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Show Rancher Cries Foul As BLM Takes Her Cows ESCALANTEKANAB Cattle Cat-tle impounded by the Bureau of Land Management from Fiftymile Mountain are being cared for at a feedlot in Aurora where they arrived about noon on Friday, while their owner Mary Bulloch of Kanab is claiming theft. When ranchers whose cattle remained on allotments on the remote and difficult terrain of Fifty-mile Fifty-mile Mountain failed to remove their cows fast enough to suit Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument Manager Kate Cannon, she followed through on her earlier threat to impound them, rounding up 27 cows, two of which are now dead, a bull and 20 calves. The BLM roundup began Sunday, Sun-day, Oct. 15, when a helicopter started ferrying equipment and personnel into the area where rancher Mary Bulloch's cows remained, re-mained, while eight Bureau of Land Management employees rode horseback horse-back to the area. The full crew, headed by Range Lead Uregg Christensen, also included an Emergency Emer-gency Medical Technician and . a camp cook. Monument Manager Kate Cannon Can-non said the riders spent Tuesday and Wednesday rounding up Bulloch's cattle, driving them to Mary Bulloch's Little Valley corral on Thursday where they were loaded and trucked to Warm Creek for an overnight stay before being hauled in stock trailers to the Aurora feedlot on Friday. Cannon said that two cows were so weak when they got to Warm Creek that one had to be euthanized and the other left where it is still being cared for. A. second cow died during transport to Aurora. Anonymous reports had claimed that two riders were injured in the roundup, one more seriously, but Cannon said only Christensen had suffered some scrapes and bruises (See RANCHER on Page 4-A) RANCHER From Page 4-A from a branch. Bulloch said she, a Kane County Sheriffs deputy and a brand inspector had been waiting to encounter the BLM crew with her cows as they came into Kanab, but that the BLM had been taken her cows through Cottonwood Canyon or Alton to Aurora instead. The Aurora feedlot owner where the cattle are impounded seemed sympathetic with the ranchers' plight. He asked that his name not be used and said the cattle were thin when they arrived. Asked if he would consider them "emaciated", he said definitely not. Utah State Brand Inspector Shyrel Baker, Southern District Area Supervisor, said Tuesday night that when he examined the cattle in Aurora they were thin but not in life-threatening condition and not (See RANCHER on Page 6-A) RANCHER From Front Page unlike other cattle he had seen come in this fall from other drought-affected drought-affected areas. Baker said one of three things are required when transporting cattle in Utah: a "transport slip" (written permission from the owner to' transport), a brand inspection, or proof of ownership. The BLM had none of the three, he said. "They would have been better off to get a court order to transport them," he said. Cannon has earlier described the cows as emaciated. One calf whose mother was left on the monument was being cared for separately. There was no way to know for certain if any of the other cows had calves remaining on the monument, but Cannon said she felt confident that the calves had not been separated from their mothers. The cattle were being fed hay and silage at a cost of about $1.50 to $2 a day and were expected to begin picking up weight, he said. Cannon had originally threatened threa-tened to begin impounding cattle after three ranchers failed to comply with her orders to remove all their cattle from their allotments on Fiftymile by Sept. 1 because of severe drought conditions. Negotiations Negotia-tions had resulted in extensions for the beleaguered cattle ranchers who (See RANCHER on Page 7-A) RANCHER From Page 6-A complained that they were allowed insufficient time to meet the arbitrary and unseasonable demand. They run their cattle in the most remote and rugged allotments on the monument to which there are no roads, they said. Southern Utah ranchers who run cattle on the monument have commonly complained com-plained that BLM administrative personnel do not understand cattle ranching as practiced in the remote and rugged terrain of the area. The feedlot owner said he had received a call in August from the BLM's Gregg Christensen inquiring if he could accept cattle that might be coming from the monument. He said the word "impound" was not used, and that Christensen called shortly after and said that they would not be coming after all. Then, on Friday, Oct. 20, a call was received stating that the cattle were on their way. Brand inspector Baker said that the BLM, which becomes responsible for the welfare of the cattle after impounding them, can sell the them. Because the BLM cannot prove ownership, however, any proceeds of the sale would be held in reserve by the Utah Department of Agriculture in both the BLM's and Bulloch's name until the matter is legally resolved. Bulloch see her letter to the editor on page 2-A described, in her official appeal, the conditions she was forced to deal with under Cannon's directive. She said she tried on Aug. 20 