As Wyoming, the federal government and green groups clash over livestock grazing’s effect on greater sage grouse, conservationists say grazing has unacceptably degraded more than a third of U.S. BLM land in Wyoming.
Two conservation groups made that assertion after studying Bureau of Land Management data on the health of 17.3 million public acres in Wyoming. The BLM lists whether grazing allotments meet the agency’s landscape health standards and, if they don’t, why.
Fully 41% of BLM allotments analyzed by the agency in Wyoming don’t meet standards because of commercial livestock grazing, Public Employees for Environmental Ethics and Western Watersheds Project say.
“I think we need to reduce livestock numbers on failing allotments.”
Chandra Rosenthal, director of Rocky Mountain PEER
The groups released their findings last week, saying overgrazing imperils the sagebrush dwelling bird which is “flirting” with being listed as a threatened or endangered species by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. A 19-page summary and an online interactive map describe the issue across the West and also break down the analysis by state.
Wyoming stock growers and sage grouse managers contest such conclusions, saying the state is stewarding the grouse well under Gov. Mark Gordon’s Core Area Strategy. Drought and wild horses are among the forces that contribute to the impacts, they say.
The tussle comes as the BLM and Biden administration seek reforms through an ongoing West-wide greater sage grouse plan, revised Public Lands Rule and a new Rock Springs Area Resource Management Plan.
Those plans’ updates could, if improved, resolve deficiencies that the BLM admits to and benefit wildlife, conservationists say.
The BLM classifies 41% of the land in Wyoming as not meeting its own standards, said Chandra Rosenthal, director of Rocky Mountain PEER in Denver.
For example, the BLM ranks the 950,000 public acres in the sweeping 2.1 million acre Rock Springs grazing allotment landscape health standard as being “not met — livestock” in 2024. That means livestock overgrazing is a significant cause, the groups said.
“I have to take those agency determinations seriously,” Rosenthal said. “The BLM should be proactively restoring and nurturing and reviving the land. I think we need to reduce livestock numbers on failing allotments.”
Grouse count upticks will continue
Grouse today are doing well, said Bob Budd, head of Wyoming’s Sage Grouse Implementation Team that oversees Gordon’s executive order designed to protect the species. A key indicator — the annual count of male grouse strutting on breeding ground leks — is expected to be released by Wyoming Game and Fish Department soon.
“We’ve had a good couple of years,” Budd said. “I think that will continue.”
The recent warnings by conservationists about rangeland health, however, are “very simplistic” and “a little disingenuous,” he said.
“Is it because of livestock or perpetual drought [or] because they didn’t get the [range management] prescription right,” he asked. The impact of wild horses and burros hasn’t been adequately addressed, Budd added.
Range condition and health are complex, Budd said, and long-term changes may be difficult to reverse. One of those changes has been the large-scale decades-long decrease in perennial bunchgrass paired with the increase in rhizomatous plants (those with underground stems) that are less favorable to greater sage grouse.
“You may cross to a different type of forage or vegetation [to the point] that you can’t go back,” Budd said of changes in the sagebrush sea.
Across the West, for example, Native perennial bunchgrasses — clumps of sagebrush understory that provide cover for grouse — are decreasing because of “historical overuse by sheep, cattle, and horses,” according to a long-term scientific review.
But pegging landscape health to bunchgrass or another single factor may be naïve, Budd said.
“People oversimplify this all the time,” he said, critiquing the idea that “if you get rid of cattle that will result in this magical change on the landscape.”
In fact, “there are countless reasons and they are interrelated,” he said of landscape changes. Until they are sorted out “you’re chasing your tail.”
Budd agrees that Landscape Health Standards are a foundation for greater sage grouse conservation, but not the last word. An area could fail the standards but also provide adequate habitat for the bird, he said.
Nevertheless there may be cases where a grazing allotment is stressed and “you have to rest it.”
