Overlooked and Overgrazed: the Ecological Collapse of Our Federal Lands

Invasive species are everywhere—Kudzu, Asian Long-horned beetles, Snakehead fish, and so on. In Western Washington, where I live, it’s English ivy. Birds feed on the berries, and then spread the seeds far and wide through our Douglas fir forests. The vines grow in insidious sinuous coils up into the trunk and out along the branches where the leaves block the sunlight from reaching the fir needles. The tree dies, along with the undergrowth as the ivy snakes its way across the forest floor to the next victim. We have vast islands of ivy desert, bereft of all other life. Invasive species are a blight on our land, and are certainly worth the time and resources to eliminate them.

But, the most destructive invasive species in the U.S. (as in much of the world), has been given a pass by every agency working to protect our federal lands. This species was not only introduced with government sanction into our national forests and public lands, but the government willingly subsidizes the process. This government support comes in spite of the fact that the species has been responsible for placing more creatures on the endangered species list than any other creature. But wait, it doesn’t stop there. The government pays to kill any predator that kills it, and even destroys any harmless creatures (not even excluding some endangered species) that might hinder its complete exploitation of our resources?

It is shocking and appalling that the government has contributed to this destruction. Any sane person would willingly sign petitions to stop our government from continuing to such a ruinous endeavor. Unfortunately, the majority of the U.S. population are making choices on a daily basis that contribute to the problem. In fact, all that it would take to end these insane practices would be better choices on the part of consumers.

The most destructive invasive species on the planet is Bos taurus—common beef and dairy cattle. As the ecologist, George Wuerthner has written, “Despite the simplistic claim that cows merely replace bison, it’s not just bison that have been replaced by this exotic, domesticated species. On most rangelands today, cattle are the only major herbivore. Yet in the days before livestock, an entire suite of species fed on the grassland plants, from grasshoppers and sage grouse to prairie dogs and pronghorn. Substituting a single species-with different dietary preferences-for this diverse group of herbivores results in overuse of some plant species and grants competitive advantage to others. These other plants are often invasive and less palatable to many native herbivores.”

Cattle are everywhere, spreading their destruction across our nation, and throughout the world. According to the International Livestock Research Institute “Livestock systems occupy 45% of the global surface area…” Just the sheer weight of their bodies focused onto their narrow hooves cause more destruction than any native herbivores. Oregon State University reports, “The weight of livestock animals has its impact on the soil and the feed growing in that soil. The indentations of the animals’ hooves into soil, especially damp or wet soil are called pugs. A field is dramatically altered by pugging. The pug holes are areas where seedlings and regrowth have been smashed backed underground. Also buried are weed seeds that benefit from the planting. A pasture loses production of the pugged area.” Those decimated pugged areas are often found near waterways, where they increase erosion rates significantly.

Vickery Eckhoff  points out, “Livestock have been severely depleting public rangelands for decades. They do so by trampling vegetation, damaging soil, spreading invasive weeds, polluting water, increasing the likelihood of destructive fires, depriving native wildlife of forage and shelter and even contributing to global warming—all of which has been noted in study after study.” [For more on the effects of the meat industry on global warming see Meat Not Beans Is Giving Us Gas, and The Single Best Way to Reduce Our Carbon Footprint.]

Cows are among the most destructive eaters. As one website titled Fun Cow Facts put it, “The cow’s tongue is very long and very strong. To eat grass, they actually tear it from the roots. They wrap their tongue around it and close their jaws on it.  Since they don’t have top incisor teeth, they can’t cut it off. So if you look at grass that a cow has eaten, it is ragged and torn. If a horse eats it, it is cropped very short and smooth.” Whereas a horse merely mows the pasture that it grazes, a cow often rips the plant out of the ground, destroying the plant’s ability to regenerate. No wonder cattle grazing is the primary cause of desertification in the world today.

Before & After pictures of landscapes showing the effect of the removal of cattle:

http://www.cof.orst.edu/hart/hartimages.html

The damage is not even limited to the plant life. As one study indicates, “Cattle grazing can indirectly cause a significant decrease in bird species abundance and diversity, largely by removing shrubs that are important habitat for many bird species. Altered stream cover, water depth, and bank stability due to cattle grazing can all affect fish populations. Cattle grazing can accelerate stream bank erosion, causing streams to become shallower and wider, which can result in higher water temperatures.” The increasing water temperatures make it difficult for many sensitive forms of life to survive. So, cattle are responsible for wiping out both land and water habitat wherever they are introduced. See also, Dead Zones: How Animal Agriculture Is Killing Our Waterways.

One endangered species that cattle are driving to extinction is the desert bighorn sheep, “In Arizona, cattle would head the list of factors responsible for declining populations of desert bighorn sheep. Cattle are also the biggest obstacle to the reintroduction of bighorn to historic ranges.” The researchers also site a Utah study in which scientists “observed essentially the same reaction by desert sheep to cattle in another ungrazed study area where a recognizable group of sheep had been under observation for a 5-year period. The behavior and movements of this group had become so well known that the animals could be located at will in a matter of hours. When 30 heifers were experimentally moved into the area, the sheep disappeared and were not seen again for eight months, even though the cattle were removed within two weeks.”

