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Preface - Introduction - CHAPTERS: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8 - 9 - 10 - 11 - 12
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Chapter 11
JUSTIFICATIONS/MYTHS

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(Nola Burger)

Today, 100 years after the cattle and sheep drives and range wars that figured so prominently in the settling of the West, livestock grazing continues as a valid, authorized use on public range. Livestock grazing produces food and fiber, along with many other environmental, economic, and social benefits.

--Livestock Grazing Successes on Public Range (USDA 1989)

We have provided the most abundant, economical, and safest food supply in the world, while practicing conservation methods that ensured that the environment is protected

--National Cattle Growers Association news release, spring 1990

The secret to lying is to always tell big lies, never small ones.

--Joseph Goebbels, Nazi Propaganda Minister

In ranching's early years, brute force ruled the range. Stockmen took what they had the power to take and felt little need to justify their actions or presence on public land. In the early 1900s, as more people came West and population grew, public land increasingly was used for purposes other than ranching. Accordingly, ranchmen were increasingly hard-pressed to excuse their dominance and destructive practices.

At first it was mostly a matter of defending "their" land from competitors. Ranchers simply claimed to have the "right" to control public land because they were there first (conveniently overlooking the Native American people and wildlife they helped eliminate). Over time, as multiple use gained acceptance, this claim became less tenable. So, through the years stockmen necessarily have developed increasingly complex and diverse stratagems for justifying a business that is inherently unjustifiable.

Much of this rationale has been passed down through the years in the same way as Western legends and tall tales. Ranching custom and the unwritten, self-perpetuating code of cowboy comraderie compel stockmen to promote these fictions. As with the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus, by mutual agreement what is known to be untrue is treated as reality. Ranchers largely can't be blamed for promoting these fables; they were raised on them and see them as not only part of their ranching legacy but as a necessary protection against what they perceive as an increasingly hostile society.

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Other justifications have been deliberately fabricated in recent years as part of the industry's modern promotion strategy. Some are specifically designed to appeal to popular virtues such as patriotism, teamwork, thriftiness, and fair play. Others are scare tactics. Many of these arguments can be very convincing to the uninformed. Each has at least a grain of truth, as does any fabrication. Ranching advocates offer them brazenly, hoping that impressiveness of presentation will obscure content, thinking that our society's ignorance, indifference, and cowboy religion will protect their myths. The ranching establishment has learned the fine art of public relations.

Over the years most of these justifications have become highly standardized. They fall into a score of basic approaches.

* What problem?

I've worked 6 years as a Forest Service botanist, mostly on the Inyo [California] NF, and am livid at what I've seen, experienced, and confronted in habitat devastation, rancher rhetoric & clout, and FS apathy toward the mere acknowledgment of even a problem existing.

--Jim Andre, Bayside, California, personal correspondence

Believing denial the best defense, many in the ranching establishment simply refuse to acknowledge that there is or ever was a problem. They feign surprise at the very suggestion:

What!? -- peaceful grazing cows and sheep harm the land? Ridiculous! Some armchair environmentalist must have thought that one up. You don't believe that crap do you?

Thus, if you do you are led to feel like a gullible, desk-bound fool. This works on many people who know little about ranching or who strongly embrace cowboy mythology.

The agencies, as public affairs agents, commonly disregard or trivialize ranching impacts. As a small but common example, this morning I read a publication entitled "Proposed Coconino National Forest Plan." In it the Forest Service describes the 12 "issues of concern" for this central Arizona National Forest. Curiously, ranching is not among them. There is only an incidental reference to some livestock-caused damage to riparian areas in the past. Though undeniably ranching stands with logging as this Forest's most harmful influence, apparently the public should not even consider it a problem, much less a major issue. Ranching advocates insist that there is no positive proof that ranching harms the land. To them, of course, no evidence constitutes proof.

* Well, ranching's not so bad compared to ....

When denial didn't work ranchers blamed the problems on wild horses, weather, hunters, off-road vehicles, vandals, or -most recently — elk.

--Rose Strickland "Taking the Bull by the Horns" (Strickland 1990)

'The flyer portrays a rugged Western landscape in silhouette. To the right, outlined in white, a city sprawls across the flatlands. A road extends from the city to the left, toward what remains of the wild. On the far left, up on a bluff, a lone, mounted cowboy surveys the encroaching distant city. A river, etched in orange lines, symbolically separates the cowboy from modern society.

The flyer was distributed by the Tucson Public Library to advertise audio tapes labeled "The Wilderness Still Lingers." The message is clear: Cowboys are an integral part of the wilderness, valiantly-but-futilely trying to protect their home and the West from the relentless onslaught of modern civilization -- a sadly unalterable destiny. The scene evokes melancholy, and sympathy for wilderness and cowboy.

But there is more. Barely visible in the river gorge, a bridge crosses the river. Will the cowboy cross that bridge into the modern age? Hell no! This is a one-way bridge, representing civilization's inevitable advancement against defenseless cowboy/wilderness. Further, parts of the cowboy and horse are outlined in pink; no other part of the flyer is that color except the text used to describe the wilderness audio cassettes. In other words, the cowboy is our link to the wilderness.

Ironically, the writers featured on these cassettes include strong supporters of ranching reform, even Edward Abbey, a leading critic of public lands ranching. Also ironic is that this irrevocable symbol of the wilderness -- the cowboy/rancher -- has not only done more than anyone to ruin the wild West, but has also done more to prevent remaining Western natural areas from being protected.

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***The video portrays an elderly Navajo woman on horseback driving sheep across a vast, barren Navajo landscape. In the distance, like an immense, evil citadel, stands the coal-fired Four Corners Power Plant, one of the largest and dirtiest electric-generating facilities in the US.

The message is clear. Here is a traditional way of life being symbolically, if not physically, assaulted by the juggernaut of industrial civilization. Furthermore, science and technology, impersonal and uncaring, can be extremely destructive, whereas the rustic family activity -- livestock grazing -- is relatively harmless. The two are ironically side by side.

It is ironic -- because the woman's sheep, along with other livestock on the reservation, have done more damage to Navajoland than all the reservation's power plants and coal strip mines combined. It is also ironic because now that Navajo land is severely degraded by overgrazing it isn't much use for anything but continued overgrazing.

'The front page photo of the conservation journal High Country News is half-filled by "Brutus," a 26-story-high stripmining shovel turned tourist attraction near West Mineral, Kansas. Like a small toy in comparison, a black angus cow runs before the gigantic iron monster.

Symbolism run amok! Here is a poor, defenseless cow, and by inference its poor, defenseless rancher owner, and by inference the poor, defenseless ranching subculture, under attack from the ruthless, unstoppable modern monster of exploitation.

Ironically again, stockmen and their cows have done more to ruin the West than a thousand of these gigantic strip-mining machines. But to write this is blasphemy!!! Regardless of reality, our American Cowboy remains the personification of the Western landscape.

The point is, images similar to those above, though delusions, pervade our society. Grazing livestock, folksy cowboys, rustic windmills, etc. often are (even by environmentalists) contrasted against contemporary culture to represent benign simplicity, naturalness, innocence, contentment, truth, pride, and other virtues. Because of its outward predominance in Western history, ranching recalls the past -- bygone times, the good ol'days, when things were as things should be. Ironically once again, we have seen that ranching is not the antithesis but the vanguard and compatriot of the exploitive, growth-oriented modern worldview.

Usually the first thing a country does in the course of economic development is introduce a lot of livestock Our data are showing that this is not a very smart move.

--Cornell University nutritional biochemist T.C. Campbell

Backpackers leave body wastes and campfire ashes in the wilderness areas; ecologists pollute the biosphere and other areas they study; bird watchers disturb the habitat of the birds they watch;- campers leave residues and trample vegetation, so do hunters and anglers; herds and flocks of livestock trample and defecate on grass and water just as they did in Biblical tunes So, too, do all wild herbivores, and even fish must defecate.

--T.C. Byerly, Staff Consultant, Winrock International (suppliers of range "improvement" equipment) (USDA, USDI, CEQ 1979)

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Some say the best defense is a good offense. As Western ranching has come under increasing resistance in recent years, ranching proponents have begun a concerted effort to promote the idea that ranching isn't really a problem when compared to other uses. Using diversionary tactics to deflect opposition, many have taken to condemning the "real destroyers of public lands" -- strip-miners irresponsible hunters, off-road vehicle users, backpackers, vandals, and those fiendish litterbugs. (Curiously, stockmen almost universally support logging, which is the second most overall destructive use of Western public lands. Less trees mean more grass.)

By focusing attention on other public lands abusers, ranchmen take the heat off themselves. By displaying opposition to other destructive uses, they portray themselves as environmentally concerned, thus suggesting that they certainly would not harm the land.