The Wyoming Stock Growers Association believes the pending new federal plan for greater sage grouse (Greater Sage-Grouse Rangewide Planning Draft Resource Management Plan Amendment and Draft Environmental Impact Statement) should be tailored to specific states. Doing otherwise “ignores the variability of resources and is unacceptable,” the association told the Wyoming Legislature’s Select Federal Natural Resource Management Committee in June.
“Grazing permittees/lessees currently strive to meet rangeland health standards,” the stock growers’ letter states. Among other mistakes, the BLM attempts to link grouse predation on habitat conditions, “failing to recognize and address the direct need for predator control.”
Historic 80% decline
The effects of commercial livestock grazing are visible and impactful, said Josh Osher, Public Policy Director for Western Watersheds Project.
“A lot of times the [riparian] green zones are dramatically shrunken,” he said of allotments that fall short. “They don’t have the streamside vegetation” while upland tracts of overgrazed range lack “a large diversity of plants.”
Sage grouse require between 7-10 inches of residual grass height for successful reproduction, Osher said. With livestock overutilization, “you don’t get the cover to hide in and nest in.”
The plight of greater sage grouse across the West is troubling, scientists say. Greater sage grouse populations declined nearly 80% between 1966 and 2021 and 41% from 2002-2021, according to federal scientists’ reports in the ongoing federal environmental review of grouse management.
The BLM’s problem is due in part to a loophole in its landscape rules, conservationists say. Rules allow the agency to renew 10-year grazing permits without assessing range health, according to PEER and Western Watersheds.
Congress allowed allotments to be renewed without review as a short-term fix, the conservationists say. But the practice is now institutionalized, with many allotments being renewed for three decades without oversight.
“This problem was created decades ago in large part by Congress’ failure to fund agencies to carry out their duties,” Osher said. “Either we have enough resources to manage grazing or [we have] less grazing.”
Even the agency’s ongoing effort to revise greater sage grouse management falls short, he said.
“We believe it is the responsibility of the BLM to manage for an abundance of sage grouse and recover the population,” he said. Instead, “they’ve given up.”
The report’s findings
The BLM adopted Landscape Health Standards in 1995 “to make it clear that maintaining rangeland health must take precedence over land use” PEER stated in its comments on federal plans to update greater sage grouse protections.
In Wyoming, the agency manages allotments across 17.2 million acres and has assessed landscape health on 14.3 million of its total of 18.4 million acre public holding in Wyoming, PEER explains on its web page. All health standards are met on 5.9 million acres. Standards were not met on 5.8 million acres — 41% of the acres assessed — due to livestock. Standards were not met on 2.8 million acres for other reasons. Reviews have not been completed on 2.9 million acres.
“Wyoming has shown improvement in evaluating its allotments,” PEER stated, “reducing the proportion of unassessed allotments from 44% in 2019 to 36% in 2023.”
BLM officials in Wyoming did not respond to emails seeking comment on this story.
The information used in this article has been presented in a very deceptive way. This isn’t a look at current conditions. These are cumulative failures over an almost 30 year time span (1997-2024). Many of the allotments that were failing at one time have improved over the decades. This article implies that 41% of BLM is currently failing and that is simply false. The interactive map this article links to shows many grazing allotment failing that are not and have not been for quite some time. When an allotment fails due to grazing the BLM is legally required to address the failure. This article doesn’t mention that at all; completely omitting decades of work that has happened behind the scenes to address those failures as they arose.
That’s easy to say, but subjective in nature. After all, by what standard are you citing? Your standard? The BLM’s standard? US Forest Service Standard? I could just as easily say that your letter is misinformation.
It’s not subjective at all. They use the 17 indicators of rangeland health. Those indicators are published. Their findings in each watershed are also published and publicly available. That is how they determine if an allotment passes or fails. Those 17 indicators are the standard by which they fail and its the same standard that they have to meet to pass once again.
I wanted to address the fact that wild horses are only on a small percent of public lands. In WY where they have almost wiped wild horses out except in a few locations, so blaming them is just to divert us from the grazing issue. All around the world and in areas in the US wild horses are being used to restore the land. Also if the grasses are healthy and tall predators are not an issue. Predators serve an important purpose in all ecosystems. Maybe skip hunting season for a couple of years as that would allow all those animal to reproduce.
