I think that there can be a happy medium found if responsible ranching practices are used. I know that where we hunt antalope they rotate the sections where the cattle are grazed and landscape seems to rebound rather well in the off years.

That was a very interesting study, to bad there's no real data to look at, but I have found some studies showing isolated populations where cougar predation was considered a factor, however mule deer populate the entire west, and they are all declining, even where cougars are not a factor.

There is still alot of clear cutting around Tillamook. The difference today is that once the area has been logged, they treat the area with chemicals to keep anything other than tree's from growing.

They used to burn the logged area, wich created excellent forage for deer and elk not long after the fire. But the grass and underbrush slowed the growth of the replanted tree's.

There have been a couple of meetings in Tillamook discussing why so many elk have moved down in to the valley. The bilogists at the one meeting I attended simply said that there was not enough feed for them anywhere other than the valley.

The area you saw the helicopter and elk was probably around the air base. They have trapped and relocated elk from that area a couple of times.

Having any luck?
Here's some help with the facts.

160 million acers of public land are leased to ranchers at below fair market value.
http://www.blm.gov/wo/st/en/prog/grazing.html


http://people.oregonstate.edu/~muirp/wpubland.htm
What percentage of US beef production relies, at least in part on these western public rangelends? Well, this question is very difficult to answer, in part because many western livestock owners use not only public but also private grazing lands, and because cattle spend various proportions of their feeding lives on the public lands. Suffice it to say, however, that the percentage is probably quite small (significantly less than 10%; probably between 2% and 4%).

Having any luck?
Here's some help with the facts.
[/quote]

I believe he as well as me was refering to the ESA listed arguments.. Also please note that state lands, USFS lands, and some wilderness areas a leased to cattle grazing as well. I'd like to see some facts about the 2-3% of the us beef as well. Also how much of that 160million acres is landlocked within private?

I believe he as well as me was refering to the ESA listed arguments.. Also please note that state lands, USFS lands, and some wilderness areas a leased to cattle grazing as well. I'd like to see some facts about the 2-3% of the us beef as well. Also how much of that 160million acres is landlocked within private? [/quote]

http://www.challismessenger.com/index.php?accnum=story-3-20090521
This is just a snippet of a whole slew of law suits that are pending to be filed in federal court.
And the main focus will be the negative environmental impact cattle have on other species, many are threatened or ESA listed.

Hankster,

Re: sources, a book called "Feeding at the Public Trough" is where I first read the story about cheap grazing leases, public subsidies to ranchers, if you'll allow, and that only 3% of US beef comes from the publicly grazed lands. (Most comes from modern feed lots.) The book is dated, 1970 I think, and I've since read in sources which I don't recall that it's down around 2% now. If you really want the source, one of us needs to do the research. I don't care about convincing you enough to bother doing it again.

Regarding your question about the OR elk and helecoptter, I don't know, but it's plausible. Blacktail deer forage optimally in edge habitat, clear cuts adjacent to standing timber. Elk forage optimally on grasslands. It's entirely possible that the elk herd increased as clearcuts expanded in area. Then as the reprod (replanted young trees) grew higher and shaded out grass and forbs in the former clear cuts, elk forage probably decreased and could no longer support the larger elk herd.

As to why not cull the herd to conform to the amount of available habitat, you're getting at the very heart of wildlife management politics. Hunters want large elk herds because they like to hunt. They don't like to hear ODFW reports that the herd is too large for its habitata. And hunters buy licenses and tags that help support ODFW. And hunters complain to their state legislators, who are often dumber than a stump in the middle of a clearcut when it comes to natural resource management and most issues that they deal with on behalf of their electorate, but I digress. So ODFW is caught between a rock and a hard place. Leave things as they are and nature will take its course, and the herd size will decline. Or allow what hunters regard as too high a harvest rate, also causing the herd to decline. Oh, and chasing the elk off farmland might be because OR has a law like WA that requires ODFW to pay farmers and landowners for damage caused by elk. Hence chasing with helecopters, like that makes any kind of sensible wildlife management.

So the short answer to your question is: politics. Thought you might like that.

Sg