To KBC News from Dr. John Menke regarding the BLM and Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument proposal 10/30/16

Dr. John Menke biography, retired professor and range ecologist, rancher, involved in the Klamath Basin Watershed.

As for Mallam’s concern about the BLM office in KFalls while speaking with the Medford BLM range expert, Jason Tarance (I may have his last name misspelled slightly—541-944-0818) who got his Range Science degree at Oregon State quite a number of years ago with Buckhouse, Sharrow, Dozier et al. who I knew well, he told me they are overwhelmed with land to manage with too few staff, and he had been spending most of his time on forestry the last 2-years since he started work in Medford, not his range grazing allotments.  He said monitoring was being done by an enviro group not himself—the only real range conservationist person trained and on the BLM staff in Medford.  Boy is that a loaded cannon for stopping livestock grazing.  A strong monitoring program is what keeps livestock on the public land.  Jason also told me he was instructed to stay out of the C/S Monument expansion issue and appear neutral.  Jason was open with me in our 20-minute conversation.  I was surprised that he did not know Tom Jacobs, the former Medford Range Conservationist who still resides in the area—a gold mine of knowledge on these allotments.  I did three contracts on the proposed C/S Monument area when it was being studied (early-mid ‘90s with a lot of emphasis on the Box O/Oregon Gulch area but also general range management topics.)

 

The monument will burn up without managed livestock grazing—overstocked O&C forests which we toured a few of years ago with Ed Kupillas and now Siskiyou County Sup. Ray Haupt with Mel Fechter taking pictures, may be the start location for burning up the grasslands and oak woodlands or vice versa—the especially dry southern end of the existing C/S Monument plus the exceptionally summer-dry proposed ‘Wilderness’ expansion area with tall ungrazed grasses and starthistle like you cannot believe.  So this proposed expansion is a double whammy, stop managing the O&C Land and stop livestock grazing, and facilitate the burn-out of the existing private inholder landowner’s properties including their home homes and other structures.  This is a ticket for burnout clear and simple!  Ron Wyden is as whammy expert on dams removal as well as burnout!  When is this country going to learn, land management cannot be done from Washington DC.