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Re: [pct-l] Is LNT all we need?

>Yes.  Often much of the damage being done to our favorite backcountry areas
>is caused by factors that we have zero direct control over (i.e., cows on
>the PCT).  We can try to figure out how we can gain some measure of control
>(petition the managing agency, political action, monkey-wrenching, shoot a
>cow or two, etc.).

I know you're just kidding about shooting a cow, but the problem from cows
is REAL in the west.  In Oregon a dog that chases a cow is automatically
killed, no second chance, no opportunity to be moved to another area without
livestock.  We have had three dogs killed in the Klamath Falls area in the
last year even though no cows were seriously injured.

The sentence for shooting a cow is six years in jail per cow.  ( Kill a
person and you can be out in a few years.)  Two years ago an activist
promoting an initiative to keep cows out of the riparian regions next to
streams shot 5 or 6 cows on his own, fenced property after repeatedly
telling the cow's owner to keep the animals off his property.  The comment
from the owner was that it was not his problem to keep the cows off the
property, it was the property owners problem to build better fences.   After
much legal maneuvering and big dollars in lawyer's bills the activist
managed to avoid a 30 year jail sentence.   What we really need to do is to
change the laws that uphold this Western tradition where the cow is God and
can damage streams, trails and private property without any restraint.

Try reading "Sacred Cows at the Public Trough" by Densel Washington, a
professor from OSU who has done an extensive study of the problems of cows
on public lands in the west.

bill

Bill Deutschman
Oregon Laser Consultants
455 Hillside Avenue
Klamath Falls, OR 97601-2337
olcbill@cdsnet.net


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