Fortunately, community members have created the Big Hole Watershed Committee to constructively deal with this problem. The Watershed Committee has raised money, public interest, and expertise in efforts to save the grayling while keeping agriculture viable. Their efforts demonstrate successful cooperative solutions. The Big Hole ranchers are an under appreciated keystone species. But political pressures have reduced the number of months cattle may graze on federal lands.
Ranchers fear more reductions, and eventually the loss of permits.
Without access to federal land this community based industry will not survive. Many ranchers will be forced to sell, some to developers. The current open ranch landscape would likely shrink to islands of open space. Rather than implementing a universal policy of removing all livestock from federal lands, a better solution is to convert the permit system into a secure property-rights based system. Our goal is to provide landowners more incentives to manage the land for its highest social value.