The Travesty of Public Lands Ranching

Only ~2% of beef production in the US is sourced from cows grazed on federal public lands, nearly all of it in the Western states. However, the ecological damage inflicted by the industry on these fragile, arid landscapes is obscenely disproportionate, with profoundly negative impacts on flora, fauna, water, soil and more. Ceasing this harmful practice would arguably benefit the natural environment of the Western US more than any other single action.

I also want to emphasize how few humans benefit from public lands ranching. Economically, its contribution to local communities is trivial and could be redressed through the same legislation that discontinues it. For consumers nationwide, beef availability and prices would be unaffected, so you can be a burger fan and oppose public lands ranching without worry.

In other words, eliminating ranching on public lands in the West would have immensely positive effects for the environment and virtually no negative effects for humans. In that way, it’s a total no-brainer.

Yet the subject flies below the radar, even for most environmentally-minded folks. I get why. I myself was unaware of these issues until 2012, when I read Welfare Ranching: The Subsidized Destruction of the American West in preparation for a trip to eastern Oregon. (This comprehensive and thoroughly researched book, edited by George Wuerthner, has been out of print for years but is now available as a free download!) We hear much more about other threats to public land like logging, mining and fossil fuel extraction, and I would never minimize those horrendous activities, but the ecological impacts of ranching are more widespread than all of those put together and are sorely under-rated. It’s a big subject, and in a short essay like this I can only summarize a few important points. For those readers wanting to dive deeper, I’ve included some sources at the end.

The scope of public lands ranching

The sheer scope of ranching on federal public lands is enormous.

• ~250 million acres are grazed annually, 98% of it in the 11 western-most states.
  That’s an area the size of Texas and New Mexico combined, which is about 1/3 of the eleven Western states, and about 1/8 (12.5%) of the Lower 48
• ~155 million acres are on Bureau of Land Management (BLM) land.
  That’s like California and Washington combined, and is ~90% of all BLM land in the Western states
• ~95 million acres are on US Forest Service (USFS) land, some of that in designated Wilderness[!].
  This is equivalent to Montana (the fourth largest state), and is ~70% of all USFS land in the Western states. Not a single National Forest in the West is off limits to grazing. Not one.
• ~5 million acres (almost the size of New Jersey) are on US Fish & Wildlife land and, astonishingly, in National Parks.

(An additional 36 million acres of state-owned land is ranched—an area a little larger than New York state—as well as around 35 million acres of Indian reservation land, but I’ll be focusing exclusively on federal land here.)

In sum, we are currently using over a third of the land in the Western states to raise ~2% of the nation’s beef.

The water factor

Why is so little beef produced from such a large area? One simple reason: Water. There’s not much of it. Here’s a map of annual average precipitation in the United States:

With less water there is less vegetation, and hence less for the cattle to eat. The difference between the arid West and the moister East is stark. In Iowa, a single acre can be enough to graze a cow for one year but in Nevada you need 250 acres. [Jacobs, p. 29]

Cows as a species are adapted to what we call “riparian areas”: moist habitats near waterways. In the arid West, riparian areas make up only .5 to 2% of the landscape. So cows are simply not at home in the region.

In contrast, there are many, many other creatures who are at home there, and who together live within an intricate web of relationships and dependencies. Among plants are wildflowers both perennial and annual, trees, shrubs, myriad grasses and even a few ferns. Among animals are mammals from big to small, birds, reptiles, a multitude of insects, and more fish than you might expect. The soil contains countless microbiota. All of this wildlife is well adapted to their circumstances, with traits and habits that allow them to thrive in an environment that, while many humans consider it to be a harsh or unfriendly, is their home.

Virtually all this wildlife also fares poorly when ranching is imposed, both because of the cows themselves and the “range management” activities of their human keepers. The assault by the industry has been ongoing since the 1870s, and the enormity of ecological loss is catastrophic.

