Dear HCN,
Your romantic piece of
fluff about ranching in the San Luis Valley (HCN, 12/6/99) does a
disservice to all of us who are trying to envision a positive
future for the West. I have come to expect a much higher standard
of journalism from you.
We must, I repeat MUST,
move away from cowboy mythology. My family was uncomfortable when
tourists put us on the cowboy pedestal when I was growing up on a
ranch in the San Luis Valley; twenty years later, feminism taught
me why. It demeans anyone to be mythologized and stereotyped,
whether they are a woman, a Native American, or a
rancher.
Yes, humans have a strong need to work
out-of-doors with animals. Let’s create jobs where people can do
that without having to slaughter the animals and degrade the
environment.
The San Luis Valley is not a
sagebrush flat because of a lack of rainfall, as your heroine
suggested. Buffalo were grazing there on waist-high grass when
European settlers arrived. What happened? People plowed under the
grass, planted wheat, and irrigated the soil. For a while that
seemed successful. A hundred years ago, the area around Moffat
produced a lot of wheat. Then the irrigation water pulled alkali
salt out of the soil. Unknowingly, the settlers had turned the
valley into a desert.
My parents had to sell out
25 years ago. Now the ranch I grew up on provides tax write-offs
for the present owners. Is that a “higher
purpose’?
Let’s acknowledge that trying to raise
livestock west of the rainfall line is a bust. Let’s take the life
support system off the dying industry, sell all the cattle and
sheep one last time, have a huge feast, and then let wildlife
flourish across the West again.
A West teeming
with wildlife would make everyone happy, especially the people who
want a job out-of-doors with animals. We could grow crops for
wildlife, and veterinarians could treat their ailments. We could
study them and photograph them and advertise them and protect them
and hunt them and recreate among them. Who knows how many lucrative
job niches they would provide?
I sure prefer that
future to the pinched, defensive prospects of today’s livestock
ranchers.
Tori
Woodard
Escalante,
Utah
The writer was born and raised on the Woodard Land and Livestock Co. ranch near Saguache, Colorado.
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline ‘Romantic piece of fluff’.
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.
