Being here today, I feel toward you a little like I did toward my son the other day—believing that what I am about to say is what I want you to hear but not knowing if you are going to like it.

A speaker shouldn’t speak of his own experiences, but my own experiences are the only ones I really know well enough to speak about.

Our family has been in the business of raising cattle in Colorado for four generations. Back to the time when the National Forest Service lands were used and controlled by those who owned them first.

In an effort to explain how the many regulations affect our production decisions I felt it would be best to narratively take you through a year’s experience as a cattle producer in the San Luis Valley as a Forest Service permittee.

Let’s begin with the annual review of the allotment management plan, or AMP. This is a chance for the forest service ranger to review the past year’s events and propose a rotation schedule for the coming year. If lady luck had dealt us a bad hand we will be introduced to the fresh-out of college, book-learned, determined to put things in order whippersnapper who is ready to remind us of the ecosystem balance which will be forever unbalanced if we allow too much grazing (which is defined in various ways). Thereby reducing the habitat of the leopard frog; or some other animal or plant which may be a threatened or endangered species; even though the leopard frog is listed as the most common frog by the family encyclopedia. Often at this meeting the ranger proposes new methods of management which he or she has read or heard- some of which have been tried and proven to be a failure in the past. The years of experience of the ranchers with the cattle on the allotment is "thrown out of court", in preference to how it works somewhere else.

The AMP will specify the percentage of available feed which may be used in the given time the cattle will be in each of the pastures in the allotment. Not considered, however, is the amount eaten by the elk and other wildlife while the cattle are there. Only the cattle are responsible for the amount of forage which is used. A very clear demonstration of this problem occurred when an allotment had no cattle on it for the summer, but 75% of the feed had been used during the period the cattle would have been there.

I would like to make it clear that, many times the rangers' hands are forced in a certain direction. Over the past 30 years, the forest Service has gone from a 63 page "what and what not to do list" to over 1300 pages.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch the calving process is in full swing, a month or more earlier than it used to be. This change was a management decision due to the increased frequency of movements of the cattle through the summer resulting in younger calves being frequently orphaned and the increased traffic through the range by recreationists disturbed the cattle and sometimes separated cows from their calves.

Caring for these calves has been influenced by the Delaney Clause. As science is capable of detecting smaller residues in the food supply more pressure is directed our way to not use what has been effective in the past. In the recent past we have lost a very effective dehorning paste and the ability to buy combination medications from the drug companies, just to name two important management tools.

As spring turns into summer all cattlemen look for green grass. In the mountains, as the green grass appears, there are already grazing creatures anxiously awaiting. The tremendous proliferation of elk since there were imported into the surrounding mountains of the valley, has resulted in later turnout dates. Permittees have been blamed for overgrazing which occurred before the cattle were on the range. It seems a herd of elk had chosen this particular south facing slope near a picturesque stream as their calving ground. As a result the grass had been eaten to the dirt by these elk but the cattle took the heat for it. The FS ranger was not at all pleased about the damage to the reparian area either.

At the onsite range readiness meeting, the ranger and permittees decide if the leaves of aspen trees are large enough (have any of you determined the number of aspen tree leaves a cow can or should eat in a day?) or if the grass has gone to seed or if the riparian area grasses are tall enough. Sometimes the required height of the grass is determined "by the book" even though the book doesn’t allow for differences in elevation.

As the cattle are hauled to the range a very interesting group of people patrol the highways. They represent the Department of Transportation. They can now require any vehicle with a total weight of 10,000 pounds or more (this does include the weight of the loaded trailer) to have the company name displayed in large letters on the side of the vehicle, have a system which will stop the trailer if it happens to become disconnected, and possibly require a Commercial Drivers License complete with current biennial physical exam as well as all other commercial vehicle safety rules. If the DOT people don’t bother the horse trailers they still might get the big rigs hauling the cattle just because you told the trucker 170 pairs but he entered 160 in his new electronic date book.

As you finally push the last calf into the first pasture to be used this year, someone yells "There goes Sally down the creek!" This would have been a good thing, if it were fall, but Sally has found the hole in the fence the elk created yesterday-and they will probably continue to create about every three days all summer long.

After removing the rats from the pipeline to the water trough and hiding more salt in the timber you feel certain all will be well. After all, that new summertime cowboy said he had never had any trouble with FS personnel.

Through the summer months it is not uncommon to receive one of those fancy yellow slips in the mailbox, requiring you to sign at the post office for a "love letter" from the FS ranger. It will usually include a list of things that have not happened as planned in the AMP along with the phrase, "if these matters are not resolved, administrative action will be taken". This is really a diplomatic way of saying shape up or ship out. The threatened administrative action would most likely involve a reduction of animals allowed during the grazing season or reducing the number of days on the range.

An interesting twist to living in Colorado has been the impact of outlawing spring bear hunts. It is a much more likely to see a bear in the mountains now than in the past. I believe the bear population will become a very serious problem in the future.

Many of the allotments which were used for sheep in the past have either been converted to cattle or abandoned due to predatory losses by bear, mountain lion, or coyote. The sheepmen’s tools for controlling these predators have been almost totally eliminated due to the EPA and other agencies.

In the fall, as the cattle are gathered over a period of a week or two, you begin to see in a real way the losses due to high altitude, poisonous plants (which could be controlled if herbicides were allowed) and "mysterious disappearance". One year, as we made our fall plans, we were instructed to not use the usual, long established stock driveway to bring the cattle to a corral where they could be easily loaded. Instead the FS, in it’s infinite wisdom had decided the cattle would be removed from the range, separated and loaded where there were no facilities or trailed down a winding mountainous road and escorted by patrol cars for 6 miles. This was to save the grass along the stock driveway for winter range for the elk. The FS had not apparently cleared this plan with the local sheriff’s office or the State Patrol, which would have been required to ensure the safety of the many hunters using the highway during the cattle drive.

Other experiences I have dealt with include fence posts being required every 16 feet even if the post would be suspended in midair; geological, archeological, and environmental assessments being required to pother recreationists leaving gates open or cutting fences to improve their access.

These, and many of the other challenges of animal production agriculture, have made us feel like the frog being eaten by the marsh dweller but just able to hold on to the birds neck and thinking: "NEVER GIVE UP."