Really!!! Like the BLM hasn’t been aware of this for the last 30 years or more. Not to mention the devastation of over 90% western states riparian areas by livestock and yes, feral horses.
Sage grouse are an indicator species, soon will follow the demise of more prairie wildlife. Wyoming for the most part is a high plains desert which lacks good deep soils, and gets very little moisture. It is not well suited to grazing domesticated, non indigenous livestock such as goats, sheep and cattle and for that matter horses which are not wild. Very little agricultural or beef production in the state but the state is controlled by the ranching, oil and coal industry. You have to make a choice of what is most important. Once the wildlife, habitat and clean water is gone, good luck reclaiming it. We need to look at recreational economy for the long haul. Wyoming of all the lower 48 states still has a chance to have something special that most states have lost.
The BLM charges the rancher $1.35 a MONTH per animal unit (A/U) which is a cow and calf or 5 sheep, again, that’s $1.35 a MONTH which equals 4.5 CENTS per day. The cost to the BLM to administer the grazing program is $8.00 a month, so the Fed’s lose $6.65 a month per A/U. This equates to a loss of millions of taxpayer $’s per year. Meanwhile, private land grazing fees per A/U are around $24 per month. Besides the nearly free public land grazing fees, the welfare cowboy is allowed to grind the terrain down to stubble and cow pies and the rest of us “multi-users” plus the wildlife (especially the Sage Grouse) take it in the shorts. Pretty simple math
this is also known as “welfare”
The BLM must ALLOCATE the available forage among the grazing critters – that being livestock , wild horses , antelope , deer and elk. The proportional share each category of grazing user receives must be adhered too or else over grazing results. For this reason, wild horse roundups are periodically affected in order to keep wild horses within their allocated available forage – such as the recent North Lander gather of over two thousand horses. There’s only so much available forage and BLM was balancing the allocated forage as per their management plans – so the big question is whether or not the allocated available forage impacts wildlife to include sage grouse – and, whether enough forage is left for the antelope, elk and deer such that they can winter successfully. When 41% of the grazing allotments in SW Wyoming do not meet standards that becomes very concerning. Will the BLM make adjustments to their allocated forage in the upcoming Rock springs RMP revision?? Probably – they need to follow the science and the sage grouse population numbers. I for one like the BLM’s wild horse management methods in that the herds are not allowed to grow exponentially, so yes, the livestock grazing share of allocated forage should be reexamined – its wrong to blame the 41% of substandard allotments on just one user of the available forage that being livestock and/or wild horses – both users have a significant impact on the health of the allotments. And, something like 30-40% of the available forage needs to be left for wildlife after livestock and wild horses take their allocated share. The high deserts in Wyoming are fragile, and therefore, the BLM must take their responsibility to manage the available forage seriously which will result in outcry from the special interest advocates – we will soon see when the Final Rock Springs RMP comes out.
It seems to me there is fault on both sides. Obviously, the ranchers want unlimited access to these lands=economics for them. The birds are just in their way. On the other side of the coin-the birds are part of the natural environment. How many times does it have to be shown that tampering with Nature’s plan always leads to a problem.WE only have one planet-stop destroying it to fill your wallets.
Yes, blame land degradation on our wild horses. Nothing new here despite the fact that there are only a few thousand wild horses on 245 million acres of our public lands while there are millions of livestock on the same public lands. Who’s overpopulating?????
Wow, you took 26 years worth of grazing impacts and lumped them together in order to sensationalize your week story. If you took 26 years worth of anything and lumped them together it would look bad. If we looked at how many times the author picked his nose in the last quarter century and lumped it together into one statistic it would appear as if he needed to see a psychologist. In reality however that would be a perversion of the truth, much like this story.
