1-24 IAT Banding Together

1-24 IAT Banding Together

David Sparks Ph.D.
David Sparks Ph.D.

When I see people band together to show their resilience to hard times it is always a total inspiration. Last year’s range fires hurt a lot of cattlemen. So what do they do? Come together and fight as they did at the Burgess Angus bull sale where cattle were sold in order to fund fire response. The Oyhee County Rangeland Farm Protection Association president, Doug Ruttan, talked to me. “When we get into these million acre fires, it is so hard on the ground and the land and the relocation of livestock is a tough deal for ranchers to deal with and it hurts your community all at the same time. Nothing you do is for free and all of the diesel, the vehicles are all donated and the time is donated by local ranchers and people that want to help and who have been trained to fight fire with the BLM. Doug Burgess here has donated a heifer and the proceeds are going to the Rangeland Farm Protection Association to get better equipment and more equipment and be able to get on these fires better.

 

Rancher Doug Burgess has donated a heifer for auction. “ I think it’s great and I think we have raised close to $5000 and they can buy equipment such as radios and water tankers to help them defray some of the costs because it is an all volunteer deal and everything takes money unfortunately. We did it for the Oregon side last year and this year was the Oyhee County side. Most of them are our customers and our friends and neighbors and we have a ranch in Oyhee County and we try to do our part.

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