“In open timber you could walk right into a herd of sheep and probably not know it - it just depends on how spread out they are.”
In the San Juans up there, you can literally turn a corner and find them filling the dirt road in front of you, with sheep 40 or 50 yards on either side of the road. You can head up a narrow valley as a hiker and have the same thing happen.
Welfare ranchers graze for a pittance, compared to what it would be to lease graze rights in a private property state such as Texas. They have a 10 acre “ranch” and lease huge swaths of public land. The permit allows you to graze, fine, but then they fantasize that they own that public land. They are not landowners who can become a menace to other legitimate users.
bfl