New Mexico public lands rancher Sid Goodloe declares in Harper's Magazine, "let's talk about the real problem on our public lands -- the damage being done to them by off-road vehicles." South Dakota rancher Linda Hasselstrom sums up her argument in a letter to High Country News: "If we ban cattle grazing, let's be consistent and ban all use of public lands that will damage the land or wildlife ... [and] ban skiers from mountains where any living wild animal has been observed." Maybe we should also ban public lands birders, those unchaste ruffians who gleefully trample delicate purple asters and terrorize great blue herons.

This all-or-nothing, black-or-white approach is used often by stockmen and their apologists. It is an old debating trick -- using shades of grey to justify or trivialize extremes. No distinction is made in degree of abuse, which would allow us to prioritize mitigation of the abuses. The point consistently side-stepped is that public lands ranching is the most destructive, least justifiable of all public lands uses.

It's a felony to deface a Forest Service sign, but perfectly OK for cows to destroy an entire watershed!

--Denzel and Nancy Ferguson (ONDA 1990)

Personal experience has led me to write that cattle alone have done thousands of times more to degrade our natural surroundings than all the tourists, fishermen, picnickers, hikers, backpackers, birders, and naturalists combined. Philip Fradkin claims in "The Eating of the West" that "The impact of countless hooves and mouths over the years has done more to alter the type of vegetation and landforms of the West than all of the water projects, strip mines, power plants, freeways, and subdivision developments combined." On the other hand, Colorado public lands rancher Art Johnson claims in a letter to High Country News that "When you look at the massive and permanent damage done by mining, oil development, major road building, deforestation, hydro projects, ski resorts, etc., the damage done by present grazing practices on public lands is minor." While most people naturally tend to think that the truth must lie somewhere between these extremes, careful consideration of the obscure nature of ranching and its overall impact leads me to believe that Philip Fradkin and I are understating the case.

Ranching promoters maintain that we must treat all uses equally. If we ban ranching, then let's ban 'em all, including hunting and skiing, hiking and birding. They know, of course, that few of these other uses ever will be banned.

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There is another important ulterior motive behind this twisted logic -- eliminating competition. As discussed previously, ranching negatively affects many other uses of public land. Inversely, these other uses sometimes conflict with ranching. For example, many stockmen dislike ORV enthusiasts because they kill grass, scare cattle, leave gates open, and vandalize range developments. Ranchers may sound like the environmentalists they claim to be when ranting and raving against the evils of ORV use, but their primary motive is eliminating competition.

They ignore the fact that the removal of the vegetation cover by livestock and the extensive network of Western ranching access roads is a major cause of the ORV problem, and that most ranchers are themselves off-road vehicle users. With massive pickup trucks, 3- and 4-wheelers, and dirt bikes, stockmen patrol allotments in all kinds of weather, on road and off, causing far more damage than other ORVers in most of the West. Thus, any argument against ORV use is an argument against ranching.

Ranchers sometimes discourage mining on public land because it reduces grazing and scares cattle. However, where mining development results in improved access, an influx of money to the local economy, or other perceived ranching benefits, they tolerate or encourage it. (As mentioned, by law stockmen are more than compensated financially for reduced grazing and other inconveniences caused by mining operations on allotments.)

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(Roger Candee)

Stockmen have mixed feelings about hunters. On one hand, they encourage and support hunting to eliminate their animal enemies. On the other, stockmen push for stronger controls over hunters because hunters sometimes scare livestock, cut locks and fences, leave gates open, and shoot holes in water tanks. Some hunters, discouraged by the lack of game on Western ranges, have taken to hunting cattle. But most ranchers themselves are "hunters," or at least have no qualms about knocking off predators, competitors, pests, and no-goods.

Stockmen especially disdain hikers and backpackers, accusing them of numerous sins. Their hostile feelings seem based mainly on socio-political factors. People who appreciate rather than exploit public land make ranchers look bad, are likely to oppose ranching -- and most ranchers simply don't like "those hippie types." So they denounce hikers and backpackers as "the true despoilers of the West," "outsiders" who trample the land, pollute the water, litter, leave gates open, and scare cows. They "use the resources and don't even pay a fee to do so!"

Sure, there are rainforest destruction, wholesale slaughter of dolphins by the tuna industry, wanton harvesting of animals for their pelts by the fur industry, toxic and hazardous waste and a whole panoply of other crimes that we have committed against the planet. But recognition of these facts does not excuse the rape of the West that has been perpetrated by ranchers and their cattle.

--David A. Huet, in a letter to the Tucson Weekly (9-26-90)

These days, public display of environmental concern is a necessary part of any commercial land-use strategy. Stockmen, set in their ways and used to getting what they want, were slow to learn this. Mostly since the "ecology movement" of the 1970s they have come to realize that feigning environmental concern, as distasteful as it might be, helps garner support and minimize competition.

All this is not to say that some ranchers are not truly concerned. As with any group, some are working to reverse environmental degradation, both on and off their allotments. Unfortunately, because any kind of ranching is inherently detrimental, even these ranchers continue to damage the range with both livestock and development. Their hard work and good intentions create an unfortunate situation where the support they garner perpetuates the innately harmful, wasteful welfare ranching they practice.

*Ranching may once have been destructive, but not now that it's scientific.

The record is clear The ranges are improving and most of the rangelands are best used for grazing. . . there's no reason to argue for not grazing.

--Thadis Box, Utah State University range professional

Our grandfathers and great grandfathers overgrazed, but that's all over now.

--An Arizona public lands rancher, in a local newspaper

Assistant Secretary of the Interior David O’Neal told members of the New Mexico Cattle Growers' Association to fight critics by producing "data proving our rangelands are getting better (March 1991)

Nearly every ranching publication contains some reference to the "uncontrolled" livestock devastation of long ago. Each then openly or by inference goes on to claim that range conditions are much better now than in those wild, unrestricted days.

This often is the second line of defense when initial attempts to make ranching seem harmless fails. It goes something like this: "Uncontrolled" grazing ravaged the range a century ago. Since range condition was terrible then, it must be better now. Since it is better now, range conditions are improving. Since range conditions are improving and we have ever-expanding science and technology for "controlled" grazing, range condition will continue to improve indefinitely, eventually even surpassing aboriginal condition. This is faulty logic, but the basic assumptions behind it may be even more faulty. Past grazing was "uncontrolled" insofar as it was not administered by the government and livestock were mostly unfenced. However, then as now the mass of domestic animals were the major factor behind the devastation, not the lack of administration and fences. Indeed, in some ways the large, nomadic herds on the open range then caused less environmental damage per head than livestock do now. The claim that "controlled" grazing is necessarily more benign is as much a myth as the promise that control of the atom would bring us "a world of peace" and "life of effortless plenty."

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Are range conditions really better now? Things may seem better than a hundred years ago when much of the West was stripped as bare as a billiard table (though much is still that bare). However, as mentioned, even government studies show that roughly 50% of Western range productivity has been lost to cumulate livestock impact. In a report to the President's Council on Environmental Quality, Frederic H. Wagner and 2 other range experts "concluded that 3/4 of the western ranges were producing at less than half their potential at the time [19681" (Wagner 1978). A 1984 Senate report estimated that 76% of BLM range was in either fair or poor condition, unable to produce more than half its estimated aboriginal potential (Williams 1990). A 1980 SCS estimate was that more than half of Western rangeland was producing at less than 40% potential and that more than 85% was producing at less than 60% potential (Chaney 1990). Several other reports indicating little or no change have already been mentioned. In other words, the land is actually producing much less forage now, though individual forage plants in grazed areas may on the average be larger than, say, in the 1880s or 1930s because they are not always cropped to the ground.

If we define range condition as the overall, long-term health and integrity of the rangeland environment, today's conditions probably are significantly worse than a century ago. A century ago, livestock were simply turned out and allowed to reproduce in greater and greater numbers until the land could no longer support them. Although this caused many kinds of immediate environmental harm, other kinds of damage and more serious long-term damage would not become apparent for decades.

In the late 1800s livestock stripped the herbaceous cover, then starved if they were not removed from the range. Even so, the distribution, composition, and density of native vegetation all were still basically intact. Native species covered most of their aboriginal range; vegetation was composed mostly of natives; and individual plants were relatively closely spaced, though eaten to nubs. Over subsequent decades native species have declined drastically as increasers, invaders, and bare dirt spread relentlessly. Distribution, composition, and density have progressively declined as long-term impacts compounded.

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Range Conditions, Then and Now

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The BLM range now, according to the BLM. (BLM)

Dropped out range conservationists have told me that they have seen drastic reductions in forage in the last 1O years, and expect the trend to continue.

--Anonymous New Mexico State Land Department official

Each passing year more soil erodes from the Western range. There is less soil now than ever before because excessive soil erosion continues while the creation of new soil cannot nearly keep pace. The greatly reduced topsoil supply and the loss of tens of thousands of acres of bottornland have caused a chain reaction of destructive environmental changes, including substantial loss in biological health and productivity.

