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Our Values
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Conservation Program - Fly Fishing and Cattle Grazing on the Valles Caldera National Preserve The Vales Caldera Trust held its quarterly public meeting in Santa Fe on Dec. 11, 2008. Bill Keleher (chairman) and the rest of the Trust board presided over the meeting, with presentations by Valles Trust professional staff to an audience of about fifty interested citizens and representatives of various interest groups. The agenda was primarily a yearly review of Trust programs, activities, and financial results for 2008. The attendees were most interested in how the grazing program was implemented this past season, and especially its effect on recreation and whether it generated a profit to the Trust. Questions and comments from the audience were numerous and pointed.Mr. and Mrs. Gary Morton of Las Vegas, NM had the winning bid of $62,200. that allowed them to graze 1960 steers on the Preserve through this past November. During that time the cattle each gained an average of 304 lbs. (1960 cows x 304 lbs/cow x $0.80/lb = $476,672.00). The contract required use of so-called “adaptive management” in which the steers would be allowed to graze intensely, but briefly, in riparian areas and then moved to places away from streams for most grazing. The plan broke down almost immediately and Tim Haarmann, the Preserve Forman, stated that the cattle just wanted to stay down in the creek and they couldn’t move them. Haarmann had no response to repeated, insistent questions on why the staff didn’t require the Mortons to abide by the contract. A later presentation by Preserve Scientist, Dr. Bob Parmenter, revealed that grazing consumed 100% of new forage in the riparian areas grazed by cattle. Photos of riparian test areas fenced to exclude cattle but not elk showed that cattle had a much more detrimental effect than elk. I (Ron Loehman) made a statement on behalf of NM Trout that our members regarded the presence of cows in the Preserve streams to be unacceptable, particularly when those members had gone through a lot of trouble and expense to fish there. I further stated that I considered cows to be destructive to riparian health and function and that grazing was incompatible with other uses. If there were a conclusion from the lengthy exchange on the grazing program, it was a promise from Harman and the Preserve Board to do better next time. That future grazing program is the subject of a recently released, 250-page Environmental Assessment (EA), which is legally required before the Trust can implement any long-term grazing program. The EA lays out four alternatives, ranging from no grazing to grazing with economic return the primary objective. In my opinion, the EA favors the alternative that resembles this past season’s program. The EA process requires consideration of public comments, which are being accepted until Feb. 2, 2009. Copies of the whole EA document, or just the Executive Summary, are available from info@vallescalders.gov. Comments should be sent to comments@vallescaldera.gov. |