How the West was grazed, Cowboys, Cattle,–and Politics?
Cattle ranching on public land seems as much a part of the west as the mountains and deserts that provide the backdrop. If you were to ask most city dwelling Americans where their beef came from, they would probably answer out west in the open lands of the Colorado Plateau, Wyoming, or Eastern Oregon. Yet this has not been the case for a long time. Today only 3.5% of all domestic beef production comes from ranching operations using public land. The other 96.5% are raised on private land in more fertile areas like Florida, Tennessee, and Western Oregon. In these areas it takes only one acre to feed and sustain one cow, whereas it takes 11-20 acres in the arid lands of the west and southwest. The economic reality in the west is that cattle ranching only accounts for .06% of jobs and .04% of income[1]. Despite this, cattle ranching is still perceived by many westerners as paramount to the economic stability of the rural west. Environmentalists complain that even though cattle ranching doe
