BY CARLOS SALAZAR
Medanales
Allotment Owner
Youngsville and Chicoma Allotments
As a livestock producer grazing cattle on the north side of the Valles Caldera National Preserve, I find Tom Ribe’s letter to the editor (https://losalamosreporter.com/2026/07/07/lte-ongoing-battle-to-protect-the-valles-caldera-from-cattle-damage/) very negative, biased and damaging toward the Hispano ranching community. I find it important enough to rebut this slandering, fictitious and racial profiling letter as he fails to reveal the full story as to why the cattle through the years to the present time enter the Valles Caldera freely. I resent the fact he only communicates unconfirmed data to fit his narrative to sway public opinion, but he provides no substantive data to support his accusations.
Mr. Ribe conveniently left out the fact that since the Valles Caldera was purchased, the it has created a “nuisance” on the neighboring allotment owners to keep cattle out by neglecting to maintain the boundary fence. This fence ownership is clearly marked by “Valle Caldera Preserve” signs throughout the Park, identifying the Valles Caldera. The Valles Caldera tried effortlessly to get the U.S. Forest Service to make it a condition on the grazing permit to pin the maintenance of the fence on the ranchers.
The Valles Caldera felt it was the ranchers’ responsibility and that of the Forest Service to maintain the boundary fence, as we were told by Park Law Enforcement. The Forest Service disagreed and said “no.”
In retaliation, the Park hired wranglers to corral the ranchers’ cattle claiming they were
trespassing and began fining the ranchers last year to force the maintenance. In their
perspective, this would look good in the eye of the public and satisfy the environmental
community that they were doing their job, despite no fence maintenance efforts on their part. I
personally have seen, bikers, hunters, environmentalists, and other recreationists cut and /or
lower the fence to enter the Valles Caldera, and blame the ranchers for their transgressions.
We ranchers know, the Caldera Action group and the Valles Caldera would love nothing more than to see cattle grazing be eliminated. In fact, the Valles Caldera let the boundary fence totally intentionally collapse, which made it impossible for many years for the ranchers to keep cattle out of the Valles Caldera. It was all by design in hopes of pressuring the Forest Service and politicians to get rid of the neighboring allotment owners to create a park buffer free of livestock.
The allotment owners’ rights have been on the allotments granted to our ancestors for hundreds of years before the Park Service and Forest Service were created and New Mexico became a State, to assert these are so called “public lands” The “1848 Treaty of Guadalupe
Hidalgo,” guaranteed its citizens property of every kind shall be held inviolate. New Mexico is the only state in the Western United States to adopt the Treaty into the State’s Constitution,
Bill of Rights.
Mr. Ribe is complaining because there is a new sheriff in town, the Trump Administration, and
the policies and ideologies of his political arena have been drastically hampered and changed, and no longer can just blame cattle for everything like they are so accustomed to. To say a few
cattle are damaging endangered species habitat versus the thousands of elk in the Park is totally untrue, despite inflating cattle numbers entering the Valles Caldera. Wildfires in the Park in the past have forever destroyed, damaged or altered most if not all of the threatened and/or endangered species habitat, so what is left to protect now?
On the other hand, elk numbers are geometrically way out of control. Elk numbers have become a nuisance; the elk wallow in moist meadows, urinate and defecate in streams, destroy
springs, tear down fences, and above all are overgrazing in unregulated numbers, are destroying farmers hay fields and other private property, and all this is ignored by these groups, except issues dealing with cattle.
This data is supported through a study by Northern New Mexico Stockman’s Association” The Sustainability of Livestock Grazing in Northern New Mexico”, which states that cattle are grazing from less than 4-25 percent of the total forage in the neighboring allotments, and other species, 50 percent plus of the forage above cattle numbers.
In retrospect, when the Valles Caldera was in private hands, the adjoining livestock owners had no problems with cattle entering the Valles Caldera, because the boundary fence was well maintained. The moment the Baca Location, as we know it, was purchased by the government, ranchers knew it would eventually become a nightmare because of poor management.
Livestock grazing improves grass production and increases soil moisture while reducing fire danger making for healthier grasslands. On the other hand, Park management of the Valles Caldera is set up for wildfire. A new fence has been erected and repaired in places by the Forest Service; it remains a concern whether the fence maintenance will continue to be an issue moving forward into the future.
Letters to the editor represent the opinions of the individual authors and do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or editorial stance of the Los Alamos Reporter. The Reporter assumes no responsibility or liability for the factual accuracy of statements made by contributors.