Julian Hatch
The Bureau of Land Management’s Cattle-Ravaged Lands in Southern Utah
Utah
native Julian Hatch traces his ancestry to
Mormon
sheep ranchers who settled the region in the nineteenth century with
Brigham Young.
After graduating from the
College of the Atlantic
with a degree in human ecology, Hatch returned to Utah—settling in
Boulder
to pursue a back-to-the-land lifestyle. Repeated trespassing by cattle on his private property, along with a concern for the health of the land, soon brought Hatch into conflict with local ranchers and public lands managers. In 1983, Hatch responded by forming the Boulder Regional Group to facilitate the monitoring of environmental conditions on the public lands of southern Utah.
In this video, Julian Hatch describes how supplemental nutrients are provided to cattle on BLM’s overgrazed, vegetation-depleted lands in southern Utah. At least these supplements are paid for by ranchers rather than taxpayers. But that the supplements are needed to keep cattle healthy is a sad commentary on the quality of forage that the BLM’s cattle-grazing management has left for wildlife.
Recorded in September 2004. This video is an excerpt from Julian Hatch’s interview in
Western Turf Wars: The Politics of Public Lands Ranching.
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