A range management specialist in the Worland Field Office received the award from the Wyoming Stock Growers Association, according to a BLM news release dated June 7.
So how’s the grazing program doing in that area?
The Allotment Information report in RAS yielded 516 rows, from which 73 duplicates were removed, leaving 443 records. The dataset was filtered by Allotment Number.
A pivot table summarized the results:
Custodial Category (condition unknown)
- 76 allotments
- 193,264 public acres
Improve Category
- 267 allotments
- 1,601,043 public acres
Maintain Category
- 100 allotments
- 246,903 public acres
Approximately 60% of the allotments in the Worland Field Office do not meet standards for rangeland health, along with 78% of the public acres. There are over six acres in the Improve category for every acre in the Maintain category.
The announcement said that strong working relationships with grazing permittees incentivize cooperative approaches that foster healthier rangelands, but that does not appear to be the case.
Perhaps the award was given for looking the other way.
RELATED: Status of Allotments in Wyoming, Allotment Categories Explained.