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LMD Apr 23

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Riding Herd Saying things that need to be said. April 15, 2023 • www.aaalivestock.com

Volume 65 • No. 4

Hell With One “L” LEE PITTS

If you ask Kris Stewart Hell is spelled with one “L”. Over the years we have tried to expose the many ways state and federal governments are using to ride roughshod over ranchers and put them out of business because the feds covet their land. When the bureaucrats couldn’t accomplish their goal with wolves, endangered species, water rights, and so forth they’ve tried to burn them out with record-sized wildfires. S a d l y, we’ve learned about another cruel tool the feds have at their disposal to rid the world of public lands ranchers. It’s called “highly erodible land” and is abbreviated with the letters “HEL.” It’s the most accurate acronym we’ve come across and it describes exactly what the bureaucrats are putting Kris Stewart through. But in this case, we suspect the feds may have bit off more than they can chew in picking on Stewart and her 96 Ranch of Paradise Valley, Nevada.

Where The Buckaroo Was Born

NEWSPAPER PRIORITY HANDLING

Mother and daughter Kris and Patrice Stewart own the oldest ranch in Nevada having been in business since 1864, the same year Nevada became a state. The 159-year-old operation, now known as the 96 Ranch, is one of the Great Basin’s iconic ranches and you wouldn’t be exaggerating to say it’s where the buckaroo was born. It is the very

death, the ranch’s holdings included 3,000 cattle, 6,000 sheep, 1,000 horses on 17,560 acres of land. Sadly, despite excellent management based on Allan Savory’s teachings, today the 96 Ranch grazes more like 1,200 head of cattle and 18 horses on the same ground! The feds would like to reduce those numbers even further. The various alphabet of agencies that were still decades away from formation when Stewart’s ranch was founded tried to burn them out by letting fuel loads grew to ridiculous There are only two levels. Inevi-

definition of sustainability. Originally the 160-acre piece of ground was known as the Williams Stock Farming Co. which was homesteaded by Fredrich Wilhelm Stock, one of Nevada’s first permanent settlers. Today the ranch, located north of Winnemucca, is still owned by his descendants. Stock was aptly named, for he rapidly increased his operation to include sheep, hogs, horses and cattle (he also grew grain). At the time of Stock’s

things you need to be afraid of: a decent woman and bein’ left afoot.

USDA Extends Public Comment Period for Proposed Enhancements of Animal Disease Traceability Regulations SOURCE: USDA

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he United States Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) is extending the comment period on a proposal to strengthen animal disease traceability regulations. The extension will give the public an additional 30 days to prepare and submit comments. All comments must be received by April 19, 2023. On January 18, 2023, APHIS announced its proposal to amend the animal disease traceability regulations and require electronic identification for interstate movement of certain cattle and bison. Under the proposed rule, official ear tags must be visually and electronically readable for interstate movement of certain cattle and bison. It would also revise and clarify certain record requirements related to cattle. This includes requiring official identification device distribution records to be entered into a Tribal, State, or Federal database, and making those records available to APHIS upon request. APHIS is asking the public to provide comments on how this proposed rule would impact the regulated community. We are also seeking comments on ways that APHIS might assist with implementing these proposed changes. Interested stakeholders may view the proposed rule and submit comments at www.regulations.gov/document/ APHIS-2021-0020-0001 All comments must be received by April 19, 2023.

tably the Martin Fire, the largest in Nevada’s history, burned 439,230 acres in 2018 destroying the Stewart’s entire BLM permit and 6,200 acres of their private range. It will take more than a fire to buck the Stewart’s off the beast and yet the bureaucrats kept trying. You don’t stay in the business of being a public lands rancher for 159 years without having the staying power and gumption of a bull rider but it’s hard to beat the bureaucrats when they have unlimited access to layers of lawyers and a knack for fighting dirty.

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Biden Admin’s Sweeping New Rules Would Let Green Groups Lease Federal Land Away From Oil, Ranching JOHN HUGH DEMASTRI / DAILY CALLER NEWS

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he U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) proposed new rules in late March that would allow public land to be leased for conservation efforts, among other major changes to promote land health. The proposal would expand land-health standards to the entirety of the 245 million acres managed by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), prioritize the designation of Areas of Critical Environmental Concern (ACEC) and establish a leasing framework for private partners to perform climate restoration and mitigation efforts on public land, according to the DOI. The new rule would make proposed leases for conservation efforts a valid “use” of public land, similar to mining, ranching and other energy projects under the Federal Land Policy Management Act (FLPMA) of 1976, according to the BLM. “It is our responsibility to use the best tools available to restore wildlife habitat, plan for smart development, and conserve the most important places for the benefit of the generations to come,” DOI Secretary Deb Haaland said in a statement. Kathleen Sgamma, president of the Western Energy Alliance, an oil trade group, told Reuters she believed that it would be a “stretch” of the FLPMA to introduce conservation leases. This position was echoed by Myron Ebell, director of the Center for Energy and Environment at the free-market Competitive Enterprise Institute, who also argued that the BLM already had significant authority to limit land usage in an interview with the Daily Caller News Foundation.

“There are so many overlays for conservation on BLM land, some of them in the law and some of them just made up administratively, that a lot of land has already been withdrawn … from resource production, recreational access, grazing, timber … a lot of land is already being managed for conservation,” Ebell told the DCNF. He argued that some regions, particularly in the Intermountain West, depend on grazing as a conservation method and that this rule might make it more difficult to get a grazing lease.

by LEE PITTS

Riding Lessons

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he first thing in life I remember wanting to be was a jockey and the second thing was a professional basketball player. Alas, I was too big for one and too small for the other. So I figured that being a cowboy would be a better fit. I hate to admit this, but I’ve never had riding lessons in my life. I’ve never crossed an angry river on a horse, never rode a bronc in a rodeo and was never a member of the National Cutting Horse Association. I learned to ride sitting astride a saddle in my Grandpa’s “bunkhouse” which wasn’t really a bunkhouse at all but a shed filled with old bits, spurs, saddle blankets and two saddles sitting on stands. My favorite thing to do as a child was to go to Grandpa’s house where I’d head straight to his bunkhouse, mount up and play cowboy. My grandpa coached me, “Keep your heels, down, don’t jerk back on the reins and NEVER, under any circumstances grab the horn.” Or as he called it, “reaching for the apple or squeezing the biscuit.” My second favorite thing to do was ride the mechanical horse in front of the grocery store and I’m proud to say that neither the saddle stand nor the mechanized equine ever bucked me off despite some really hairy predicaments. When I went to the county fair I always rode the horse on the carousel, not the ostrich, tiger, elephant or swan so at that point in my career I felt like I could ride anything that wore hair, wool or feathers. Oh, I’d been on real horses before and have photographic evidence that I rode before I could walk, but I was always in the arms of Grandpa at a rodeo. It wasn’t until I was a sophomore in high school that I got on real horses and was a real cowboy. My best friend in high school lived on his grandfather’s ranch and every chance I got I went there to haul hay in exchange for riding horses. From the beginning I was assigned Buck, a horse that never did. Buck was the horse they always assigned to dudes, small children, infirm old timers and me. I loved that old horse. On a gentle horse like Buck everybody is an accomplished equestrian but simply polishing my

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