Ground Zero for BLM (and Bureau of Rec) inaction is the Big Horn Basin. Several areas, many such are considered Sage Grouse Core Areas, have been continuously grazed down to nothing, yet with the many protests that have made their way to the Cody BLM office, nothing’s been done. Some of the key areas with the overgrazing problem is Oregon Basin and the base of Heart Mountain. Pretty obvious BLM and BOR people are spooked by the supposed “power” of the Wyoming Stock Growers and/or the Heart Mountain Irrigation District. Instead of multi-use, the public lands around Cody are for one use – overgrazing
Cannot agree more. Wyoming produces very little beef compared to similar sized states such as Nebraska or Oklahoma. Yet agriculture, specifically cattle, are touted by the Wyoming Stock Growers Association, as the only game in town. This tightly knit group of powerful welfare recipients not only run the state, they lock up public land, allow cattle, and now increasingly sheep, to literally destroy land, water, riparian areas, and wildlife. They call themselves “stewards” of the land, because they know so much. Eventually, we’re going to discover that the sacred cow is responsible for CWD. There. I said it.
I love beef. I eat it everyday. But our state holds roughly 1.2 million head of cattle per year, and the next lowest cattle producing state is Colorado, with over twice that at 2.6 million. Never mind Texas with over 12 million head. Wyoming produces the least amount of beef in the union. Yet the beef lobby controls the state. Here in Wyoming, you can mine, drill, graze, quarry, put up windfarms, fence, and of course, outfit the public lands. But you better not go out there and camp overnight, or cross a corner to hunt, fish or otherwise take advantage of our great wild areas. No, those activities are for the elite land and cattle barons. It’s always been this way. The chummy relationship between the cattle barons and the BLM, and the state board of land and investment, shows just how deep the rabbit hole goes. That said, don’t expect any miracles.
Unbelievably well said! “This land is not your land, this land is MY land…” battle cry from the welfare stockgrowers and such is getting weaker and hopefully these self described “rugged individualists” will either have to pay their fair share or get the range maggots off the land. The BLM officials who’ve turned a blind eye should be fired and replaced with capable people
I don’t know if you’ve heard, but once you get a federal job, you can never be fired, or held accountable. So if you’re looking for accountability, the BLM, Wyoming Stock Growers, and State Board of lands and Investments, have about as little as anyone.
Nah. I don’t know if it’s overgrazed, but the base of Heart Mountain is nearly all private property. Look at a map and see for yourself.
Huh? I we talking about Heart Mountain Wyoming? If that’s the map you’re referring to, Bill, then my map shows 25,000 plus acres of public lands at the South and East base of Heart Mountain. If you want to include the North side, 1,000’s of more acres of public lands. You don’t know if it’s overgrazed and you apparently don’t know the lay of the land there
Heart Mountain is located just NE of the center of T54N, R102W, a 36 square mile area. Within this 36 square mile area, 2010 acres are BLM, or about 8.7% of the land base. In my opinion, 8.7% is a relatively small percentage.
Wow, you’re still way off. Are you guesstimating? I’ll let the Department of Interior know that thousands of acres of public land has disappeared from that area
The base of Heart Mountain is managed by The Nature Conservancy, not BLM, and the heavy grazing is from wintering elk, not livestock.
Livestock get to write their own regulations, pay almost nothing, get free range improvements and get the upper hand in any court case.
Time to end the ranchers reign on land owned by all of the American people
Yep, the smartest thing we could possibly do is bring an end to that nasty business of producing food for humans! The stores are full of food, so the farmers and ranchers are just using land for producing food that could be used by caring enviros to play on. Every time one goes to the store there is plenty of food available, so why waste land growing it?
True enough. Our private land serves cattle and has abundant wild game including elk, grouse, deer ,etc. And now the federal agencies are talking about deforestation…which will bring more fire Danger, not less, if there is no grazing use.
Public lands grazing is a terribly inefficient way of growing food, the acreage needed is obscene. Most of the west is simply not built to be grazed year after year, and in many cases the cattle are directly replacing the wildlife that would love to be there that many people also use for food.
Not everyone eats beef.