I don't really have an affinity for one over the other . . . I just see ranchers paying, what, $12/year to graze a cow and a calf? BLM is probably the most corrupt federal agency in existence for that reason.
The "damage to the environment" claim is the worst, coming from people with big, fat dollar signs in their eyes. If they paid anything approaching fair market value to lease that federal land, maybe they would start taking care of it.
I don’t know the ranches you seem to know, but ranchers and farmers are much better “stewards” of the land than the GOV or cityslickers who want to roar allabout tearing up the land with RVs!
The rancher that leases the land has a vested interest in keeping it in good condition so he can grow his cattle on it for years to come.
Yes, that is so. Many ranches large and small grow hay and alfalfa in the growing season to feed their cattle in the winter months in pens. Believe it or nor they still go out and round them up in the fall.
The lease money that’s paid for grazing cattle is 100% more than what the government gets for feral horses grazing on federal land. In fact these horses are costing the taxpayers millions every year to control them and feed them in BLM pens because they double in numbers about every 4 years.
Something has to be done about them and as is pointed out in the article just increasing land they can graze is not the answer because they’ll continue to grow in numbers. They have no natural predator so that leaves it up to man.
Ranchers not only pay the fees for grazing cattle they improve the federal lands at their expense. They put in section fencing and water holes, guzzlers and truck water to different areas in dry years that also benefit wildlife.
“Range cattle are more destructive to the land than wild horses, by the way”
Sorry, but I think this a very wrong statement. I could get into the design of cattle hooves (split = good for the earth) compared to the design of horse hooves. We could talk about the different grazing styles of cattle and horses (horses pull much more of the plant out of the ground).
I don’t disagree with your overall post, but horses are much more destructive to grasslands and pastures than cattle!