Please help us identify the cattle that are trespassing on the Valles Caldera this summer.
Your observations when you visit the Valles Caldera will be very helpful in our efforts to end this damaging violation going forward.
We very much need members who visit the Preserve to bring binoculars and tell us where you see cattle in the Valles Caldera. Tell us:
- Roughly how many you see in each group.
- If you see ear tags on the cattle, tell us what color and any numbers you can read on the tags. If you can.
- Tell us if you see cattle without ear tags.
This information will help us a great deal if people can send us this information. We will pass it along to people who will take it to higher levels of law enforcement.
Please send this information to administration@caldera-action.org
Thank you.
Recent News on Illegal Grazing on the Caldera
We’re back into cattle trespass season on the Valles Caldera and it appears to be worse this year than in years past. We have been pressing the federal agencies that manage the Preserve and the surrounding lands to get the illegal cattle out of the Preserve for years, and it appears we have made very little progress.
The cattle congregate around streams and pollute the creeks, destroy the stream banks, ruining fishing and vegetation meant for a wide variety of other creatures, including endangered species.
This winter we talked with one of the contractors who is rebuilding the fence along the northern boundary of the Valles Caldera National Preserve. He reported that last summer their brand-new fence was being cut days after they built it in places where cattle could be driven from US Forest Service land onto Valles Caldera land. They would repair the fence and it would be cut again days later.
This information has been passed along to law enforcement from both the US Forest Service and the National Park Service. Whether either agency will take effective action against the fence cutters is unknown. Not only does cutting the fence constitute vandalism of federal property, but it is also a violation of the contract that the ranchers have with the US Forest Service which requires permittees to keep their cattle in their own allotted area on the national forest. The ranchers can lose their permit to graze on our national forest if their cattle trespass outside of their allotments.
Yet we’ve seen little if any enforcement action by the US Forest Service which permits the grazing under specific contract terms with ranchers on the Coyote District of the Santa Fe National Forest.
In the big picture, the National Park Service is paying for a whole new fence to be built along the north boundary of the Preserve where most of the cattle trespass occurs. New fence construction should be finished this summer. Rocky Mountain Youth Corps, Santa Clara Pueblo, and Rio Grande Return have all been contractors on the project.
Once the fence is complete, the National Park Service will turn it over to the US Forest Service and the Forest Service will require the ranchers to maintain the fence as a term of their annual contract with the Forest Service. The contracts are known as “Annual Operating Instructions” and can be read here.
We have little faith that the ranchers will comply with their new obligations to maintain the fence. Of course we will give them the benefit of the doubt. To date, the US Forest Service appears to have done little if any contract enforcement with the ranchers. Why would that change when the fence changes ownership?
Caldera Action obtained range condition reports for some of the Forest Service allotments across the north boundary of the Preserve and they reveal serious overgrazing. This means the Forest Service may be allowing the permittees to graze too many cattle on the allotments or put them out too early in the spring. Depleted grass on the allotments means the ranchers need grass elsewhere. The Forest Service could regulate cattle numbers to conserve the grass and watershed on these allotments – not only for the benefit of the ranchers themselves, but for the American people who own the national forests.
Managers at the Valles Caldera have talked about putting up a fence made of heavy pipe in areas where the fence cutting is happening. This may help. We encourage the Park Service to build a heavier fence in known trespass spots soon and use surveillance technology to protect public property.
Of course, fences get crushed by falling trees and elk also. The fence needs to be patrolled regularly for repairs.
For their part, National Park Service rangers on the Caldera call the permittees who they identify by ear tag color and number and tell them to retrieve their cattle. They come in, herd the cows out and the cows return a few days later. This approach is a failure. Yet like Sisyphus, the NPS repeats this procedure, losing the respect of the ranchers in the process.
Ultimately the cattle trespass problem is a human problem. Permittees who cut the fence disrespect the land, the public, and ultimately numerous federal laws prohibiting vandalism and trespass. This is a situation where federal agencies do not assert the authority given them by federal law.
What you can do:
Please write to Santa Fe National Forest Supervisor Debbie Cress at: melissa.bruch@usda.gov. Ask her to stop the cattle trespass by forcing the ranchers to abide by the terms of their contracts with the USFS which prohibit trespass.
Her postal address is: 11 Forest Lane, Santa Fe, NM 87508
Thank you.