What may be good for cattle ranchers might spell the extinction of native wildlife. It is a common practice, in prairie regions, to set fire to range land in order to burn off brush. This makes way for new grass to grow, in order to prepare better forage for cattle. Ranchers favor this practice, because they can graze more cattle on the rich new growth. However, these fires have been devastating to native plants and animals. For example, one study of the endangered Prairie Chicken concluded that this annual practice might lead to the extinction of the species. The researchers concluded, “In short, spring burning followed by early intensive stocking of cattle on an annual basis make the prairie all but uninhabitable for these species. This technique…could easily place the species in serious danger of regional extirpation or even extinction altogether.”

Yet another example of a species driven to near extinction is the Prairie Dog. The federal government destroys entire villages of Prairie Dogs, because ranchers believe that the holes they dig pose a threat to livestock. 98% of Prairie Dog villages have been destroyed for the benefit of cattle. That not only decimates the Prairie Dog populations, but also the many other animals that are dependent on the Prairie Dog for their habitat. According to Brian Miller, in his book The Prairie Dog and Biotic Diversity, there are over 170 different species that depend on Prairie Dogs for life. An entire ecosystem is being ravished for the sake of cattle.

The Sierra Club reported, “In the United States, livestock grazing has contributed to the listing of 22 percent of federal threatened and endangered species—almost equal to logging (12 percent) and mining (11 percent) combined. Nationwide, livestock grazing is the 4th major cause of species endangerment and the 2nd major cause of endangerment of plant species. No other human activity in the West is as responsible for the decline or loss of species as is livestock production.” This is just taking the U.S. into consideration. World-wide, with the threat from deforestation and the damage to our waterways, the count increases significantly. Yet, our federal taxes continue to subsidize this destructive industry.

Andy Kerr has written, “A new report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) concludes that the federal government spends at least $144 million each year managing private livestock grazing operations on publicly owned land, but collects only $21 million in grazing fees—for a net loss of at least $123 million per year.“ To learn that our government is complicit in the destruction of our natural environments is enough to concern anyone, to learn that we are having to foot the bill for this destruction is an outrage. It would be far cheaper for us to pay those ranchers to train for some other livelihood. We would all gain in the process.

Nor does the industry’s frequent argument hold up that says that we need cattle to feed a growing population. A report from the Union of Concerned Scientists titled “Cows are the Real Hogs” confirms that beef does not give us a good return on our investment of land. While the beef cattle industry takes up 75% of the land used for agriculture, it returns only 15% of the calories that we consume. That’s right, 85% of the calories we consume come from plants [bread, cereal, pasta, potato, etc], and only 15% come from beef. This does not even take into consideration the land used for feed crops which the cattle consume during the last three to six months before slaughter. This is just the land used for grazing.

The popular trend toward grass-fed beef makes it even worse. According to Sara Farr, of One Green Planet, “Cows raised on factory farm feedlots are able to reach market weight in three to six months (cattle are usually around one year old when they enter feedlots). Grass-fed cattle require several years of foraging to reach similar weights.” That means we would require more cattle in order to obtain the same number of kilograms of ‘product,’ and consequently more damage to the environment.

The most efficient way to feed a nation is to transition to a plant based diet. On one acre of land, a farmer can grow 80,000 pounds of tomatoes, 42,000 pounds of potatoes, or a mere 300 pounds of beef. It makes little sense to think that we can continue to feed a growing population in this way. We must begin to make the transition to plant based nutrition if we want to end this devastation to our land. We would require just a fraction of the land we now use for agriculture, and would be able to return much of the land to native ecosystems. [If you’re concerned about whether a plant based diet has enough protein see The Protein Question–Part One and The Protein Question–Part Two for the science behind plant powered protein.]

Returning our public lands, and much of our present farmland, to wilderness would enable native populations of wildlife to once again flourish. The results that conservationists have had by merely excluding cattle from a prairie habitat is astounding. When The Nature Conservancy removed cattle from the Nachusa Grasslands preserve in Illinois, nature immediately went to work returning the region to its original diversity of plant and animal life. Their study has proven that we can bring nature back to a healthier state. ”Not only do we see beautiful plant diversity, but underneath the plants we find diversity in the soil, with bacteria that are recolonizing and recovering on their own to resemble what once lived in prairie systems throughout Illinois.” It is not too late to begin to heal our natural environments.

There is currently a piece of legislation in congress, the Rural Economic Vitalization Act (REVA) (H.R. 3410), to slowly remove cattle from our public lands. You may want to sign the petition to encourage your Congressional Representative to support the bill. Then make a commitment to eliminate meat from your diet for the sake of our collapsing environment, for your family’s health and for the sake of the animals.