The razing of grasslands & first foods

Grass was the first casualty. When cattle were introduced en masse to what would become the 11 Western states, vast grasslands covered more than a third of the area. The diversity of grasses is under-appreciated, even among plant lovers like myself. Quoting Lynn Jacobs, author of Waste of the West: Public Lands Ranching:

Large portions of Idaho and eastern Washington and Oregon were covered with Sandberg bluegrass, Idaho fescue, and the chiefly bunching, though sometimes rhizomatous, bluebunch wheatgrass. Scattered across many parts of the Great Basin were bunchgrasses such as bluebunch and western wheatgrass, bottlebrush squirreltail, sheep fescue, and Indian ricegrass. At least 23 million acres of California’s valleys and hills (about ¼ of the state) were spread with a great diversity of short and tall perennial bunchgrasses, including purple and nodding needlegrasses, with some sod grasses in moister areas. Finally, much of the mid-elevation portions of the southwest supported lush stands of black and sideoats grama, Arizona cottontop, tobosa, wire, and other bunchgrasses. [p. 44]

Many people are familiar with the Joshua Tree. The iconic plant in its austere landscape is the background of many music videos, movies and social media posts.

But the landscape was not always so minimalist. Lush grasses once lapped their trunks, including in what would become Joshua Tree National Park, where ranchers set up shop in 1870. Grazing continued until 1945, nine years after FDR established Joshua Tree National Monument.

Only a few isolated patches of the historic grasslands remain ungrazed in the arid West, mostly on rocky outcrops, in narrow canyons, or other places too difficult for cows to reach. The few Europeans who ever saw these expansive ecosystems in their original state were often the very individuals responsible for bringing in the cows and sheep that ravaged them. These original “settlers” (a too colorless euphemism) moved from place to place, overgrazing each one in turn, starting with the greenest first.

Various federal acts provided opportunities for settlers to stake claims legally, but theft and fraud were widespread. Ranchers would often just fence in land that wasn’t theirs. In 1887, the reported number of acres illegally enclosed this way was 8.6 million, but the actual number was likely much higher. [Jacobs, p. 16] In a few short decades, the best land had been taken. Writes Jacobs:

By the end of the 19^th Century, stockmen had gained ownership of most of the more productive rangeland and water sources in the West. Most of the rest remained under public ownership, where it is today… Thus—defined through default—were born what are now “our public lands.” [p. 16]

My focus here is the environment, but I would remiss if I didn’t mention that this land was stolen from Native Americans, both through inequitable treaties forced upon them by the federal government (and inevitably broken), and directly by ranching settlers. Hostilities inflicted on the Native Americans were routine and brutal. Massacres did not spare women or children. Even the scant reservations that remained were not honored, and ranchers would run their cattle on them. Forced into desperate circumstances, some Native Americans themselves took up ranching, and unfortunately, in some instances their land stewardship was and is not any better. The effects of colonialism are insidious that way.

Traditional Native American first foods, including a wide array of roots, seeds, berries and greens, have been the victims of ranching. In some cases, patches of such plants were purposefully wiped out by settlers with their cows, sheep, and pigs. I have spent time in the Great Basin in Oregon and Nevada looking for these plants with Nikki Hill, especially the roots. In some places, the growth patterns of first foods on the landscape still show the signs of ancient wildtending. Some of the root plants propagate in part through disturbance, having co-evolved first with bears and then humans, and now they suffer for the lack of attention from their four-legged and two-legged friends. How many such subtleties of nature and endearing relationships have been lost in the century and a half of cattle dominance? Some, I imagine, are entirely forgotten, at least on the human side of the equation. (Plants have longer memories though.)

Striking at the riparian lifeblood

Habitat loss is by far the leading threat to biological diversity in the world today. Agriculture, including animal ag like ranching, is the foremost driver of habitat loss. With ranching running rough shod over 70% of the US American West, this industry is indisputably responsible for the decline and endangerment of innumerable plant and animal species.

Ground zero for habitat loss on public lands in the West are riparian areas, which I remind you comprise only .5-2% of the arid landscapes. Because cows are a riparian species, they congregate in these areas and have degraded an estimated 80% of them. Given that at least three quarters of animals and plants in these regions are dependent on riparian areas, the cascading effects are far-reaching.

Cows consume and trample vegetation in riparian areas, often wiping out everything except vigorous annuals and mature trees. In time, a place can become treeless because the older ones are never replaced; cows eat all the seedlings as they come up.

With the plants gone, all the species who depend on them suffer. Other mammals lose their graze and browse. Birds lose seeds and fruit and nesting spots. Insects lose nectar and leaves. Spiders lose the branches where they weave their traps to catch airborne prey. Small animals lose their shelter under woody shrubs. Fish and other aquatic life lose the cool effects of overhanging vegetation. Everyone’s population falls, maybe gradually and maybe quickly, but inevitably. Fewer insects means less food for the birds, reptiles, small mammals and fish who eat them. Fewer small animals means less prey for predators.