Likewise, continual overgrazing has contributed to a progressive diminishment in streamflows, and water tables, and thus in dependent wildlife. Evidence indicates that overall water pollution due to livestock also has grown steadily worse.

Ranching continues to harm wildlife. Granted, there have been reintroductions and increases of some species' populations in recent decades. However, much of this recovery has required massive human intervention, and little of it can be credited to ranching. Each year we expend more resources to maintain or increase numbers of some "game" animals, often to counterbalance ranching's malevolent influences. This creates the illusion of recovery. Meanwhile, ranching causes many of the less popular native species to continue their inexorable declines, some toward extirpation or extinction. The overall wildlife picture is not better than in the past.

Additionally, a century ago, though much of the West was ravaged by livestock, large areas remained ungrazed because they were inaccessible or too far from water. For example, until the early 1900s many of the natural forest meadows had never been grazed by livestock because they were too remote or were surrounded by impenetrable brush or trees. Aboriginal, densely vegetated forests had not yet been thinned by timbering. Large portions of and to semiarid range were too far from water for livestock to utilize.

In recent decades, more ranching access roads, modernized livestock and supply transport (including helicopters), livestock access developments, and artificial water sources have allowed livestock to spread to almost every nook and cranny of our public range. This important factor is underappreciated by most range analysts. Though some public land has been built on or otherwise withdrawn from livestock use (only 4% in the US since 1958 [Joyce 19891), rangeland overall is being more thoroughly grazed, and previously ungrazed land has been turned into grazing land.

Range developments a century ago were simple and rare. Today, science and technology have provided the means to mitigate some of the more serious range management detriments (though always at the expense of other natural components and other ecosystems). This has enabled the ranching establishment to damage the land more thoroughly in more ways than early ranchers would have imagined possible. Each year there are more and more fences, roads, stock watering devices, salt blocks, seedings, and other destructive range developments.

Federal records show livestock range herbage consumption on public lands down somewhat from earlier times, but roughly stable since the 1950s. Even accounting for today's larger cattle, agency exaggeration, and other factors, there probably has been an overall, small reduction in livestock biomass since historic peak periods. We are told that this represents a "sincere attempt to control overgrazing." More correctly it means the long-term productivity of the Western range continues to decline -- even with the aid of billions of dollars in range "improvements. " Thus, some experts believe relative livestock pressure on the Western range is now at an all-time high. (In the West as a whole, the cattle population is at an all-time high.)

The highest historic peaks in livestock numbers give us the false impression that lower levels represent responsible use. Yet, even disregarding these highest peaks, livestock pressure on public land has consistently remained extremely high from the 1870s until present; even the lowest points represent a severely harmful influence.

BLM's own 1984 report -- which has been criticized as slanted to portray BLM range improvement -- stated that, while 5% of BLM range was rated excellent, 31% good, 42% in fair, and 18% in poor or very poor condition, 18% was improving, 68% was stable, and 14% was declining (USDI, BLM 1984). It is safe to assume that if BLM says nearly as much of its land is deteriorating as improving, probably more is deteriorating than improving. After the General Accounting Office conducted 11 studies of BLM in 3 years, it reported to Congress in 1989:

We found that almost 60% of the grazing allotments for which BLM range managers had current status information were in less than satisfactory condition. Further, only about one-fourth of the allotments whose status was known were improving while the remainder were either stable or declining. Despite this generally unsatisfactory condition, range managers told us that a significant portion of grazing allotments continued to be overstocked. Moreover, on 75% of the allotments threatened with overgrazing BLM had not scheduled any action to reduce authorized grazing levels. [emphasis added]

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The mouth of Cave Creek Canyon, Chiricahua Mountains, southeast Arizona. A 1908 photo (top) shows a range well covered with native grasses eaten close to the ground by cattle, widely scattered with shrubs. The same scene in 1956 (below) is dominated by bare, rocky ground and thorny brush. (Unknown)

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(Mentioned earlier was a 1987 SCS report estimating as much US private range deteriorating as improving.)

Range condition as defined by the ranching establishment is an arbitrary, biased, misleading terra, based mainly on perceived present potential of the land to produce herbage for livestock, rather than on environmental health and integrity. Furthermore, how much environmental good is allegedly "productive" range in allegedly "good" condition when herbage is cropped to stubble for most or all of the year?

In sum, today's public range is in a dynamic state of degradation. Most evidence indicates that the greatest rate of overt rangeland damage probably occurred during the initial livestock invasion of the late 1800s and during a few peak use periods in the first half of this century. But these high rates of degradation in large part simply reflect that the most susceptible environmental components succumbed first. Compared to these peaks, the overall rate of environmental damage has in some ways declined. However, in some ways it has not. Progressive deterioration continues and cumulative degeneration intensifies. Thus, overall ranching pressure is probably near an all-time high. Ranching is as bad as it used to be, if not worse.

*Ranchers aren't responsible for harming public land because it is the government's responsibility to protect this land.

Last night, I once again heard a public lands rancher stand up in front of a crowd and make this claim. It deserves no response.

*Ranchers lead simple, earthy lives, so they have developed a special closeness to and respect for Nature.

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A freeway right-of-way west of Laramie, Wyoming. The resident photographer adds, "This is common all over Wyoming and getting worse." (Harvey Duncan)

Ranchers are rugged outdoorsmen, right? They make a living out there on the range, close to the land. From working on the land for so long they have developed a thorough knowledge of, and strong feeling for, the environment. They are poor, hard-working people who lead simple, natural lives. So the story goes.

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Back in the real world, we find that most ranchers are not rugged, adventurous outdoorsmen, but are instead rather ordinary businessmen. Generally they attend to their livestock and ranching chores in fancy pickup trucks (sometimes ultra- lights, airplanes, or helicopters), do their work with the most modern equipment available, and rarely spend a night outdoors. They see the environment more as obstacle than companion. Through the years I have been shocked to discover just how little most stockmen understand or appreciate the land they ranch.

The common perception that ranchers lead a simple existence, a natural life close to the Earth, is but for few exceptions not true. In the first place, most Western stockmen are well-situated and accustomed to a comfortable lifestyle. Moreover, the very nature of public lands livestock grazing necessitates large, complex, and expensive ranching operations. And because Western land, public land especially, is so poor for raising livestock, profit-to-expense ratio is usually very low. A livestock operation netting $100,000 per year may spend several times that amount for not only ranching labor, supplies, repairs, utilities, transport, etc., but to maintain the accustomed. lifestyle in a remote location. If public and private subsidies are factored, the "business" becomes so unprofitable as to be laughable. A visit to a public lands ranch is a lesson on waste:

Simpson and "his wife" own an 80-acre base property. Around the headquarters compound rests an assortment of heavy equipment -- tractor, bulldozer, backhoe. Pieces of machinery lie in various states of repair and disrepair. Against a shed wall stand drums of kerosene, creosote, asphalt emulsion, diesel fuel, gasoline, motor oil, and hydraulic fluid. Behind the shed, we find a grease pit and a small trench for used oil.

The large barn is stocked with straw, hay, salt blocks, and bags of cattle, horse, dog, and chicken feed, cement, and fertilizer. A few seldom-ridden horses stand in their stalls; a horse corral is adjacent. The horses are handy for certain chores (and for fun and visitors), but the vast bulk of ranch work utilizes motorized vehicles -- including the pickups, stock truck, jeep, and ATV parked over with the family car, horse trailer, heavy equipment trailer, utility trailer, live-in trailer (for extended stays on the range), and several junk vehicles near the ranch house. Simpson's single-prop Cherokee awaits him at the end of a nearby quarter-mile-long dirt runway.

The compound also contains cattle corrals, holding pens, chutes, ramps, a stock tank and scale. Sheds and outbuildings bulge with tools and supplies, most seldom but eventually used. Here we find auto and truck parts, vehicle repair tools, windmill components, water pumps, chainsaws, generators, equestrian gear, branding implements, sheet metal, sheet and rolled plastic, tarps, torches, sprayers, mowers, power post hole diggers, chains and ropes, come-alongs, hydraulic jacks, drills and presses, wire stretchers, welding equipment, carpentry tools, table saws, an air compressor, electrical equipment, veterinary supplies, firearm supplies, varmint and insect poisons, weed killers, ad infinitum. Under the overhangs of some of the buildings are a cement mixer, wheelbarrows, piles of fence posts and stays, old gates, rolls of mesh and barbed wire, pipe (CPVC, ABS, and galvanized iron), lumber, roofing materials, concrete blocks, ladders, propane tanks, stove pipes, screens, rebar, angle iron, hoses, haying machinery, farm implements, old tires, animal traps, and so on. Tacked and nailed on the wall of one old shed are deer heads, rattlesnake skins, and coyote carcasses. The hound pens and chicken coops occupy most of the shady space under a lone ponderosa pine.

