OCR Text |
Show Forest is livelihood to sheep, cattle men As warm weather brings new life to the Uinta Mountains, many look forward for-ward to occasional weekend trips to enjoy the scenery, fishing, camping, gathering firewood or just relaxing. Other groups of Uintah Basin residents spend days in the Uintas in pursuit of their livelihood. One such group is the forty individual livestock owners that are permitted to graze 3,650 cattle, 75 horses, and 11,880 sheep on the Vernal Ranger District of the Ashley National Forest. Between June 1 and Oct. 15, each year, livestock are brought to the National Na-tional Forest ranges to utilize forage produced on 107,200 acres of land the Forest Service classifies as suitable for livestock grazing. The Vernal Ranger District manages 340,200 acres of the Uinta Mountain south slopes from the Whiterocks River to Diamond Mountain. Moun-tain. The 107,200 acres of suitable livestock range is 31.5 percent of the total land area. The remaining land is used for timber production, water production, pro-duction, wildlife habitat and oilier uses. In adminstering the use of the forage resource, the Vernal Ranger District is divided into eleven cattle and horse allotments, thirteen sheep allotments and one allotment where both cattle and sheep graze. Each year individual permittees and range conservationists meet to outline plans for using each allotment. The livestock is usually rotated through different pastures to prevent excessive use of the forage. On some years there is no use by livestock and all vegetation vegeta-tion produced is available for wildlife use and watershed protection. A grazing fee, charged for use of the forest for livestock, generates an immediate im-mediate return of $35,000 yearly. The estimated total benefit to the national economy from this use is in excess of a quarter million dollars each year. When the livestock is removed from the forest in the fall, they are usually sold to meat packing businesses. Some of them eventually end up in the meat counter of the local grocery stores to benefit many more of the residents of the valley. |