Ranchers have a history of environmental devastation

[cali]

On the whole, they have been anything but responsible stewards of the land. Overgrazing was instrumental in creating the dust bowl. And ranchers have been heavily subsidized by the government for years.

I don't know how well federal lands are managed. I do know the awful job ranchers have done.

[CrispyQ]

1. Everyone should read the chapter titled "Bovine Planet" in Howard Lyman's book, "Mad Cowboy."

It paints a frightening picture of over-grazing.

It's a very good book about how big business changed animal husbandry into an industry & the impacts of that change on our health & environment. What I really like about the book is that he leaves the proselytizing out.

[H2O Man]

2. Recommended.

You are correct: these fellows are thugs, who have no sincere appreciation of the land. They simply seek to exploit it for financial gain.

[villager]

3. They sure do. Glad to see this finally being discussed outside of Western Environmental Groups

We've known it for a very long time, and have been up against the bullshit "stewardship" myth, while they were busy overgrazing, displacing the bison that belong there, engaged in wholesale murder of top-of-the-foodchain animals who actually evolved to be in those ecosystems, etc.,

[The2ndWheel]

5. I'd say that paragraph encapsulates the history of human progress pretty well

[The2ndWheel]

4. "And ranchers have been heavily subsidized by the government for years."

So the government enables the destruction.

[HereSince1628]

6. In general, fixed place agriculture has big environmental impacts.

The Iowa that europeans first saw is almost completely gone. Row cropping and town-building have replaced over 92 percent of the original surface.

The urge of users to 'make the land productive' is strong in all US ecosystems. Making land more productive for human use pretty much always means changing the natural community's membership and organization--usually toward something much simpler and less well connected to original community structure.

As a person with ~50ish hours of formal training in ecology it's quite interesting to sit among farmers and listen to them speak earnestly of their commitment to 'conservation' and love of nature. Often what they're talking about boils down to protecting the future of their industry and their lifestyles. I've never sat with ranchers and had such conversations but I'd not be surprised if they don't also see themselves as having significant interests in 'conservation' and nature

[truebluegreen]

7. A good point, and one that extends to many other occupations

in the interior West. The development those rugged individualist pioneer ranchers, farmers, miners etc. are so puffed up about would not have been possible without massive government subsidies from the gitgo: homesteading, trains, water "reclamation", logging roads on National Forest land at government expense, essentially free mineral rights, grazing permits below market value etc etc etc. The list is long. Moochers.

[Bluenorthwest]

8. There is so much history. Range wars are part of why Congress created the grazing rights on public

lands in the first place, BLM was established in 1946. It's also very easy to see many occasions in which the cattle industry benefited greatly from federal involvement. There were range wars between Texas cattlemen and other ranchers along the cattle drive trials due to 'Texas Fever' which was spread by Longhorns but killed other cattle. Texas cattle were banned by MO, drives were fought back with guns. It was a scientist from DC who figured out the source (ticks) and the solutions and thus made the Longhorns safe for other cattle and eliminated another cause of armed conflict. That was 1889.

A great deal of the cinema and literature about the old West was about the range wars, from 'Shane' to 'Heaven's Gate'.

Dustbowl was largely about farming practices actually. Grasslands replaced by wheat crops.
Ranchers have done plenty of damage of their own of course.

[sorefeet]

9. I have met plenty of ranchers

lots and lots of them are bullies. Born with a silver spoon and got the big headed ego. If the deer get into a hay stack they shoot the whole herd and let them lay, legally. Not good stewards. Farmers seem to be different stewards, at least better.

[jwirr]

11. Farmer's rely on the quality of the land.

[Boudica the Lyoness]

16. We had a herd of 70 deer

in our hay stacks and none were harmed, let alone 70 deer shot! If you actually knew of an entire herd of deer wiped out you must have documented and reported it.

Ranchers have to be bullies when someone cuts their fences so they can hunt on their property. We have to take care of thousands of acres and are the security patrol, firefighter, vet and everything. We don't trust trespassers.

Ranchers are farmers as well. What do you think cattle eat? There's no pasture year around and cattle have to be fed hay. A serious rancher grows his own hay. Buying even feeder hay is expensive. Many of us put up silage as well.

[jwirr]

10. And this is true especially because it is not their own land.

[NickB79]

12. Farmers have gone down the same road ever since they started becoming mega-farms

I grew up on a farm; I have 6 uncles who are farmers. I moved to the Twin Cities, MN after college, only to end up buying a house on the southern edge of the Twin Cities that's still mostly farmland. As the price of corn and soy shot up in recent years, almost all of the farmers I know see only dollar signs. Farms have swollen from 100 acres to 500 acres to 1000+ acres. Forest is being cleared everywhere (though it's slowed in recent years as prices have come down), conservation land is being plowed under from grassland to corn, and farmers are plowing RIGHT UP TO their fencelines instead of living a few feet of buffer to prevent erosion and provide habitat.

Governor Dayton proposed requiring 50 foot waterway buffer zones so our Land of 10,000 Lakes didn't turn into the Land of 10,000 Scummy Swamps from run-off; the farmers fought him on that.

Farmers have destroyed so much habitat that our once-thriving (and profitable for hunting) pheasant populations have crashed, much to the anger of hunters.