Six miles of dirt road snake from ranch headquarters down the valley to the well-maintained gravel road leading to town. The dirt road is usually impassable several days a year, but the county does a good job of keeping it open. Along the dirt road, mail is delivered daily to 3 widely spaced mailboxes, all owned by public lands ranchers who own the best bottomland along the valley and control permits for ranching on surrounding public land. The other 2 ranchers have children, who are picked up and dropped off by school buses each weekday.

Back at Simpson Ranch, electrical wires from the main house and various buildings meet at a central utility pole; from there a line of power poles marches to the horizon. Telephone wires, installed 15 years ago through a special discount to ranchers, also run along these poles. The large propane storage tank that serves the main ranch and guest houses is filled every few months by a delivery truck that makes the 17-mile journey from town. Although propane is the main house's principal heat source, the ranch family burns a few cords of wood in the fireplace and wood heater each winter to save money; after all, the wood is free from public land. The ranch house isn't exactly "Little House on the Prairie"; it is large, comfortable, and equipped with the latest conveniences. A satellite dish picks up TV waves. An extra bedroom serves as the ranch office.

The Simpson's domestic water comes from a fenced spring half a mile up a nearby canyon, capped off and run down the canyon through a 2" galvanized iron pipe into a 10,000-gallon holding tank above the house. Water for cattle (when at headquarters) and horses comes from a small reservoir. Late each spring, after the threat of flooding has mostly passed, Simpson uses a bulldozer to scrape a diversion dam across the valley's seasonal creek, diverting the flow through a ditch into the reservoir. The reservoir also helps irrigate a 12-acre pasture, which occupies the most fertile bottomland along the creek below the house. During periods when the reservoir is full, Simpson allows it to overflow and run back down into its natural course (or what passes for "natural" after being channelized and riprapped). Though the creek no longer flows for extended periods, when it does, water is diverted directly to pasture and stock via irrigation ditches.

For years Simpson has dumped garbage, brush, trash, scrap material, and assorted junk into an arroyo a couple hundred yards behind the house. Like many ranchers, he feels a curious security in this time-honored accumulation.

Due to intensive activity by vehicles, machinery, horses, cattle, and people, the compound area for a radius of hundreds of feet is stark, bare earth. Most days this is a source of dust, but it becomes a cursed muddy quagmire after a rain. Nevertheless, the ranch family is glad for the barren zone around their living area as it helps keep the bugs and varmints at bay.

Simpson has tried to raise a few fruit trees near the house, fencing them from the horses and loose cattle with 5 tight strands of barbed wire on close-set posts. The attempt has been moderately successful, with most of the stunted trees' upper branches still intact. A lawn and ornamental bushes survive within a chain link fence adjoining the house.

From the compound, dirt roads radiate in every direction, following the creek up and downstream, accessing every part of the valley bottomland, cutting up steep hillsides, winding along ridgetops and canyon bottoms. The stockman can drive from the ranch house almost anywhere. On his ATV, he can zip down to the diversion dam to check the water flow, or down the valley to irrigate the pasture. In his jeep, he can 4-wheel it up to the springhead to check the water intake or drive the 7 rugged miles along ridgetops to check cattle on the high mesa on the far side of the 12,300acre allotment. In one of his heavy-duty pickups, it takes only an hour to reach a fence post cutting area 35 miles away, or half an hour to go to town to pick up supplies.

During the 18 years Simpson has "owned" the allotment, the Forest Service and other agencies have provided the following: 7 dirt and 3 metal stock tanks; a concrete dam; a pipeline; 2 windmills; 3 brush and 5 pinyon/juniper removals totaling 1450 acres; 2 noxious weed control projects for 470 acres; 3 seedings and reseedings for 870 acres; poison spray twice for grasshoppers on 900 acres; poison grain for gophers and ground squirrels; coyote and mountain lion eradication; disease inoculation for hundreds of cattle; 16 miles of new fence and 8 1/2 miles of replacement fence; 4 cattle guards; 3 gates; 8 miles of dirt roads; and 6 "Watch for Livestock" and "Cattle Guard" signs. Nobody keeps track, but the cost of all these "improvements" totals about $200,000. Simpson has contributed some of his own range developments, generally the cheaper ones.

Other assistance comes in various forms from the feds, the state, the county, range pros, the ag department at the university. Most he is glad to receive, though sometimes he feels that others are trying to run his ranch and his life.

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Part of a public lands ranching headquarters -- houses, barns, sheds, trucks, heavy equipment, etc. Note that the riparian bottom has been virtually destroyed. Central Utah.

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Except perhaps for the airplane, Simpson's hypothetical ranching operation is typical of public lands ranches. Ranchers may live far from town, but this in no way means they live simply, much less naturally. While most of us win continue to envy the popularized down-home Western lifestyle, we should realize that this dream has little to do with the reali of public lands ranching. A small percentage of stockmen, especially in the wilder areas of the West, may live this way, but the celebrated Western lifestyle generally is better exemplified by small-time miners and homesteading hippies than by ranchers. Regardless, we should not condone a group's harmful activities because we envy or sympathize with their lifestyle.

As a whole the stock ranching business in its goals and management is much like other businesses. The rancher wants the greatest net financial return with the least expense and effort. He figures herbage amounts, livestock weights, and ranching expenses on his pocket calculator. He records receipts and expenditures and market trends on computer spreadsheets.

The stockman is not out there to commune with Nature, but to make money and maintain the status quo. If through the years he happens to gain an appreciation for the natural world he and his livestock denigrate, it is incidental to his primary purposes. As a society, one of our biggest misconceptions is that knowledge of or physical proximity to Nature necessarily begets respect for Nature. Ignoring obvious signs to the contrary, we are further willing to believe that an appreciation for Nature necessarily overrides the desire for profits and power enough to beget benign use.

"Our goal is to produce the greatest weight gain in our cattle with the least financial expense possible.

--4-"H" youth

*Ranchers are the true conservationists. Their livelihood depends on a healthy range, so they wouldn I damage the environment.

We are the original ecologists. We're the ones who originally came West, took it on ourselves to produce something from nothing. We are dependent on the ecology.

--Jim Connelley, president, Nevada Cattlemen's Association, 1-2-90 Tucson Citizen

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Such arguments often are impressive, especially to city dwellers. The first half of this book reveals that they have no basis in reality.

Some public lands ranchers have joined conservation organizations in recent years, often taking positions of power to which they are accustomed -- a main reason most large conservation organizations refuse to challenge the ranching establishment. While some seem truly concerned for environmental welfare, most seem more concerned with other things. That is, they have come to understand that co-opting the very groups that might otherwise oppose their exploitation of public land is good public relations and good politics. For example, a contribution from the X-9 Ranch will reasonably assure that the local Sierra Club will not interfere with the X-9's public ranching operation, especially when the X-9 owner is a Sierra Club board member. A few hundred dollars and a membership fee is a small price for a wealthy stockman to pay to protect an operation worth a million. Additionally, the environmental image he gains from his association with the Sierra Club minimizes opposition from other conservation groups, politicians, and the public.

Beyond images, public lands ranchers generally oppose activities that would threaten their income levels and social/political standing and support those that would strengthen them; environmental impact is incidental. In the 2-million-acre "Arizona Strip" north of the Grand Canyon, where devastating overgrazing has continued for a century, ranchers are encouraging new uranium mines, including one within 15 miles of the Grand Canyon itself. Though ranching is the only land use to speak of over most of the area, and since (aside from the uranium miners) stockmen comprise by far the strongest political force in the area, stockmen welcome uranium mining there for the improved road network it provides and as "a boost to the local economy."

Southern Utah's Burr Trail, a 66-mile stretch of dirt road between the small town of Boulder and "Lake" Powell, has long been considered one of the most scenic roads in North America. Winding through a million-acre expanse of relatively undeveloped red rock desert that includes Wilderness and Wilderness Study Areas, a National Park, and archaeological sites, the Burr Trail is a popular mountain bike trail. Yet, some area businesspeople are pushing to have it developed to boost tourism and fatten their wallets. With $2 million in Utah taxes, they plan to have Burr Trail widened, re-routed, and paved, infringing on wildlife and wilderness, increasing vehicular traffic by an estimated 2000%, and degrading the road's scenic qualities. Local public lands ranchers support the plan because it would improve their access, and, again, "boost the local economy."

In contrast, public lands ranchers are now in league with thousands of people in protest of a proposal by the US Air Force to withdraw 1.5 million mostly BLM acres in southwest Idaho for a bombing range. If implemented, the proposal might reduce grazing for some of the area's 60 or so permittees, though they would be financially compensated. Two hundred people testified at a recent hearing on the proposal; several were ranchers, who received most of the media attention simply because they are ranchers.

