“Bad/Wrong Info (Borders on Lying)”
October 25th, 2007 at 5:44 pm
For all of Jerry Patterson’s bluster over the Second Amendment, his arguments for privatizing the Christmas Mountains Ranch just don’t hold water. For starters, people who actually live in the area keep contradicting him. For example, Patterson claims on one hand that a private owner is needed to stop rampant poaching on the 9,200-acre property and then on the other says the mule deer population has been decimated. However, according to several landowners, there is little to no poaching and the deer population is rebounding.
To wit, Tom Alex, chairman of the non-profit Christmas Mountains Association, gets right to the point in a piece (worth reading in its entirety) last week in the Big Bend Gazette: “The Christmas Mountains property is not overrun by poachers and illegal hunters.”
I heard the same thing from two other in-the-know locals. Terry Ervin, who lives next to the ranch, said the Brewster County Sheriff and the game warden have pretty much nipped poaching in the bud. He also contradicted Patterson’s claim that the land is in bad shape and therefore needs some attention from a wealthy owner. “It’s actually in pretty good shape as far as the grass, the vegetation,” Ervin said. Time and the restoration efforts of the Christmas Mountains Association have done a lot to heal the overgrazed land.
“I love that place,” said Roger Gibson, former owner of the Lajitas General Store and hardcore Big Bend enthusiast. “It needs to be made into a park.” Gibson owns property adjoining Christmas Mountains Ranch and worked with the General Land Office in the mid-90s on a conservation project on the ranch. When he read that Patterson was refusing to sell to the National Park Service because the agency doesn’t allow hunting, Gibson said he was “shocked.” “They [GLO] sure didn’t want any hunting on it when we were working our lease out,” said Gibson, a hunter himself. Besides, he said, the Conservation Fund, the group that donated the ranch to the state in 1991, always intended the property to become part of Big Bend National Park… sans hunting.
A reader passed along an email exchange he had with Patterson. The reader, Peter Stiles of Austin, wrote to Patterson a few days ago asking him to turn the land over to the National Park Service. Not satisfied with the form letter he received, Stiles shot back: “Why not sell the land to the NPS as promised? We are all waiting to hear an answer.”
Patterson’s reply is interesting.
I’m arguing that a private owner my [sic] be a better steward for this tract. NPS has 400,000 acres or so in the area. This would be another 10,000 acres that would be inaccessible except by foot. You’ll se [sic] how this becomes a big factor whn [sic] the bids are opened and announced. I have never seen as much bad/wrong info (borders on lying) being thrown about on any issue since I passed the concealed handgun law in 1995.
Stiles was miffed at this answer. After all, people love parks precisely because they are natural, often wild, and pavement-free. Anyone who has ever been to Big Bend, like any other park, will tell you that you can’t really understand the majesty of the place until you actually explore on foot. It’s called hiking. And the last thing anyone wants to see while hiking is some gun-slinging yahoo on a four-wheeler. (Not that there’s anything inherently wrong with that!)
Elsewhere in the exchange Patterson mysteriously tells Stiles, “[T]he outcome I have in mind WILL result in better stewardship, and better access than a simple transfer to the NPS. All of this will become apparent after the bids are recd [sic] and the winner is selected (assuming we have a winner).”
Say what?! How does Patterson have a predetermined outcome in mind when the bidding is still open, the land management plans proposed by the bidders haven’t been weighed, and a winner won’t be selected until November 6th at the earliest? This better be good.
October 26th, 2007 at 2:59 pm
To the editor,
Our Christmas Mountains should be conserved. If the General Land Office delays the controversial sale of the land that includes the Christmas Mountains northwest of Big Bend National Park, then the National Park Service could pursue options including a congressionally-authorized boundary adjustment.
The original intent of the deed was that this incredible wilderness landscape remains in public hands through the Park Service or the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. Satisfying this intent would benefit generations of Texans, and all Americans. It’s time for Governor Perry to step in and save the Christmas Mountains.
Suzanne Dixon
Senior Program Manager, Texas Field Office
National Parks Conservation Association
October 26th, 2007 at 7:35 pm
I wish I had a name like Forrest Wilder.
December 8th, 2007 at 8:50 am
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