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This looks like the place to add my experience to the discussion.  I too spent 35 years working for the Forest Service, mostly on the Wallowa-Whitman, responsible at the end for managment of several range allotments.  I have to agree that grazing has the most impact (I purposely don't use the word destruction) of any land managment activity.  More than road building, timber harvest and fire.  This is because cattle are on the ground every day of the grazing season and go everywhere. 

So do elk.  The Forest Service has documented negative impacts from elk on Resource Natural Areas.  I have little experience with horses on open range but past historical records of year-around horse grazing at the turn of the century are very similar to impacts by cattle. 

The question is can we mange cattle(and horses/elk) to keep the impacts from grazing within acceptable limits.  I believe elk and horses are going can be managed, either by predators or hunting/removal.  Cattle can also be managed but the current system of drift fences and pasture rotation is not working.  New technology (collars, GPS tracking) and old technology (pushback riders, salting) could work but the return on the investment and the habits of the land managers and the ranchers don't allow for innovation. 

posted 4 years, 2 months ago
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There is a divide between rural and urban and it hinges on distance. Those in the urban environment just don't get what it takes to live at the end of the road. It's 60 miles to a doctor or hospital or any services. Even public services are not available to rural citizens and public employees don't seem to understand that running down to their office to discuss a problem is a major decision for rural residents. When we do show up it is serious business for us but we get treated like we can always come back tomorrow. Most decisions get made by the urban majority. These decisions affect rural citizens without any understanding by and no consequences to urban citizens. JIM YOUNG, Halfway Oregon

posted 5 years, 1 month ago
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As a retired Forest Service employee I want to make sure that Joseph's message was not lost in the anger that the apologist for the firebombing managed to generate. I met with people who used similar tactics (personal comments, misdirection and false statements) when we tried to get public involvement in land management decisions. As a magistrate in Bend once told me during a trail for a logger accused of threatening a federal officer;"Forest Service employees have to put up with some verbal abuse."
I knew people who worked at Oakridge when it was burned and I feared for their lives. I feared for my friends and the public when I found spikes in trees, signs posted in the forest threatening booby traps, and received threatening letters in the mail. I feared for myself and my family when people shook a fist in my face and told me they knew where I lived. If it looks and feels like terrorism, maybe it is terrorism.

posted 5 years, 2 months ago
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