A Cowboy Beats the Environwackos

There is a very long article that I ran across concerning a rancher in Arizona who won a $600,000 libel judgment against a bunch of environwackos. Here's part of the story:

In April 2002, the U.S. Forest Service announced that it was reissuing the permit that allows Chilton and his wife, Sue, to graze cattle on 21,500 acres of public lands south of Tucson, an area called the Montana Allotment. No fans of grazing, and convinced that endangered species were threatened by the Chiltons' cattle, the Center for Biological Diversity appealed the decision in June.

But the Forest Service stuck by its decision. Its ranger basically told the Center to get lost.

And so the Center -- "the most important radical environmental group in the country," according to a profile of the group published several years ago in the New Yorker -- posted a press release on its Web site July 2, 2002. The release noted that the group had appealed the Forest Service's decision and included "photographic evidence showing excessive grazing and other problems" on Chilton's allotment. At the bottom, the Center provided a link to its appeal, along with the photographs.

The release itself isn't exactly vivid, but the 21 photos, and their captions, are. Collectively, they give the clear impression that the Chiltons' ranching techniques had turned the acreage into wasteland.

Photo after photo features the barest vegetation, crusty earth, and trampled fences. The captions tell it all. "This bare slope is compacted, crusty and dry," one notes. "New plant growth and vigor is virtually nonexistent."

Most damning, visually, is Photo #18, taken in May 2002: A pair of cows sits on a flat plane of mud, no plants in sight. "California Gulch," the appeal notes, is "completely denuded of forage and severely compacted." The cows look terribly forlorn, as if the conditions on the acreage are upsetting even to them.

The monthly newspaper in the nearest town to the Chiltons' ranch, The Connection, picked up the press release, running a story that included the Web site address for anyone who wanted to check out the pictures. And that's when Jim Chilton saw them for the first time.

To a guy who boasts about how cowboys are "brave, loyal and true" -- and yes, that's an actual quote -- it was too much. He was convinced he'd been a good rancher. The photos didn't show the acreage he knew.

"It hit me like a kick after I looked at the pictures on their Web site," Chilton says. "I was just angry."

A slender man, with neatly trimmed white hair and gold wire-rimmed glasses, it's much easier to picture him running the Chilton Ranch than running an investment firm in Los Angeles, which is how he made his money and what he still does, weekdays.

Jim Chilton speaks deliberately. But a current of anger runs just below the surface any time he talks about the Center for Biological Diversity and what he terms "their anti-grazing agenda."

He'd loathed the Center for years. This press release, these awful photos, came after four years of the Center's attempts to wipe out his ranch, he says. Chilton had fought back, and fought back hard, every chance he got.

But he'd always been reacting. He was tired of reacting.

A lawyer he knew in Patagonia, Dennis Parker, took a long look at the photos. "Jim," he said, "this is slanderous. You could sue on this."

By his own accounting, Chilton didn't think about it for very long. "Let's do it," he said.

Bottom line is, the guy won a significant damage award due to fraud and misrepresentation by the environwackos. If you have the time, read the whole thing and see just what lengths the enviros went to to slander this guy, and how he fought back and won.

I'll bet you there's a lot more of this kind of stuff going on in the environwacko movement that doesn't get challenged because the victims don't have the funds to pursue it. Maybe the precedent set by this case will give people a better chance to fight back.

The Wall Street Journal also had a brief, but informative note on this case:

Meanwhile in Arizona a cattleman turned the tables on an environmental group to win a massive settlement, The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday. The group, the Center for Biological Diversity of Tucson, is known for suing over ranching practices and for posting photographic "evidence" on the Internet that cows are destroying otherwise pristine habitat. But rancher Jim Chilton fought back with his own photos showing a vastly different picture of the 21,500 acres of federal land where he has the right to graze his 450 cows. "I had to decide whether I was a cowboy or a wimp," he told Journal reporter Jim Charlton.

Mr. Chilton sued for defamation of character and won a $600,000 judgment against the center--a lot of money for a group that in 2003 saw about a third of its $3 million income come from court awards and settlements. The greens are now appealing, calling Mr. Chilton "litigious" and complaining the judgment could doom the center. Should he get the money, Mr. Chilton plans on first paying his own legal expenses and then using the rest of the windfall to set up a legal defense fund for other ranchers.

I find it hilarious that an organization that gets 1/3 of its annual funding from court awards and settlements is calling Mr. Chilton "litigious". Mr. Pot, meet Mr. Kettle.

I say "Go Get 'em, Cowboy. Run those environwackos out of town (and don't forget the donkey they rode in on)".