Similarly, ranchers in southwest Montana's Big Hole Valley presently are joined with conservationists in calling for Wilderness designation for much of the National Forest surrounding the 100-mile-long valley. The Forest Service plans to allow clearcutting on large areas of the thick forest on the steep hillsides north and west of the valley. All 17 Big Hole Valley ranchers oppose the proposed logging and have reluctantly accepted Wilderness designation as the only feasible way to stop it, even though past and present ranching keeps most of the valley bare of trees and is the valley's greatest environmental detriment. While their alleged "collective regard for the land" has impressed some conservationists, the ranchers' primary concern is that clearcutting will increase watershed runoff and hurt their ranching operations (if logged, the steep slopes would provide a minimal amount of pasture anyway).

As in most river valleys in the rural West, the Big Hole ranchers own most of the private land and dominate the valley, especially in the lower elevations. Any intrusion into their area is a potential threat to their ranching operations and to their local power structure.

The Big Hole issue demonstrates the enormous power of the ranching establishment. A coalition of conservation organizations with thousands of members could battle against the proposed clearcutting with only a low probability of success. But throw in 17 local ranchers and suddenly you have "one of the most influential conservation groups in southwestern Montana," as reported in the conservation newsletter LightHawk. A handful of local stockmen equals an army of ordinary Jane and John Does.

Thus, public lands ranchers sometimes support environmental protection -- usually ostentatiously -- by procl i g their positions to the press, as if their involvement suddenly gives the issue real significance. How many times have you heard these exact words?: "As a _ (fill in state) public lands rancher with a deep, abiding respect for the land, -(fill in complaint or demand)." Their modernized public relations strategy has given public lands ranchers a more palatable conservation image, but they will never be and cannot be true conservationists, much less environmentalists, for public lands ranching by its very nature is environmentally unsound.

In other words, it is easy to be a "conservationist" when proposing to conserve something besides the land you ranch. You can call yourself an ecologist because you have learned ecology in your attempt to manipulate ecosystems for ranching. And anyone can send in $35 for a Sierra Club membership and claim to be an environmentalist.

Stockmen's destructive legacy speaks for itself. They stand without equal as enemies of conservation.

They came into the West, they killed off the native wildlife, they've stripped the West of vegetation and continue to declare war on the few remaining predators. And now they have the nerve to call themselves environmentalists.

--Jim Fish, Public Lands Action Network, 4-28-90 AIbuquerque Tribune

All of the ranchers' arguments are specious. They claim to love the land. Well, I have known people who beat their spouses black and blue all the while claiming they love them dearly.

--David A. Huet, letter to the editor, Tucson Weekly (9-26-90)

Sure, some (not most) ranchers and cowboys spend much time on land and some have learned a lot about the land. Some even have a personal relationship with the land. But even for most of these people the relationship seems to be more like that of a rapist who appreciates the firmness and smell and taste and beauty of his victim's body.

--Anonymous

The rancher (with a few honorable exceptions) is a man who strings barbed wire all over the range; drills wells and bulldozes stock ponds; drives off elk and antelope and bighorn sheep, poisons coyotes and prairie dogs, shoots eagles, bears, and cougars on sight; supplants the native grasses with tumbleweed, snakeweed, povertyweed, cowshit, anthilis, mud, dust, and flies. And then leans back and grim at the TV cameras and talks about how much he loves the American West.

--Edward Abbey "Even the Bad Guys Wear White Hats" (Abbey 1986)

*Grazing is a useful tool for managing public lands.

... livestock grazing is accepted as a legal, legitimate, and desired tool for improvement or maintenance of public rangelands.

--David Jolly, Chief, SW Region, US17S

The fact is, many public agencies and other cow apologists resort to absurd fantasy attempting to justify the nonsensical tradition of grazing public lands. The current strategy is to contend that cows are good for everything -- water, fish, wildlife, vegetation, soils, etc. It seems only a matter of time before we hear that a cow in your back seat will result in better gas mileage!

--Denzel and Nancy Ferguson (ONDA 1990)

The theory that livestock can be a "useful tool" for managing public lands was concocted in the 1960s and 1970s in response to mounting environmental concern and subsequent pressure for ranching reform. Industry "scientists" and "range experts" were marched in with bogus studies to publicize the idea that livestock can be used for environmental manipulation. Reality was turned on its head, and suddenly livestock became a potential benefit rather than actual detriment. The campaign has been moderately successful in dissipating anti-ranching energy, and in many cases is even being used to justify intensified ranching.

Today, though the useful tool argument is increasingly used, the ranching establishment has yet to demonstrate real success in using livestock to improve environmental quality. Indeed, results have been erratic, accomplished only with the aid of expensive range developments, and beneficial to only a few ecosystem components -- at the expense of many more ecosystem components. Ranching in any form has shown an almost unequivocally overall negative impact on Western rangeland.

Most studies were superficial and ignored the complex interrelationships between large herbivores and other plant and animal life. Other studies were plain silly. Out of this phony research the argument emerged that cattle were a wildlife management "tool" that could benefit many wildlife species. Before long. both stock raisers and academicians portrayed the cow as the finest friend of the western rangelands. Such a conclusion was ridiculous, but the ranchers had "scientific" evidence to rationalize their livestock grazing.

--Bernard Shanks, This Land Is Your Land (Shanks 1984)

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*Ranchers provide range developments and stewardship essential to a healthy environment.

Throughout the first half of this book we have seen that the opposite is true.

*Ranchers provide a necessary public service on public lands.

According to George Bell, who runs a large public lands ranching operation in southern Arizona:

If there were no [public lands] ranchers, all this [public] land would have to be taken care of by the Forest Service and BLM. We help people who get lost on the land, we deal with fires; all kinds of things.

This represents another justification that looks good only on the surface. First of all, Nature does not need to be "taken care of." Rather, it mostly needs to be left alone. Such administration, when required, is the legal responsibility of the agencies, not stockmen. And sure, ranchers may occasionally give directions to lost motorists or report wildfires. But their detriments far outweigh such insignificant contributions. As detailed, they also intimidate public lands visitors, start fires, necessitate the opening and closing of gates, cause livestock to wander onto roadways, detract from recreational use, and so on.

* Without the use of public lands as calving grounds, the Western livestock industry would collapse.

The falseness of this claim is explained in Chapter 11.

*Without livestock grazing the public forage resource would he wasted.

At the onset of this line of reasoning we usually are presented the shopworn argument, "Grass that isn't eaten by livestock is wasted." Consider the words of Ronald A. Michieli, Executive Director of the Public Lands Council: These animals [public lands livestock] are solar factories. They take a renewable resource which would otherwise be wasted and turn it into edible food and other products which man desires and needs.

This may have gone undisputed 50 or 100 years ago, but many people have come to appreciate that something isn't wasted or worthless if it isn't turned into greenbacks or hamburger.

498

Colorado public lands rancher's wife Marj Perry asserts, "It [public ranching] is an ideal way of converting grass to protein." So, what is ideal about spending $2 billion in tax and private monies annually to have our public land degraded by a politically and socially dominant minority to produce 3% of our livestock -- especially when the average American already consumes twice the amount of protein recommended by nutritionists?

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A photo from an SCS ranching publication. Note the caption. (SCS)

*If you don't graze the land, how else are you going to use it?

Why do we think that all usable land must somehow be used by humans? Why would we consider this a mandate to put livestock on the land? Yet, this is the automatic response from many Americans to the idea of removing livestock from public lands. More than anything, cultural conditioning creates this reality.

The ranching establishment gives more professional, yet no more substantial, explanations. For example, Steve Williams Range Manager for the Arizona State Land Department, writes, "The rural areas vary in nature and character, but really aren't suited for anything but grazing." He should tell that to a fisher, camper, or nature photographer. He should tell that to a desert tortoise, bobcat, frog, butterfly, bunchgrass plant, hillside, or stream.

* "Grazing is a traditional, legitimate use of public lands."

--Robert M. Williamson, Director of Range Management, BLM

Public lands graziers claim they have the "right" to ranch our public lands, saying "We've been running cattle here since before you were born, son!" or "My great, great grandfather homesteaded this place in 1879." By this line of reasoning, we might say that pirates have the right to plunder ships at sea because they have been doing so for centuries, or that a king has the right to the throne because his ancestors conquered the kingdom a hundred years ago. As ecologist George Wuerthner notes:

The only defense for the continuation of public lands grazing is that it is a traditional use of public lands... Dumping raw sewage into our rivers was traditional also. (Wuerthner 1989)

Similarly, we are told that ranching should continue wherever stockmen have "established grazing rights." This almost sounds reasonable -- until you stop to consider that ranching has traditionally occurred almost every place that it now occurs, which is to say almost everywhere there is enough vegetation to keep a cow or sheep alive, which is to say 73% of Western public land, which is to say 41% of the West.

