Oregon Public Broadcasting

The Bureau of Land Management Thursday concluded that thousands of grazing cows are damaging prized national monument land  near Ashland.

Howard Hunter is the monument's assistant manager. He says the decision means the government must now come up with ways to minimize the impacts.

Howard Hunter: “The obvious ones are changing the use by changing the season of use, changing the number of cows, you could range the pastures differently, you could try to protect different areas like streams or springs, or plant populations. Those are the kinds of things we can manipulate.”

For the next month, the BLM will accept input from environmentalists, locals and ranchers.

The Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument Area was created in 2000.  President Bill Clinton said it was one of the most biologically diverse areas in the country and deserved protection.

But ranchers have used the land for grazing cattle for more than 100 years. When the monument was created, the BLM was directed to study what affect that has on the wildlife.

Also this week, a federal judge in Seattle stopped an emergency federal project that was supposed to allow cattle grazing on millions of acres of farmland nationwide.

The judge found that program would harm endangered sage grouse that live on the farmland now protected under the federal Conservation Reserve Program.