2021-09-19 Game Management Advisory Commission Minutes

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AA: Abraham – District 5, Mr. Richards… The main reason why you got invited was at one of your town hall meetings, I guess, or, one of your talk story sessions – it was brought to our attention that you wanted to introduce grazing into the state lands and introduce the cattle into the state lands and that’s not really a good idea we feel cause the cattle would do more damage than what the sheep has already done in our state lands and in actuality if – what we’re trying to do is really try to get our sheep back into our state lands instead of bringing the cattle in cause the cattle would do a lot more damage. So we just wanted your point on that. TR: OK. I’m very happy to touch on that, I think what we’re talking about – I think we’re actually talking about the same thing and it’s grazing the fire load and fire load management… AA: Yes… TR: ….and I am all for that and when I referred to about getting cattle in there, it may have been a little bit misconstrued or maybe I didn’t say it quite right – what I’m talking about is getting grazing animals in there and it doesn’t have to be cattle – it needs to be something that is gonna graze down the fire load and when I was referencing cattle – what I was doing was saying pulse grazing – what I mean by that – in your area you put in a bunch of cattle for a short period of time – take down the fire load and then get them out of there. They don’t stay there – this is not set stock this is in and out, again, just to knock down the fire load. Now as far as what you’re talking about – game management – cause that’s what this commission is – getting the sheep back in there to help control – I’m all for that – I’m not saying it needs to be cattle and not sheep – we need to have grazing animals in the area to help mitigate and manage that fire load cause without that we were very, very lucky that the fire didn’t take off up into the mamane forest – we’re very fortunate that they were able to stop it and mother nature worked with us – so whatever it takes – I’m not a proponent of cattle necessarily – I’m a proponent of grazing – whatever that happens to be. Does that clarify it for you? AA: Yup. That sounds like it’s clarified enough for us. I see a bunch of people shaking their heads yes… TR: Yeah, that was my point. My concern is grazing it – cattle you pulse in and out, you want to get the mouflon up there – whatever it is – the point is doing nothing is the wrong answer. We have to do something… AA: That’s pretty much what – it feels like that’s pretty much what the state does is nothing besides take our grazing animals out from our areas, our public hunting areas or just gathering areas. TR: Yeah, and like I said – I’m very supportive of putting grazing animals in that area to help mitigate that. If they’re hunting animals – I’m good with that one too. 11