Family Fights Government Order to End Cattle Grazing on Texas Island : Environment: U.S. officials say the cows trample vegetation and use water needed by wild animals in the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge.

For the last 45 years, as guests of the government, cattle owned by the Hawes family have grazed tranquilly on this desolate 38-mile strip of land off the Texas coast.

Now, like all boorish guests, the government says, the animals have overstayed their welcome.

Officials contend that the cows upset the delicate balance of the federal Aransas National Wildlife Refuge by trampling sensitive vegetation, drinking fresh water needed by wild animals, threatening the flight patterns of endangered whooping cranes, and potentially spreading disease.

To 70-year-old Joe Hawes, whose ancestors settled on the barrier island in the mid-1800s and started raising cattle, the edict to remove the animals by July 7 does not make sense.

“We’re not going to give up,” he said. “It would be different if right was on their side, but it’s not.”

Hawes notes that his family’s cattle have lived on Matagorda Island for most of the last 150 years without ruining it, that whooping cranes never have been spotted on the part of the island where his cows graze and that the animals help some wildlife, such as deer and quail, by clearing areas through grazing.

And he vows to continue fighting the order.

“It’s hard to just abandon your heritage,” he said.

Explorer Alonso Alvarez de Pineda charted Matagorda Island in 1519, and it is believed that pirates and smugglers at one time valued the island as a hideaway.

The vast stretch of fields, marshes and beaches is inhabited now only by the handful of people who work there. Several old military offices and houses remain standing, along with a lighthouse and a few windmills, but for the most part, the island is empty--except for the deer, alligators, more than 300 species of birds and assorted other wildlife.

The Haweses, who live in nearby Port O’Connor, were among three families who surrendered their property in 1940 when the federal government condemned the island for use as a military bombing and gunnery range. They were paid $7 per acre, more than the market value at the time.

Hawes and his relatives, who retained their oil and mineral rights, contend that they were told by military officials that they could regain their estimated 7,800 acres after the military was finished with it.

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officials, who have overseen much of the island with the state of Texas since the military relinquished it in the 1970s, say there is no evidence that promise was made--and no legal contract on the matter.

Brent Giezentanner, the Aransas refuge manager with the wildlife service, last year ruled that cattle grazing is incompatible with the refuge and its plant and animal life.

When a new state-federal five-year management plan for the island was developed in 1990, suspending grazing, Giezentanner, the refuge manager for more than three years, refused to issue Hawes Cattle Co. another one-year grazing permit.

Giezentanner, who holds a master’s degree in wildlife management, notes that controlled burning could be used instead of grazing to clear undesirable brush.

Hawes has unsuccessfully appealed the ruling up through the Interior Department. He contends that the effort to oust his herd, which numbers about 525, is part of a nationwide movement by environmentalists to rid all federal lands of cattle by 1993.

Matagorda is the only one of the 38 barrier islands in the federal refuge system where grazing is allowed.

In December, the Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund formally backed Giezentanner’s ruling. Sierra Club attorney Lori Potter said the group might sue under the Endangered Species Act if the cattle are not removed. The National Audubon Society also has opposed the grazing.

“We’re not going to change our minds on it. We’ve given our final word,” Giezentanner said. “It’s a wildlife refuge--whether the Haweses like it or not.”

U.S. Rep. Greg Laughlin (D-Tex.), who does not believe that the grazing is harmful, filed a bill last year that would allow it to continue while the National Academy of Sciences conducted an independent study. But the bill died in August in the House subcommittee on fisheries and wildlife and has not been introduced this session.

Giezentanner said the uproar over the cattle is drawing attention away from new projects designed to make the island more accessible to the public.

For years, citizens have been allowed on the island, provided that they had their own transportation.

Now, local chambers of commerce, with the help of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, have organized “Matagorda Adventure” weekend boat trips that have booked up quickly.

Ronny Gallagher, superintendent of Matagorda Island State Park, said an estimated 18,000 people visited the park in 1990.

State officials hope to double that number once a ferry to the island is operating, perhaps as soon as this summer, when more weekend theme tours also are expected.

Giezentanner said visitors will enjoy the island even more without cows and their droppings dotting the beaches.

“It’s worth fighting for,” he said, looking out at the island’s shores. “Sometimes doing the right thing is not the popular thing.”

But Hawes, who has refused government offers to relocate his cattle, continues to write President Bush, members of Congress and other federal officials who he hopes will help his family.

“We’re still working on it,” he said. “I still have enough confidence that someone at a very high level in government has enough sense to say something ought to be done about it.”