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TAKE ACTION! Tell BLM to ensure the allotments abused by the Hammonds stay closed! Comments due January 3, 2022

Steens Mountain, photo by A. Bronstein/WWP

Steens Mountain, photo by Adam Bronstein

December 20, 2021

The Bureau of Land Management has announced that it plans to prepare a full Environmental Impact Statement in order to analyze the resumption of livestock grazing on the Bridge Creek allotments in eastern Oregon – lands made famous by the former permittee, Hammond Ranches, Inc. The allotments have been mostly cattle-free for seven years, and we’ve successfully fought to keep them that way, not once but twice.

Now, however, the Bureau is back at it, weighing its options for managing the allotments in the future. We need your help to put pressure on the agency to do the right thing for the land and wildlife, including sage grouse, redband trout, mule deer, and pronghorn. We need a fresh approach, and agency must consider a full range of management alternatives that elevates the needs of native wildlife and ecosystems first.

Submit your comments by January 3, 2022!

Online: https://eplanning.blm.gov/eplanning-ui/project/2013546/510

Email: BLM_OR_BU_BCA_AMP@blm.gov

Or by mail: BCA, c/o Burns District BLM 28910 Hwy 20 West, Hines, OR 97738, Attention: Don Rotell

Review the documents online: Bridge Creek Area Allotment Management Plan Environmental Impact Statement. (https://bit.ly/3q3aocw)

 

SUGGESTED TALKING POINTS:

  • The Bureau must analyze an alternative to permanently close the Hammond, Mud Creek, Hardie Summer, and Hammond Fenced Federal Range allotments to domestic livestock, taking the recent rest and recovery into consideration. This alternative should be selected as the final decision.
  • Grazing authorizations must be compatible with the protection of sage grouse habitat needs, including the requirement of a minimum 7-inch grass height in nesting and brood-rearing areas.
  • The Bureau must incorporate management direction from the Oregon Greater Sage-Grouse Approved Resource Management Plan Amendments, including the Habitat Objectives Table.
  • The Bureau must prevent grazing along streams that host redband trout and ensure that there is a 6-inch riparian stubble height requirement should livestock be allowed in these sensitive areas. Because cows congregate in riparian areas, consume and trample shading vegetation, silt up creekbeds, widen stream channels and defecate in the water, healthy trout populations and cattle cannot coexist.
  • The Bureau must consider the health of bighorn sheep populations and fully analyze any grazing impacts to them. The Bureau must study and disclose recent bighorn sheep distribution and movement data, especially post-2014, to determine whether and to what extent grazing on the allotments will impact nearby bighorn sheep populations.
  • The Bureau should analyze an alternative that would incorporate acre-for-acre public/private land swaps to eliminate public parcels isolated within private tracts, which are currently prone to abuse. Consolidation of land ownerships allows for more consistent management and monitoring while providing greater public access.
  • The Bureau should permanently close to domestic grazing high wildlife value pastures like Krumbo Creek (habitat for redband trout, sage-grouse, mule deer, and antelope), and pastures that comprise the unburned portion of the Hardie Summer allotment.
  • Hammonds Ranches, Inc. and its affiliates must never again receive authorization to graze on public lands – on the Bridge Creek allotments or anywhere else – due to a history of violations of grazing lease terms and conditions.

Thanks for speaking out for public lands and wildlife!

 

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