And what of the 40,000-year-old tradition of the Native Americans that ranchers killed or displaced, or the ancient traditions of the Western ecosystems they devastated?

-We all must make a living.

-We all use natural resources.

--We all impact the environment, or have someone else do it for us.

The ranching establishment often uses these calculated truisms as arguments to rationalize public lands ranching -the well-worn tactic of justifying black or white by expounding upon shades of grey. It shifts the blame and belittles the destruction.

Yes (though there are obviously far too many people on the planet), everyone should have an equal opportunity to have a place to live and earn a living. However, when just one person or family monopolizes and degrades thousands, or even tens or hundreds of thousands, of publicly owned acres, under heavy subsidization, to provide their income and produce a relatively tiny amount of food for society, it is time to draw the line.

I don't think it's a fair statement to make tha public grazing is a major destructor of Ian& Use of that kind is historic... A lot of the permittees have been out there a long time -- three or four generations in some cases.

--Joe ["Bogus Logic"] Zilincar, public relations spokesman for BLM's national office

*Public lands grazing must be saved to preserve our ranching legacy.

In one place, the city council set aside an ecological reserve -with cattle! Their reasoning was that the cattle are part of San Diego's history, so they stay.

--Dave Sage, Solano Beach, California, personal correspondence

Sympathizers to the ranchers claim that a "valuable cultural resource" would be lost if the ranchers and their livestock were removed [from Mt. Diablo State Park, California). Even if the ranchers are defeated, a "demonstration ranch" with about 200 head of cattle would remain, "to reflect this county's history. . . . "

--Sharon Seidenstein, Berkeley, California, personal correspondence

The sight of cattle or sheep and cowboys or sheepherders on a well-managed range is an attractive part of western lore for our mainly urban population.

--from Progressive Agriculture by the College of Agriculture, University of Arizona (College of Agriculture 1981)

Texas historian Walter Prescott Webb once said that '"Westerners have developed a talent for taking something small and blowing it up to giant size." The ranching establishment often claims that ranching must be preserved because it is vital to our Western legacy. Further twisting reality, it alleges that, as one rancher put it, "many people view pastures as natural scenery."

What is really being said here? Are cows and fences part of Nature? Why must public lands ranching's 18% contribution to Western livestock production be preserved to save our Western legacy? As well say we had to save the Rambler to save the American automobile industry. Moreover, why hasn't the government preserved (that is heavily subsidized) the thousands of Western shoemakers or weavers or glassblowers or Native Americans or grizzly bears or riparian areas to save our Western legacy?

What is really being assumed is that ranchers and ranching are somehow more important than anybody or anything else. In real terms, stockmen simply maintain a more powerful public image and carry more clout.

For decades, the ranching establishment has been imprinting in the American psyche the message that the ranchman is "the keeper of the Western flame," that "the living legend of the cowboy" (public lands rancher) must be preserved or the last vestige of the Old West will die. They warn us that if the public lands rancher "fades into history" (gets booted off public land), the Great Western Epic will end and our cherished Western Romance will be lost forever.

Yet, most ranching in the West is on private land and win continue with or without public lands ranching. Moreover, little of the romantic Old West we hold most dear is based on actual livestock ranching; by far most would survive even if all ranching was ended. Further, rather than a bunch of rustic, sweat-stained cowpokes, most public lands ranchers are well-situated and influential. They comprise a powerful, highly organized, heavily financed, hard-nosed business -not a romantic legacy.

By and large stockmen's involvement in our Western legacy has been bloodstained, destructive, and wasteful. Why we should preserve such a legacy, except perhaps in books and movies, is a question we should ask.

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Don't get me wrong; I love the legends of the Old West... But the days of longhorns, trail drives, rustlers and gunfighters are longgone. What little remains of the West's wilderness -- as opposed to the Wild West -- needs to be conserve& It's become too precious to sacrifice to a sappy ostalgia for the frontier, to a business that cannot survive except for massive government subsidies.

Besides, cattle ranching has done irreparable damage to the West...

The hard truth is that we don't need the West's cattle ranches anymore. They're as much a historical oddity as the steam locomotive and whalebone corset.

--Richard Lessner, "Dancing With Wolves: Ranchers Should Lose This War" (Lessner 1991)

*No serious, knowledgeable person would propose ending public land ranching.

Interestingly, this claim is made more often by conservationists than by stockmen. A person who opposes ranchmg is a person whose social acceptance and self-image are on the chopping block. A person who embraces America's cowboy imperative and promotes only modest reforms designed to perpetuate ranching need not fear ostracization and gnawing inner guilt. Thus most conservationists distance themselves from "the radical fringe" and breathe easy. Most ranchers know better. They of all people understand why the concerned, well-informed person is the most likely to call for an end to public lands ranching.

*If livestock are banned from public lands, the Western livestock industry and rural Western economies will collapse.

It's time to set the record straight. Livestock grazing on public (and private) lands helped settle the west and build our nation, and today continues to play a major role in many local economies. Agriculture is the nation's largest industry and the cattle industry is the largest segment of American agriculture.

--Patty McDonald, Executive Director, Public Lands Council

One of welfare graziers' favorite tricks is lumping public lands ranching together with the entire livestock industry, and agriculture in general, to increase its apparent importance. Another example of this is a statement by Pamela Neal, Executive Vice President of the Arizona Cattle Growers Association, in an Arizona Daily Star article on public lands ranching: "Cattle is the largest commodity the state's agricultural group." Nowhere in the lengthy article does she acknowledge just how much public lands ranching contributes to the state's agricultural industry. The obviously sympathetic author of the article further states, "Hinging on the outcome of this battle [over incre ing grazing fees to fair market value] could be the death of the state's $1 billion cattle industry and a piece of Arizona tradition [italics added]." These kinds of claims are as common as they are misleading. (Seven Popular MYTHS About Livestock Grazing on Public Lands takes this to the extreme; see Mosly 1990.) As Bernard DeVoto writes in The Easy Chair, "they are telling the truth, but not enough of it." Unfortunately, many uninformed Americans are eager to believe whatever a cowboy tells them.

500

Back in the real world, we find that Arizona's gross total income from cattle is less than half this $1 billion figure and that beef cattle represent only about 1/3 of the state's overall agricultural production. Only 32% of Arizona's livestock are produced by federal land -- more than any state but Nevada at 38%, which is 70% BLM and 10% FS land, almost entirely grazed. Further, though about 45% of nonIndian reservation Arizona is grazed federal land, altogether there are only about 1000 federal lands ranchers in the state -- 0.025% of the population, or 1 out of 4000 residents.

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All publicly owned lands in the 11 Western states combined produce only 18% of the West's livestock -hardly essential to the survival of the Western livestock industry. Only 17% of Western stock producers use public land at all (Com. on Govt. Oper. 1986), and most of these ranchers don't depend on public ranching to stay in business.

They [wildlife groups] have had their goddamn boot heel in our [stockmen's] neck now for the last 10 years and they do not let up, and I don't think youll have an economic base in Wyoming that can support the schools or cities or hospitals. But I don't think they give a shit.

--Lee Coffman, President, Wyoming Wool Growers Association, High Country News (11-23-87)

If the livestock producer were to be forced off the public range, it would be impossible to maintain a viable livestock industry.

--Hubbard S. Russel, Jr., Chairman, Private Lands and Water Usage Committee, National Cattlemen's Association

Many small cities and towns in the West would be destroyed economically if all grazing were taken off the public land.

--(illegible signature], Deputy Director, Acting, BLM, "stock!' response, 1988

To take cattle off public lands, as some preservationists suggest, would cripple the state's [New Mexico's] economy as well as the economy of the entire West.

--Public lands rancher James M. Jackson, Natural Resources Journal (Summer 1989)

These statements represent an even more preposterous fairy tale -- that if livestock are banned from public land the economies of the rural West will be ruined and the people living there will become destitute. One Colorado welfare rancher even suggested that it would be "a form of genocide." Here in Arizona -- one of many so-called "cattle states" -- a recent study claims that if public lands ranching were ended the state economy would lose most of $302 million contributed by Arizona ranchers (1-25-89 Arizona Republic). The study was commissioned and funded by the Arizona Cattle Growers Association (ACGA), headed by an agribusiness professional at an agricultural college, and presented to the public by a public relations firm hired by ACGA. It was conducted using results of surveys mailed out to 601 selected ranchers, with only 180 ranchers responding. Each dollar spent was counted "three times to indicate the way income is spent locally." Results were based on extremely inflated dollar figures, and dollars spent included everything from ranchers spending money at movie theaters to BLM range managers buying food and gas while making trips to grazing allotment& Economic minuses due to ranching were not reflected, nor were the results of a recent Arizona State University College of Business study showing that all agriculture, including ranching, feedlots, and crop production, accounts for just 7% of the gross economic product in Arizona's 13 rural counties. Nor was any indication given that ranchers would still spend a comparable amount of money locally whether they ran livestock on public land or not. Such bogus studies are common, and typify ranching industry misinformation (indeed, the Forest Service and BLM are currently using the above and other slanted studies to promote ranching).

