Long Prairie Grazing Allotment

Long Prairie is one of five grazing allotments on Mt. Hood National Forest and the first that Bark has had the opportunity to challenge. Despite serious degradation of riparian areas on the allotment, including bank trampling, sedimentation, channel downcutting, and water quality violations, the Forest Service published a Finding of No Significant Impact for the allotment, authorizing 52 cow/calf pairs (with a potential increase of up to 105 cow/calf pairs if there is an upward trend in resource recovery “) from June 15th to September 30th. Rather than reduce the permitted number of cows on the allotment the Forest Service decided to ‘mitigate ‘ the damage by erecting fences and placing downed logs in the streams. Unfortunately, our appeal of this decision was denied on 12-9-06.

As of 2013 Long Praire Grazing Allotment continues to be permitted to ranchers, but has not had active grazing for several years, in part due to conflicting timber operations in the area that require the pulling of necessary fencing designed to keep grazing cows in assigned area.

Resources for Comment-Writing

Habitats & Species

T&E Species: Northern spotted owl Other Species: Lower Columbia River Steelhead, Middle Columbia River Steelhead, Cutthroat trout

Restrictions

6/15-9/30 3/1-7/16