What next???? and Gianforte is surely stroking Zinke…. and leave the wildlife alone!! What the hell….. certainly they have Insurance…. Our wildlife will pay for their usage with their lives if they are allowed to do this…. Get a Different profession…. they dont aid normal business to the tune they have supported welfare ranching!!
In the aftermath of the Lodgepole Complex fire, as cowboys on horseback rounded up the hoofed survivors from 270,000 charred acres, there were already ranchers scanning the horizon for green grass.
There were thousands of cattle displaced by fire walking hungrily through miles of the pasture with nothing to eat and little to drink. The black land met the blue horizon without a green break.
It was on that burnt prairie where ranchers began talking about the storied, 90-square-mile ranch of the so called “cowboy gangster,” Benny Binion. A short cattle drive from the worst of Lodgepole Complex, the Benny Binion Ranch had reverted back to the U.S. Department of Interior around the time of the Las Vegas casino owner’s death in the 1980s.
The ranch had become part of the Charles M. Russell National Wildlife Refuge. The 1,432-square-mile refuge encircles Fort Peck Reservoir and does accommodate livestock grazing. The CMR abuts the Upper Missouri Breaks National Monument to the west.
Binion’s land had tall grass and access to the Missouri and Mussellshell rivers, as well as artesian wells and springs. Longtime residents of the area haven’t forgotten its grass bank.
“There’s 90 square miles of grass that hasn’t had cattle on it in at least 20 years,” said Taylor Brown, of the Binion Ranch. Brown’s neighbors thought they’d roll the dice and see if CMR managers would let them on the property, once owned by the man who launched the “World Series of Poker.”
Sarah Swanson thought she’d do her cowboy neighbors one better. The farm equipment dealer still had contact information for Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke. She hopes for official confirmation of the grazing in the next few days.
“I sent him a letter asking that he open immediate prescriptive grazing on the CMR Refuge,” Swanson said. “The CMR is unique. There’s plenty of grass. It’s been underutilized for more than two decades. It’s a blessing and a curse. We could use it because it’s so overgrown, but that’s also what makes it a fire risk.”