Ranching also alters the functioning of the waterways themselves, through both cow and human activity.

A healthy stream in the arid West takes a meandering route with numerous bends, bars, and backwaters. Deep pools alternate with shallow riffles and clear runs. Side channels branch off. These physical features regulate the roughly equal erosion and deposition of sediment, from river rock to coarse gravel to fine silt. Water quality is good, with high oxygenation, a minimum of dissolved solids (it’s clear), and potability for humans. A high water table keeps wide bands of ground moist, in places marshy, all along the water course. When snowmelt or summer monsoons increase flow, the extra volume—along with fertile silt—is spread out over a broad bottomland where aerated soil allows it to percolate down. Keywords: complex, slow.

For a degraded stream, by contrast, the keywords are oversimplified and quick. The nuance is absent from the channel, which is more uniform in shape and depth. Too much erosion or too much deposition are symptomatic. Water quality is bad, with low oxygenation, lots of dissolved solids (it’s murky) as well as chemical run-off, and is no longer suitable to drink. With a straighter, more incised course, the flow’s velocity increases, further scouring the bed. As the incision deepens, the surrounding water table sinks, drying out the ground and eventually killing off riparian vegetation. When high waters arrive they rush through, further eroding the banks, and the surrounding bottomland may remain high and dry.

This image from the Oklahoma State University Natural Resources Extension illustrates the differences:

Ranching degrades a healthy stream in a variety of ways. Cows strip the vegetation and stomp down the banks, leading to erosion and then incision. They shit and piss in it. Nitrate-heavy run-off from nearby feed operations and pesticides from vegetation management taint the water. Diversions for irrigation or stock tanks deplete the flow. Soil compaction from cows and vehicles in the former riparian area prevents rain from soaking in and contributes to harmful flash flooding.

In some cases, the trouble started before the cows arrived. Ranchers might have first channelized a stream or dug ditches to help dry wetlands for conversion to grass. In the Sierra Nevada mountains, some used dynamite to drain mid- and high-elevation meadows. In other cases, the ranchers were preceded by loggers, who straightened and channelized waterways to float logs to the mill, or by miners who dredged them and dumped tailings in them.

Last but not least, the first Europeans on many western landscapes were trappers who decimated beaver populations. The absence of these busy ecosystem engineers had such intense and widespread effects on western waterways that it’s hard for us to imagine how different they used to be. What we see as normal is in most cases totally aberrant (which can also be said for the majority of non-riparian ecosystems in what is now the United States). An estimated 98% of rivers in the United States have been altered by human activity.

Cows ≠ Buffalo (or Pronghorn or Desert Bighorn Sheep or…)

In terms of their needs and impact, cows are not at all comparable to any of the arid West’s large native grazers like Pronghorn, Desert Bighorn Sheep or the Buffalo, which all move more frequently, graze less intensely, need far less water, and—most importantly—don’t congregate in riparian areas. 38 Pronghorn can live on the amount of food needed to support one cow. Desert Bighorn can go days without drinking at all. West of the Rockies, Buffalo ranged in scattered bands in numbers way lower than the amount of cows on the land now. All three of these animals were driven to the brink of extinction by ranching and other settler activities, and are only hanging on now because of conservation regulations (which were never enough, but are more threatened now than ever).

The bottom line is that the ecosytems of the arid West are not adapted to large grazing ungulates who require so much water and concentrate themselves in the riparian areas. As George Wuerthner put it, cows are “wrong animal, wrong place.” I’m sure the cows would prefer to be somewhere else too, fwiw.

When cows are removed, significant recovery can follow in a relatively short time.

 

These photos document “passive restoration.” The basic idea is that humans just get out of the way and let Mother Nature do her thing. This is an inexpensive and low effort solution, with few expenses besides the cost of fencing and monitoring. More hands-on, active measures can also be taken, such as “process-based restoration.” (I helped out with such a project in August 2024, as told here: “I Got to Pretend I was a Beaver for a Day.”)

What I’m leaving out

As I mentioned up top, public lands ranching is a big topic. In this essay, I just ended up focusing on riparian areas because they’re so important to the ecosystems of the arid West and have been so heartlessly hammered. I really only summarized the topic, and much more could be said, but I want to keep this to a reasonable length.

