Hi blogsters:

Cowgirlpoets blog entry got me thinking about the whole issue.  It's a problem.

The public, through the elected government, has decided it would like to continue to have large dangerous predators on wild, public lands.  Those predators occasionally kill livestock and people.

The issue's a thorny one caused by conflicts of private and public interests.  But on public lands there should be no question of which interests are to be furthered.

Ranchers who lease grazing rights on public lands have no choice, shouldn't have any choice, other than to bend to the public choices and priorities about the uses for that land.  If they don't want to lose calves to large predators they need to graze their cows on land they own, rather than on land where public choices apply.

However, having said that, there's the matter of what a land-owner is to do when his fences, crops, livestock and equipment are the targets of preditation and destruction by creatures protected by Federal statutes and policies.  The options of those land owners are continuously shrinking.

Protecting and re-introducing preditation to public land is a legitimate option for the public to choose.  But carrying the process further and forbidding any land owner from protecting his property from large predators, predatory birds, and large ruminants of the seasonal huntable wildlife management varieties is a grave imposition on the rights of land owners.

It's a tough set of options.  Occasionally people who go into wild areas are going to be hurt or killed by large predators.  But wild is wild.  The experience of going into wild areas isn't the same as going into a public park or zoo.  It's not intended to be.

Humans have faced the risks of encountering large predators throughout human history and generally survived with some losses.  They've made the choice that some of that wildness should be preserved.  People who don't want to encounter such risks ought to stay out of wild areas and take their chances in public parks against human, more dangerous and pervasive predators.

As for grazing cows in such places, they are not and should not be the priority unless the land being grazed belongs to the man who owns the livestock, or unless the public choices about land use make a priority of protecting cows instead of large predators.

Jack