to get her loaded 2 12-ton truck into Little Valley but road conditions made it impossible. She said she told Cannon on Aug. 24 that there was not enough water on the desert (her winter range) at that time to sustain the cattle and they would die. She said she also checked the water at Last Chance, 13 miles from her corrals where there was little water, meaning three days without water for her cows. She said there was no water between Last Chance and the Warm Creek corral, meaning the cattle would be trailed 30 miles with little or no water. With no water at Warm Creek, the cows would have to be hauled out, a total of five days with no water. "I cannot drive - trail my cattle to their deaths," she wrote in her appeal, "it's unreasonable and inhumane to ask me to do so." Bulloch had also "fired" Cannon when she delivered a "Constructive "Con-structive Notice of Termination" to Cannon's office on Aug. 30 indicating she would no longer accept Cannon's jurisdiction. Although Bulloich has received no reply in the nearly two months since, State BLM Director Sally Wisely asked Area Manager Jerry Meredith to direct someone to negotiate with Bulloch in lieu of Cannon. Field Office Manager Art Tait was authorized to meet with Bulloch and develop an agreement, binding upon the GSENM. He met with her on Sept. 2 and the agreement that ensued allowed her to continue removing her cattle in a good-faith effort to complete the move by Sept. 15. Tait met again with Bulloch in a meeting at which she outlined her intentions to remove remaining cattle. "I did not go there with the authority to make any additional agreement, only find out what her plans were for the Fifty," Tait said. Bulloch, however, said she understood the meeting to have the same binding result on the GSENM as the previous one. Tait said Cannon had the authority to carry out the impound she started last week. If so, Bulloch said she should have had five days notice but received notice after the impound had started. A helicopter pilot whose craft had been used in some of the recent operations on the monument said that they had been placed on standby due to weather conditions. Operating a helicopter can run upwards from $500 an hour, he said. Helicopters are used to ferry equipment in and out and to spot cattle to help in rounding them up. Cannon said that only Bulloch's cows had been gathered thus far. Asked why, she responded, "We had to start somewhere; it was easier to start at Mudholes Mudholes is in worse range condition." She said when they resume, they will do so at the Lake Allotment, Quinn Griffin's area where she said she thinks there are about 75 head left. However, impound operations have been suspended this week due to weather conditions, she said. "We're pleased to see the permittees working to bring the cattle off," Cannon said. "The more that are left, the more we move to impound. We would look a lot differently at 40 out there than at two. We do expect them the permittees to get them all off." Quinn Griffin, in the meantime, was still trying to remove his cows from his allotment on Tuesday afternoon after more than three days of steady rain that had made roads in the area nearly impassable. Reached by cell phone, Griffin said, "We can't see a hundred feet up here because of the fog, and it's really easy to get lost. He said he had gotten about 10 cows in six straight days of work. His allotment allot-ment covers an area approximately 12 to 14 miles long and about four miles wide, Griffin said, and he often rides "the same area four or five times" looking for cows. "I just don't have a helicopter," he said. Griffin said he has spent almost all of October on his allotment, returning to Escalante where he lives only two or three days. Griffin who has used a crew of up to nine, said he "lost three or (See RANCHER on Page 8-A) RANCHER riom rage -A four cows in the Spring, probably a dozen head overall. "They the BLM have made me do it the hard way, and have not been flexible at all," he said. "They are more concerned about their control than about the situation itself. I presented several options to them before they went into this lockdown and refused to work with me." Cannon said on Tuesday that Bulloch's trespass fees for September Sep-tember are $1,460; Gene Griffin's, $1,860; and Quinn Griffin's $2020. Cannon said ranchers would be responsible for costs of the impound im-pound operation which, "But," she said, "It's not our intent to run up a bill unfairly." Responsibility would include overtime for BLM employees, employ-ees, gas, hauling costs, feedlot costs. The helicopter would have some shared costs since it was used for other purposes, too. "Under regulations," said Cannon, Can-non, "the next step is to contact the owner of the impounded cows and (See RANCHER onPage 9-A) j RANCHER From Page 8-A let her know what she can do to redeem her cows." In Kanab on Monday, Kane County Commissioners Norm Carroll, Joe Judd, and Steve Crosby passed a motion to have the Kane County Sheriffs Officce, the Brand Inspector's Office, and the County Attorney's Office work together to resolve the issue of what was perceived as illegal transport of Bulloch's cows. . |
