Rancher in love with the job for 60 years
by J.D. Wilson, Outpost staff
Herb
Capurro
Herb Capurro is a cattle rancher. There's no more
fitting title for the man. He's lived his life on a ranch.
After graduating from high school, Capurro went right to
work on the ranch. World War II broke out, and instead of
drafting him, the government gave Capurro a deferment. The
country needed beef more than it needed soldiers. He never
went back to school. He never needed more formal educating.
Capurro says he's learned from the "School of Hard Knocks."
OCCUPATION: Cattle rancher
RENO RESIDENT SINCE: 1925
His family settled in the Washoe Valley in 1912 and cleared the sagebrush from the valley floor. That ranch is gone now. The original ranch lies under the intersection of Sullivan and Oddie Boulevard in the heart of Reno, Nev. It's been cut up into smaller lots, paved over and built on.
Capurro now owns and runs Big Canyon Ranch, north of Reno, with his sons. His family has been on the ranch since 1940.
"This is a good place to live," Capurro says. "That's why we live here. It's a good type of life for my grandkids."
But 60 years doesn't equate to security. The Capurros see a number of threats to their way of life.
Two hundred acres of pasture the family owns on Pyramid Highway was recently annexed by the city of Sparks. The result was a hefty tax bill - $50,000, Capurro says.
"How many years can you pay $50,000 taxes," Capurro asks.
"We're getting taxed out of it," adds his son, Mike. "We can't hold on to it no more now."
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Capurro's working collection of antique farm
equipment. |
Expansion is just the most visible threat to ranchers. The cost of doing business has gone up, and the price of beef has gone down. To compound the problem, Capurro says foreign beef that meets the same regulatory standards is sold on the same market. Consumers often don't know whose beef they're buying.
Capurro sees the environmental movement as a threat, too.
"This country has too many do-gooders, " Capurro says of environmentalists.
He qualifies this by saying the original ideas are good, they just carried too far.
Grazing rights have come under the scrutiny of conservationists and the federal government in recent years because livestock can damage cause in sensitive areas. Many ranchers have lost their grazing rights, which were first established in the mid-1800s to lure homesteaders to settle the West.
"They call them privileges now," Capurro says. "If I had the right money, I'd fight it in court. What's the government going to do but come in and take it away from us?"
Capurro relies heavily on grazing rights. The ranch encompasses 2,500 acres. Grazing rights cover more than 20,000 acres. Even at that, Capurro must buy hay to feed the cattle through the winters. He has had to reduce his herds in recent years, but Capurro is not ready to give up.
His collection of tractors speaks to the ingenuity and hard work he puts into the ranch. Every one of them looks as though it might have been bought used when Capurro was a teenager. But these are working machines. Each of them has a new oil filter, and most have new tires.
"Get tied in the business, and you can't just walk away from it," Capurro says.
But he gives the impression that he wouldn't walk away if he could.
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Posted Dec. 16,
1999
Copyright 1999, Nevada Outpost
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