fact. the pioneers who came west shot buffalo when they needed one to eat. they didn't have time to just run around and shoot buffalo. they were too busy workin', buildin' something. and the only reason there is even one dang buffalo left is because charlie goodnight and a couple other cowboys herded a few up and protected em to keep the last few from getting exterminated. that's a fact. and elk never were big time plains animals in modern times. they liked to hang out in the meadows and high praries, that were surrounded by trees, just like they do today. they spent more time in the open, because there weren't roads and people everywhere. but they weren't ever like bison. they were never herded up in the vast wide open like bison. the way they act today is because of human encroachment, not cows. and what the heck do you think feeds us? and provides leather and countless other products? cows. that's what. i guess we could cover kansas and nebraska with cows, but where you gonna plant the wheat and corn? a couple other sorta important staples. guess you figgerd you just got that at the store, huh? and we ain't never had a similar system to africa. never. and the term is "wildabeest", not "wilderbeast". if yer gonna argue at least learn how to spell. sounds like larry the cable guy. there is nothing that is more regulated, monitored, supervised, changed, challenged, tinkered with, etc., than public land grazing. if a cowboy has a cow on public land he has to do more paperwork and put up with more redtape than (not "then", you guys learn some english) than you can even imagine and there ain't even any sense even trying to explain it to anyone who doesn't understand it. what's it hurt if a cow is in a canyon? i don't understand that one for sure. the noxious weeds and other stuff were brought in here by commerce. just like these stupid uranus doves. and crawdads. no we have the quagga muscles. things move around. things change. nothing stays the same. it's called dynamics. and they always have. and fences? there are more fences in any given subdivision than there is on grazing land. how you gonna do away with fences? you need to look at the benefit grazing does for country. and you need to look at how much land ranchers could lock up if they wanted to. heck, one woman with a gripe and a couple acres brought the lower aravaipa to it's knees for over 2 years with one gate. what if all the ranchers, that own virtually every bit of access into the galiuros, decided to lock it up? like they have in the past because of meddling by huggers. the same could happen in just about the whole southeast part of Az. instead of just deciding that some guy with a cow is the enemy. anti's gang up on one group at a time. they pretty much got logging, at least in the southwest. cowboys are next. guess who's next after that? us. like i said, this is 2008 and it ain't gonna go backwards. no matter what you and the rest o' the tree huggers want. i'm real sorry you see a cow in your scope every once in a while when you're glassing for sheep. tell ya what, you give up your air conditioned house, vehicle and gun, go back to nature (and probly starve) and i'll see what i can do about the cows in the canyons. Lark.

 

Well said Lark.