Amid Drought, a Range War Erupts in Utah Over Grazing Restrictions

Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument sprawls over 1.9 million acres, its slick rock canyons and spectacular red and white benches and cliffs rising nearly a mile from the desert floor.

This vast range, like the rugged people who attempt to make their living off of it, can be stubborn, unyielding and difficult to manage.

In the midst of a drought, the federal government has restricted cattle grazing here, saying the region’s fragile land needs time to heal. But many ranchers contend that the action is a thinly disguised attempt by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management to phase out grazing.

The dispute has escalated into a feud that now involves the FBI and the U.S. attorney’s office, and included a move by defiant ranchers to “rustle” back cattle impounded by federal agents. Authorities have threatened ranchers and cowboys with prosecution.

“If these people think they can be lawless, act in a vigilante manner--I don’t think so,” said U.S. Attorney Paul Warner in Salt Lake City.

Two developments sparked the standoff. The first: A hot, dry summer, continued drought, and a series of wildfires all compromised growth on the range, monument officials say. They ordered ranchers with grazing permits to take cattle off the summer range sooner than planned.

The second: Ranchers objected to the order, which for some also included banishment from the winter range on the monument and meant feeding and pasturing cattle elsewhere.

After a few ranchers were unable or unwilling to undertake the expensive job of driving cattle down off the high plateaus, federal agents did it for them. In November, BLM officials rounded up 40 head of cattle, impounded them, and announced plans to sell the animals at auction.

Ranchers decided to take matters into their own hands. On election day, a group descended on a livestock auction in central Utah and, while Sevier County Sheriff Phil Barney watched, herded the cattle into trucks and took them back.

Tempers reached such a boiling point that the sheriff, who defied federal orders and let the cattle be taken, said he did so to defuse a volatile “Waco situation.”

Such discord has found a spectacular setting in the Grand Staircase-Escalante, a geologic wonder surrounded by other prized federal lands: Bryce Canyon and Zion national parks to the west, Lake Powell to the south, Glen Canyon National Recreation Area to the east, Capitol Reef National Park to the northeast and federal wilderness to the north.

President Clinton established Grand Staircase-Escalante as a federal monument in 1996. Most of the land already was in the hands of the BLM, which is part of the U.S. Department of Interior, before gaining protected monument status. But the local view was that, once again, the federal government was gobbling up private land and intending to phase out uses such as grazing.

Utah Sen. Orrin G. Hatch, a Republican, called the monument’s creation “the mother of all land grabs,” and private-land activists noted angrily that 68% of Utah land already was federally owned.

Lack of local control is a major issue here. For four years, residents have predicted that the BLM’s agenda for the land would merge with the objectives of conservationists and environmentalists: Run off ranchers and their cattle, curtail mining leases, limit roads and off-road vehicle access, ban hunters and finally allow only hikers.

“Everybody here hates the BLM,” said Escalante rancher Quinn Griffin, who was ordered off his summer and winter ranges on the monument. “If the place [local office] burned down, you’d have a car parade going by.”

In the past, BLM officials also have faced criticism from conservationists who contended that they were too lenient with mining and logging groups. In recent years, the agency’s focus has changed, with a new mandate for land stewardship. The evolving philosophy has created an often antagonistic relationship with ranchers.

“We are required to manage this land for grazing, for wildlife and for other multiuses,” said monument manager Kate Cannon. “Not just for today. That means that if we determine that this range land cannot sustain more grazing, we must ask the permitees to move their cattle.” As conditions worsened last summer, Cannon advised ranchers that because of the lack of water and forage, they would have to move cattle sooner than usual. Of 116 grazing permit holders, three did not move all their cattle.

The trio--Griffin and his uncle, Gene, and Mary Bulloch--said they disagreed with the BLM’s assessment of the range condition.

“We have tried to cooperate,” said Bulloch, who, during the middle of the controversy, drove around town with the severed head of one of her cows in the bed of her pickup, along with signs blasting the BLM. “These people were sent in here with trained terroristic tactics.”

Cannon conceded that her agency had not been vigilant enough in years past in policing the range. She said that the land has been allowed to deteriorate and that unless strict measures are enacted, recovery would take years.

Overgrazing did serious damage to Western range land until the passage of the Taylor Grazing Act in 1934, which established the permit system used by the BLM. But in this arid region, even with modern management methods, the land offers precious little for cattle: A cow and her calf require 20 acres per month to feed.

“I’m not going to stand here and tell you that my ranch didn’t look tough, ‘cause it did,” Bulloch said. “The condition of the cattle will tell you the condition of the range.”

She said that when BLM agents rounded up her cattle, they left two behind to die.

Cannon said those cows were too weak to transport so they were left, with food and water, at a corral. Three days later, a veterinarian put down one of the animals. The poor condition of Bulloch’s cows, Cannon said, was testament to the deterioration of the range.

Many ranchers, however, say the range is no worse than usual. And they say it’s getting harder to make a living; ranching has dwindled to about 3% of the economy in Kane County.

“It is part of the culture here. People have been doing this for generations,” said Colin Winchester, the county attorney. “Is it worth preserving? I’d like to say yes. But the truth is, you’ve got to change with the times.”

For Quinn Griffin, a father of six, that means working three part-time jobs in addition to raising cattle on his allotment at Fifty Mile Mountain.

“I’m faced with two things: Knuckle under, cut my losses and sell out. Or fight the federal government,” he said.

Griffin has a very personal reason for continuing the fight.

“I’ve raised my kids here and they love everything about this place,” he said. “One year, we planned a trip to Disneyland, thought it would be good experience for the kids. They finally came to us and said they’d rather spend a week camping on the Fifty. The way I’ve been raised, that’s more important than money.”