So little wildflowers still grow that wild bees are largely gone in southwest Minnesota, so much so that soybeans aren't being pollinated as well as they should be (serves the farmers right IMO that their yields suffer).

Farmers as "stewards of the land"? Not anymore. That's a line that my grandfather could say with pride, but not today's farmers.

[Boudica the Lyoness]

13. The fucking ignorance on this thread

is gob smacking.

First of we ranch/farm. Family been on the same place since the 1880's.

No we are not heavily subsidized. We don't over graze the land or destroy our farm fields. We have maintained our land for the five generations and intend for it to be productive for the next thousand generations.

We live and work for the future in everything we do - seeding, feeding heifer calves so one day they can have calves of their own, planting cover crops, no till, planting wind breaks, letting massive herds of deer in the deep snow eat our hay, feeding three hundred wild quail every day, keeping cattle away from the creek bed, no allowing anyone to hunt the wild life, fighting our own wildfires, etc etc.

Every farm and ranch around here take care of the land. Some of the ranches around here have 40,000 acres of pasture ground. All privately owned and maintained.

We are not fly by nights living in some shit hole apartment or in trailers parks, with nothing invested but a damage deposit.

We farm with our blood sweat and tears. We are the mercy of the weather. Tell me about hay subsidizes please. We run on hay and according to you it's fucking subsidized! SINCE WHEN?

The attitude here is why rural areas are deep red. You hate us and our life style yet you love us when your stuffing your fucking gobs!

[cali]

14. You are taking this way to personally. I'm sure there are ranchers who are great

environmental stewards, but history does not back up claims that ranchers as a whole have been good environmental stewards.

Welfare Ranching: The Subsidized Destruction of the American West

http://www.publiclandsranching.org/book.htm
http://www.mikehudak.com/Articles/CTNewsletter0001.html
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1996/01/the-rancher-subsidy/306414/http://www.alternet.org/economy/exposing-americas-billionaire-welfare-ranchers
http://grist.org/article/7-kinds-of-government-subsidies-those-angry-ranchers-get-that-you-dont/

[Boudica the Lyoness]

17. This is our life. I take it personally.

Tell you what, let's get rid of all fucking welfare and all government aide to everybody. Why just stop the subsidizes for the people that feed you.

We export hay and wheat that feeds people in other parts of the world. What are you exporting? I will not read your links. I live in the real world.

[cali]

19. You clearly don't live in the real world. Ranching has a horrible environmental record

And comparing subsidies to ranchers and the cut rate grazing fees that taxpayers support with programs like Medicare and food stamps, is lame.

Refusing to recognize reality is not living in the real world.

[AZCat]

15. I think you might be surprised if you sat down and analyzed it.

Subsidies for water is a major one that gets forgotten, at least out in the west. Everyone gets to taking it for granted without considering the indirect costs.

[TransitJohn]

18. Ranchers are fucking entitled bullies

They act like public lands they lease grazing rights to are their own private property, and pull guns on you if you're mountain-biking on it. They pull guns on you if you're camping. They act like their an appreciable part of the economy, when they contribute like 8% of Wyoming's State GDP. This native Wyoming son can live without the entitled welfare-sucking ranchers.

[SoLeftIAmRight]

22. keeping cattle away from the creek bed

this is very rare - you are to be commended

You must know that you are not in the norm

be well

oh - where are you?

[L. Coyote]

20. Ridiculous broadbrush insult hurl, in my view. I grew up a rancher/farmer/conservationist.

What you have written is deeply offensive. You sound like you know every rancher on earth.

You make that usual mistake that propagandists have to make every time. You pile up a stack of truths, then make the false leap of logic to justify the hatred expressed, etc. ... in your case, all ranchers are assholes. Please direct your anger at something more specific, so I'm not included. [center]

You do realize there are 2 billion children without #snacks this morning? I hope you aren't blaming ranchers!

?1452358127" target="_blank">#NoMoreFreeRanches

The #BundyBunch was spotted this morning, foraging for snacks.

[cali]

21. These are indisputable facts. They don't apply to all ranchers

but the environmental damage from ranching has been well documented. I do not hate ranchers. I don't think that ranchers shouldn't be allowed to graze their livestock on federal land. I do think it's important to recognize the history.

[bhikkhu]

24. Grazing can improve soil quality, and it can improve wetlands

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/03/110303111626.htm

...in well-managed moderation. Awhile back there was some general sentiment that grazing was bad, just because over-grazing was bad. Not the case. As a local example which I talked to a FWS worker about a few years ago, at a wetlands south of here they give a grazing permit every three or four years to reduce woody growth that would otherwise take over much of the refuge. Historically, the job would have been done by migratory deer and elk, but those migration routes were all broken decades ago. Nowadays, the wetlands stay healthy and diverse wetlands by careful management, including some controlled grazing.

[bhikkhu]

23. A hundred years ago, very true

But the ranchers I know here in Oregon are for the most part well-educated, intelligent, and very environmentally aware.

Not to defend the idiots at the bird sanctuary (who aren't ranchers, and if they were they'd have too much work to do to waste there time nonsense), and not even to defend the meat industry, but its not how it used to be. There's more ways to fail in ranching than in most endeavors, and I have some respect for the sweat and brains that goes into keeping a ranch working.