When the Bureau of Land Management imposed a ban last April on federal trappers doing predator control on BLM land - pending completion of environmental impact studies in the fall - the effect on ranchers was immediate. Some reported losses of livestock 15 percent and more higher than normal.
As a result, a number of groups in seven Western states - Arizona, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah and Wyoming - have filed a lawsuit asking that the ban be lifted. This is shaping up as one more of those battles between environmentalists and ranchers.Most environmentalists are opposed to the work by trappers from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Animal Damage Control agency in trying to prevent losses by ranchers to predators. They say the killing of coyotes and cougars is done without adequate justification.
They question whether trapping coyotes is an effective way to reduce sheep losses and say federal agencies have failed to adequately explore alternatives. But there appears to be little question that lack of predator control can hurt ranching operations.
Sheep ranchers, whose flocks graze on BLM lands, say they have not only suffered losses this spring, but if the ban is not withdrawn, the situation will get worse this fall.
Most Utah sheepmen use private or Forest Service lands in the summer, so the threat is not immediate. And the BLM supposedly will finish the environmental studies in the fall. Given the often slow pace of legal action, the studies may be completed before a judicial verdict is reached.
But if the studies are not done quickly, the potential losses of sheep could be significant.
Whenever possible, federal agencies should avoid taking arbitrary actions that adversely affect public land users. And the BLM's environmental studies should be wrapped up as soon as possible so that flocks of sheep returning to desert grazing grounds are not exposed to even greater ravages by predators.