Region 6 Range Tour

The Washington Cattlemen’s Association and the Region 6 U.S. Forest Service staff work together annually to get ranchers and permittees from different parts of the state along with forest service staff out of the regional and local offices together to tour the area and discuss pertinent issues. This year’s tour will be June 12. WCA Executive Vice President Jack Field talks about past tours and where they’ll be touring this year.

FIELD: We’ve been at the Trout Lake Ranger District on the Gifford Pinchot Forest, up in Republic on the Colville Forest, and last year we were in Pomeroy on the Umatilla, and this year we’re going to be in Naches on the Naches Ranger District to take a look and tour through with Jeff Wiersma on his cattle pasture and the Martinez Family’s sheep allotment.

And what’s covered on these tours?

FIELD: It should be an exciting day. We’re going to have a lot of good discussion points. We’ll be talking about a variety of issues - multiple use, some ESA issues, ranging from Bull trout, Mardon skipper, and certainly wolves and some of the challenges that resource and wildlife managers as well as stockman face as we look to the split status in Washington state with that Eastern 1/3 being federally delisted but still state listed, and the Western 2/3, we’ll be touring in the Western 2/3, being both state and federally listed.

The tour starts at 8 am at the Ranger District office in Naches. Those wishing to participate in the Region 6 Range Tour should RSVP to the WCA office at 509-925-9872.

I’m Lacy Gray and that’s Washington Ag Today on the Northwest Ag Information Network.