Aug. 19, 2004 - 18:56 MDT

THE WONDERING JEW

Profit ?

I have often wondered that, if after all the studies and prognostications, diagnoses -- the wrong choice is made and executed, to find out later that it has been a very bad move ? Grouse in his entry talks a bit about it.

Spiked

Seems to be among three entries of which "Honourable Decision," gives us a bit of slant on the working of the game control world. Spiked, which talks about killing off vast spreads of sagebrush. The present thought among the brass is that if a guy buys a 2,000 acre ranch there should be 2,000 acres of green, grazing growth. Which there is, the only problem is that the sage is too high and prevents cattle from getting to it.

The agent is dropped from aircraft, leaches into the soil and poisons it for ten years. My question is, won't that kill any vegetative growth for 10 years ?

Grouse is actively engaged in game management, the two important things in his area are Grouse and Antelope. His fear is that grouse traditional breeding and stomping grounds are in the sage. Kill the sage and watch the grouse population decrease.

As far as that is concerned it looks to me that if active ranching should go on there will be miles and miles of wire fencing going up and possibly hinder antelope from moving around also.

Too many variables for an intelligent decision to be made by this man. My only thought is that the only sage brush that should be killed is on the land that a rancher guarantees on the penalty of a heavy fine that he will actively run a herd of cattle that is consistent with the number of beasts the sage-less land will support.

Of course dropping off vegetation killing chemicals a la Vietnam by aircraft is probably less expensive than having bulldozers root up most of the stuff that is needed for cattle and leaving breeding and stomping grounds clear, I know that - but wouldn't that be a better solution ? Of course, as per usual, the answer to that will have to be made by someone much smarter than I am. They will ponder, discuss, estimate, and in the long run maybe boo-boo once more.

So, in the end exactly who will Profit ? . . . . . . . .

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