The fact is, even though most of the area of most Western counties is ranched, very few counties earn more than 5% of their gross income from ranching, even including private lands ranching. In studies of 20 local Western ranching areas, Steve Johnson, Southwest Representative for Defenders of Wildlife, found not one having more than 3% of its economy based on ranching. Indeed, if other factors are considered, livestock grazing actually detracts from many, if not most, local economies -- even the well-known "cattle countries" and "cow counties."

Mojave County in northwest Arizona, for example, encompasses some 13,000 square miles, and more than 80% of it is grazed by cattle. Yet this overwhelmingly rural county derives only 0.8% of its total income from ranching and all other agriculture. Ranching is the county's greatest environmental detriment, and an overall economic detriment.

Grant County in southwest New Mexico derives less than 5% of its gross income from livestock grazing, even though 90% of its 3000 square miles is grazed. Ranching there has caused drastic reductions in game and fish, the elimination of many natural water sources, erosion of topsoil and loss of hundreds of acres of valuable bottomland, extensive public and private property damage, decreased recreational income, extensive flood damage to small communities and the county seat, and more. Despite bold proclamations by Grant County stockmen and their agency collaborators, ranching certainly causes a net loss to that county's economy.

Northeast Nevada's 8500-square-mile White Pine County is likewise typical. It boasts being one of Nevada's "Cow Counties" and is in fact composed of 76.6% BLM land, nearly all of which is grazed. The stockmen who rule over most of White Pine County assert that the county's economy would collapse without ranching. Yet White Pine County derives only 4% of its gross income from all ranching, public and private. Again, ranching's detrimental influences may actually cause a net loss of income to the county.

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Eastern Montana is the region of the West perhaps most dependent on livestock grazing. But even here most counties derive only small income percentages from ranching -tiny percentages from public lands ranching (90% of Montana livestock are on private land). In Wyoming, the alleged "Cowboy State, "where only about 2000 public lands permittees graze about half of the land, less than 5% of the state's income is derived from public lands ranching. (Various government sources)

Without public lands ranching, net incomes would probably increase for most rural economies. For example, in Idaho hunters and fishers pay 15 times more for hunting and fishing licenses than all ranchers on BLM and FS ranchland in the state (1/4 of the state) pay in federal grazing fees. Without degradation of game animal habitat and attrition from ranchers, game animals populations in Idaho would soar.

Because public lands ranches cover an average of more than 12,000 acres each, local rural economies are usually affected by only several to a score or so public lands ranching operations. Therefore, even if their contributions outweighed their detriments, the benefits could hardly be significant.

As for employment, few industries come close to ranching in the paucity of jobs created compared to taxes and resources consumed. Alan Durning notes in State of the World: 1990 that "ranching is the least labor-intensive agricultural activity in the country." A review by the Congressional Research Service shows that only 3.6% of the commercial employment based on the 7 National Forests in the Greater Yellowstone ecosystem is attributable to livestock operations (Wuerthner 1991). In other words, public lands ranchers hire few employees. Many of their hired hands are transients or illegal aliens, are part-time and/or temporary and poorly paid. More and higher paying jobs could be created by ending public lands ranching.

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A Peruvian sheep herder on Idaho BLM land. (George Wuerthner)

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502

The agencies allege that public lands ranching is "important locally." Likewise, one could say, so is poodle grooming "important locally." The agencies say they need to prop up public lands ranching to "stabilize the local economies of the rural West." What kind of double talk is this when the industry must have permanent, massive government financial and technical assistance to survive?

So much for the myth of ranching as the "backbone" of rural Western economies.

One BLM employee who has been studying the impact of public lands ranching on the West said she was able to find no significant economic impact. 'And there was no real social impact. I decided there was only a mythical impact. Everybody's in love with the myth of the American cowboy."

--Jon R. Luoma, "Discouraging Words" (Luoma 1986)

*Together, we can work to create a better future for rangeland management…

Changing public values and demands bring complexity and focus attention on the need for cooperation among all users of rangelands. Successful partnerships between permittees, State, and Federal managers form a strong base on which to build a positive future for the public range.

--Livestock Grazing Successes on Public Range, "Produced in partnership by: The Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, and Public Lands Council" (USDA 1989)

This one is designed to appeal to our faith in science and technology, if not our optimism, patriotism, and teamwork. By planning for a co-operative future, the ranching establishment lays the foundation for future public lands ranching. In recent years, this has become a public relations approach.

Ranching, we are told, is a "developing science," and it is merely a matter of time before scientific breakthroughs allow us to solve its problems. Livestock grazing will become an exciting new tool of progressive rangeland management! With American spirit and ingenuity, we will not only halt environmental deterioration, but eventually double -- hell, triple -livestock production!!!

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This contrived optimism is no substitute for reality. We have yet to see much improvement in the overall condition of the public range, even with billions of tax and private dollars poured into management, developments, and restoration. Enthusiasm, glittering promises, and intensified rangeland manipulation are not substitutes.

Though many people already propose ending public lands ranching -- and many more would if made aware of the situation -- our government refuses to even acknowledge the possibility. Not one BLM resource area, Forest Service ranger district, or state land department division has made a significant permanent overall reduction in ranching, much less ordered a complete cessation.

Yet countering this interest [in environmental responsibility] has been the widespread growth of a feeling that science and technology will resolve any real emergency and bring us to a condition of effortless plenty.

--Paul B. Sears in Deserts on the March (Sears 1967)

* We're all in this together, good neighbor, good buddy. (A.k.a., honey is sweeter than cow shit.)

This one's similar to the above, with an added emotional twist. When ranchers turn on the folksy charm, who can resist? No one can garner sympathy like a dusty ol'cowpoke. When, hat in hand, a Western-garbed permittee in his slow drawl says he knows "there's room for improvement" but how hard he's "been a'tryin' to do a better job" than his overgrazin' grandpappy did, could you cancel the poor, sincere fellow's permit and turn him out onto the cold streets? When he asks you if you'll join with him and work to improve the range, are you going to tell him no? Hell no! You would seem a heartless scoundrel -- as he well knows! I have seen even confirmed stop-public-lands-ranching advocates melt under the influence. You cannot resist. At this point all you can do is meekly suggest modest reforms, or more likely point your finger at the government and demand more range "improvements."

What a song and dance! In truth, the vast majority of these po', hardworkin'ranch folk are not really poor at all, and do not work any harder than the rest of us.

They do not relent, however: We must work together, they plead. It's not us and them; no. Join us, they say --join us!

What does this really mean? Mostly it means do not resist your ranching neighbors. Help them preserve the status quo. With your time, energy, and tax dollars, help them mitigate their destructive ranching impacts and restore your overgrazed ranges -- so they may raise more cattle and sheep!

* If you don't keep us in b usiness, we'll be forced to sell out to the developers.

If we are forced from the public lands, we have two alternatives. First, we can manage our lands for domestic livestock only [no change], or, secondly, we can sell to the "developers." None of us want this, so please don't force us into it.

--J.W. Swan, First Vice-President, Idaho Cattlemen's Association (USDA, USDI, CEQ 1979)

Rather than a grain, this argument contains a small pebble of truth. The thinly veiled threat -- blackmail -- has for years been used effectively to quell opposition.

Many stockmen imply that if they were to cease ranching, public lands would be opened up to developers. Although they know full well that public land is rarely bought, sold, or commercially built upon, they fool some uninformed people.

Perhaps most public lands ranchers are not so bold as to imply this outlandish threat, but many do maintain that if they are "driven out of business" (is receiving welfare a "business"?) by enforced restrictions, higher expenses, decreased subsidies, and/or reduced grazing, they will then sell their private lands, including base properties, to developers who will turn the rural West into a squalor of condominiums and subdivisions. This ominous warning is false in several ways.

First, (as detailed above and below) the argument applies mainly to private, not public, lands ranching (though with alternatives available it need not apply to private ranching either). And by supporting public lands ranching we put more pressure on private ranchers to sell out because we give their more heavily subsidized competitors an even more unfair advantage.

Next, few public lands ranchers would be inclined to sell their base properties and get out of welfare ranching even if not making a profit on the public lands ranching portions of their operations. As mentioned, government reports reveal that public land provides an average of only about 1/3 of permittees' total livestock needs (and, yes, calves can be born and raised just as we% or better, on private land). As we also have seen, many permittees are not serious stock raisers but ranch instead for extra income, tax write-offs, "front" business, family tradition, status, hobby, etc.

