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Drought forces grazing cutbacks againRAPID CITY, S.D. (AP)--The U.S. Forest Service is cutting the livestock grazing to be allowed on the 320,000-acre Fall River Ranger District of the Buffalo Gap National Grassland. It's the fourth consecutive year of grazing reductions. And the culprit is a drought that's approaching a decade in length. "Nothing in Fall River County looks good right now," Bob Novotny, rangeland specialist for the district. "It's just because of the drought." The reductions will affect more than 100 ranches, he said. The Fall River District includes land in Fall River, Custer and Pennington counties. Grazing permits generally let ranchers run livestock on the federal land until September or October. Some ranchers pulled their cattle off early last year, and some didn't graze any cattle on their allotments last year. Grazing reductions hurt ranchers' income, said Dave Dunbar of Oelrichs and Mark Tubbs of Edgemont. "It's going to affect the whole community's income," Dunbar said. The date when cattle can move onto the federal grazing lands has been delayed until June 1. It's usually May 1 or May 15. Novotny said the Forest Service won't be very flexible except on individual cases. "We need some recharge. Any kind of grazing on these plants is a stress." Spring rains might green up the grass, but the root systems have shrunk during the drought and need time to recover, he said. If spring rain comes and the grass grows, the land ought to be used, Tubbs said. "When they first came out with their plan to cut all their (cattle numbers), they said they didn't care whether it rained. We barked a little bit, and they changed their attitude," he said. Some area ranchers have private land mixed with the government land, so the restrictions will hurt them especially hard, Tubbs said. "Some of these guys are in terrible situations," he said. Grazing has been cut back in the district each year since 2005. The area also was dry from 2000 to 2004, but enough rain fell to produce adequate grass. 3/17/08 Date: 3/12/08
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