Other impacts of ranching (each of which could be their own article):

• Killing of predators: Grizzly Bears, Wolves and Mountain Lions are targeted for fear they will attack cattle; also Bobcats, Lynx, Kit Foxes or other small predators, apparently just because it’s traditional. Coyotes are relentlessly slaughtered, sometimes in grisly contests (though paradoxically, killing them increases their numbers).
  

  Grisly results of coyote killing contest. Photo: Nevada Wildlife Alliance

• Fencing: Over 600,000 miles of barbed wire are strung throughout the US West, a large amount of that on public land. These barriers impede the free movement of wildlife. Pronghorn cannot jump fences and will go many miles out of their way to find a break. Deer can get their legs tangled in the top wires and die there. Birds of prey like hawks, eagles and owls get caught in while hunting along the fenceline and also die. Greater Sage-Grouse are especially vulnerable to injury because they are heavy, low-flyers lacking agility who are most active at dawn and dusk when fences are hard to see.
  

  Dead deer caught in fence, Utah. Photo: Tony Frates

• Roads: Exact figures are hard to come by, but for BLM land in the 11 Western states, 45,000 miles of roads is a low-ball figure. National Forest land in the same region has, conservatively, something like six times as many, though some of that is primarily for logging, not ranching. Additionally, an unknown number of informal roads have been punched through the landscape in order to access ranching infrastructure. Roads take out vegetation, fragment habitat, endanger wildlife, alter hydrology, and serve as a vector for additional human impacts besides ranching.
• Soil degradation: Erosion and compaction from ranching are so widespread in the West that their signifiers—gullies, scoured out waterways, desolate patches—have become emblematic of the region. Unseen, but just as far-reaching, are diminished organic materials in the soil itself, with attendant poor nutrient levels. According to the BLM’s own assessments (which are incomplete), between 38 million and 60 million acres of its range land is “degraded.”
• Cryptobiotic crust disruption: The top layer of soil in the arid West is inhabited by lichens, cyanobacteria, fungi and algae, some of it dormant until rain falls; this layer is called a “cryptobiotic crust” or “biological crust.” It literally keeps the ground from blowing or washing away, sequesters and fixes mineral nutrients, and provides a seed bed for plants. This crust is destroyed by stomping hooves.
• Altered fire regimes: from both the cessation of indigenous fire-tending practices and vegetation changes.
• Climate: Cattle are a well-known source of methane, a potent greenhouse gas. Vegetation loss results in less carbon sequestration and, especially with deforestation, altered hydrological cycles. (See “biotic pump.”)

Additionally, I haven’t even touched on the “welfare” aspect, which is also worthy of its own coverage:

• Federal grazing allotments are leased at the rate of $1.35 per animal unit month, an amount that has remained virtually unchanged for forty years. In 2024 the average rate on private land was $23.40. That’s quite a subsidy!
• The total amount of fees brought in is so low it doesn’t even pay for administering the program itself. The annual shortfall $100-125 million.
• The Feds also pay for various “improvements” such as water infrastructure, fencing, roads, and “predator control.” Added to the administration costs, above, annual expenditures are an estimated $500 million.
• That’s half a billion dollars a year spent on ~20,000 ranchers/corporations, some of whom are wealthy. See the excellent work by High Country News and ProPublica that just came out: “Wealthy Ranchers Profit from Public Lands. Taxpayers Pick up the Tab.”

Conclusion: End Private Ranching on Public Lands

The ecosystems of western North America were doing just fine for all the creatures who lived there, including humans, before ranching was imposed by the settler-colonial invasion.

Ecologically, cows can only be destructive in the arid West. They are not adapted to the region’s conditions, and their presence threatens those creatures who are at home there. We should remove them from public lands. The annual government subsidies to the ranching industry should be replaced with a generous one-time lease buy-out for that small number of ranchers whose businesses have been dependent on government support. Federally-funded restoration of degraded ecosystems would immensely benefit the flora and fauna, especially endangered species, and could provide employment opportunities for rural communities.

Our society as a whole would also benefit at a deeper level from ceasing this ecocidal behavior. We are collectively burdened by the pain and suffering that our system incurs, whether or not we are consciously aware of it. Any step towards living harmoniously with the more-than-human world helps heal not just the external hurts to others but also the internal ones in ourselves.

More info

• Welfare Ranching: The Subsidized Destruction of the American West, edited by George Wuerthner
• Waste of the West: Public Lands Ranching, by Lynn Jacobs
• Western Watersheds Project
• The Wildlife News