Next, if they did sell out, why would public lands ranchers people who claim "a deep, abiding respect" for their land sell it to developers rather than to more responsible owners? As highly desirable as most ranch properties are, there would be no lack of environmentally concerned buyers, many who would pay a good price and take better care of the land than ranchers have.

Next, many public lands ranchers already have sold off their "excess" land (privately owned land in excess of minimum base properties required for public lands grazing permits) -- and not because they were "driven out of business." Consider how many Western ranching operations are named " Land and Cattle Company." Most public lands ranchers either do not need all their private land to maintain ranching operations, do not need public lands grazing to maintain operations, use public lands ranching as a tax write-off or source of extra income, or are more or less independently wealthy. So, for most public lands ranchers, excess land is not necessary anyway. Cutting off their subsidies and artificial props would not induce them to sell off their excess land, much less their base properties.

Because ranching properties are among the most wellwatered, fertile, and strategically located lands in the West, generally they command high prices. The private lands associated with public lands ranching are especially coveted since they are bordered or surrounded by public land and protected from nearby development, and often are located in spectacular natural settings. Many public lands ranchers realized their land's substantial financial potential long ago and sold off all land not essential to their ranching operations. Others have sold off bits and pieces over the years for various reasons. Sale of excess property is one of the main reasons that such a high percentage of public lands ranchers are so rich and powerful; many have become millionaires. Far from being the end result of hard times for public lands ranchers, sale of excess land has given them even greater economic, social, and political clout.

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Unfortunately, much of this excess land has been sold to developers for housing developments, vacation cabins, resorts, campgrounds, hunting camps, and so on (ironically, often resulting in conflicts over the grazing practices of the rancher who sold the land in the first place). However, a similar amount of excess land would have been sold regardless of the public lands ranching situation.

On the other hand, much of this land has ended up with better caretakers, environmentally speaking, than stockmen. Through purchase, trade, or special arrangement, cities, counties, states, and the federal government acquire it to protect watersheds, to halt flooding and soil erosion, for recreational purposes, and so on. Other land is protected as publicly owned nature preserves, reserves, refuges, parks, etc. Still other is acquired by private conservation organizations such as The Nature Conservancy, Defenders of Wildlife, and the Wilderness Society, or by hunting and fishing groups, or by conservation-minded individuals. For various objectives, ranching usually has been curtailed or eliminated on these lands, with dramatic success in most cases.

Next, even if every public lands rancher in the West was suddenly "driven out of business" and forced to sell his permit, nearly all base properties eventually would be sold to other ranchers because base properties are necessary for public lands ranching operations, no matter who picks up the permit. Government agencies essentially mandate continued grazing on nearly every allotment; if one person doesn't graze it, another will. With endless subsidization, technical and working assistance, essentially permanent grazing tenure, prestige, and power all institutionalized as part of the grazing permit, there is no lack of ranchers wanting permits, even if a former permittee was not making it and decided to sell. Base properties and permits nearly always are sold together. Each new permittee needs a base property, which nearly always will turn out to be the existing base property. Ranchers want to headquarter their operations on suitable base properties, close to their grazing allotments. And because taxes on large properties for nongraziers are astronomical, few besides ranchers can afford or are inclined to buy them. Base properties remain nearly invariable in number and location. With our government bending over backward to keep stockmen in business, it would take a major shift in public lands policy to change this situation.

Lastly, even if public ranching were banned, undoubtedly most former permittees would retain base properties as the private ranches, vacation get-aways, and rural residences they are, while some would turn them into dude ranches, hunting camps, wilderness guide bases, and other business ventures. Why would they sell out these established, comfortable country estates simply because their livestock no longer obtained some portion of their diet from public land? As above, few permittees would have to or be inclined to. Of those comparatively few base properties that were sold, a similar percentage would end up under the protection of the conservation-minded entities mentioned above.

To protect base properties once public ranching was ended, there are many reasonable and feasible possibilities. These include special programs to assist former permittees with management, stringent zoning ordinances, redirection of welfare ranching subsidies, and restrictions on who former permittees could sell to. Probably the best solution is for the government to buy out all base properties and return them to public ownership. This approach has proven successful with many National Parks and other public reserves.

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But, ranching advocates warn, what about the fate of public lands themselves once livestock are removed? Wouldn't such removal create a "void" that could be filled only by some other kind of exploitation? Won't the government want to put the land to use? Won't the big strip mining companies, clearcut loggers, road builders, ORVers, and other environmental rapists come marching in?

The answer is a resounding "NO!" These exploiters are already doing this almost every place they can, and with the government's blessing. In fact, it is largely the huge network of ranching roads that allowed the exploiters access to nearly every nook and cranny of the West in the first place. The ranching industry conquered most of the Wild West and has been instrumental in its overdevelopment. Removing livestock from public land would simply mean no livestock or new range developments on the public's land -- less, not more, exploitation.

Ranchers decree that we must choose one or the other -ranching or another form of exploitation. This is analogous to being given the option between having your mother raped or beaten up. But now we actually have both.

Aside from all of this, most development is due to overpopulation and rampant consumerism, rather than to the availability of land for building. Millions of acres of rural Western ranchland are available for sale and development right now, but only a small percentage of this land is actually being developed (other than for ranching). By far most rural Western real estate bought and sold is bought and sold among ranchers, who continue to own outright roughly 25% of the West. Availability of even more ranchland for sale will not cause substantially more development.

Unhappily, development of the rural West is a reality and probably will continue, with or without livestock. The choice is not between development and ranching, but between development with ranching and development without ranching. We only compound the destruction by supporting public lands ranching.

RANCHING DOES NOT

PROTECT THE WEST.

RANCH1NG EXPLOITS

AND PROMOTES EXPLOITATION

OF THE WEST.

*Without public lands ranching people would go hungry and the price of a hamburger would skyrocket.

If you succeed [end public lands ranching), I hope you get the joy of paying $15 a pound for a tough bull like they do in China, which, by the way is where I wish people like you were.

--Bonnie Udall, Arizona public lands rancher's widow, personal correspondence

Suggesting that we start growing all beef on private lands, the average public [sic] would probably be paying $25. 00 for a hamburger

--"A cattleman," Palm Springs, California, personal correspondence

I think people should realize that when they recommend a reduction [in livestock numbers on public lands), they are not reducing domestic livestock grazing but they are reducing food supply for the world.

--J.W. Swan, First Vice-President, Idaho Cattlemen's Association (USDA, USDI, CEQ 1979)

They [cowmen] realize that cattle on public lands contribute nearly 50 percent of the beef cattle in the US. food chain.

--Mary Monzingo, ZR Hereford Ranch, Benson, Arizona, letter to editor, 3-10-88 Arizona Daily Star

Federally owned rangelands provide about 10% of the feed requirements of livestock in the United States.

--from Range Management: Principles and Practices, a textbook on contemporary range management (Holechek 1989)

... 18% of the [sic] U.S. beef is raised on public lands.

--Society for Range Management

Therefore, the grass forage of public grasslands needs to be continued [sic] for ruminant (primarily cattle and sheep) production to prevent worldwide famine.

--Robert E. Miller, D.V.M., Johnstown, Colorado, in a letter to Colorado Outdoors

Most of the people who make these (dare I say ridiculous?) claims know that only 3% of this country's beef comes from all public lands. But they also realize that we are a gullible, cowboy-crazed society.

In truth, the amount of food produced by public lands ranching is insignificant to US food supply. More plant food could probably have been grown on private Western bottomland washed away by ranching-caused flooding than is now produced by public lands ranching. Far more cattle are raised on the 2 million private pasture acres in Vermont than on the 55 million public acres in Nevada (USDA 1987).

As for "feeding a hungry world" (where some 20 million people die of malnutrition each year), the minuscule amount of public lands-grazed meat exported to other nations does nothing to feed the hungry. Little if any of it winds up in the hands of those suffering from hunger or malnutrition. Poor people cannot afford expensive luxury items like imported beef. Most of it ends up in well-stocked refrigerators in wealthier nations such as Canada, Great Britain, and Japan. Moreover, the US accounts for only 2% of world beef exports, while importing almost 9 times this much. (The US produces only 9% of world beef, and far less than 1% of world sheep.) (Espenshade 1988)

Terminating public lands ranching would likewise have little effect on the price or availability of meat in the American supermarket. According to Brigham Young University economist Ardon Pope, Mormon bishop and son of a ranching family, we could kick every cow off public land and at most the cost of beef might temporarily rise 2%. The nation's beef supply would be diminished almost imperceptibly. Rest assured -- McDonald's would not have to change its price list, and hamburgers would keep rolling off the grills by the billions.

Agriculture Department figures show that Americans now consume an average of about 100