Dear HCN,
I had to chuckle at
California BLM official Gail O’Neill’s lamentation that her staff
is spending weeks away from normal duties to ensure that cattle
stay out of Mojave desert tortoise habitat (HCN, 11/5/01: Cattle
make way for tortoises in the Mojave). What possible duties could
the BLM, the nation’s largest public-land and cattle manager, have
that are more important than protecting and enforcing the health of
our national heritage?
The scientific
documentation of the ecological destruction of our Western public
lands from ranching is extraordinary. Equally extraordinary are the
powers that sustain and nourish the cattle industry.
Sadly, one of the greatest hindrances to
rangeland reform in the West is the cowpoke-pattycake approach of
numerous environmental groups such as The Nature Conservancy and
Defenders of Wildlife. Their efforts in behalf of public-land
ranching merely serve to falsely legitimate this destructive
activity while prolonging its inevitable demise.
It’s time for concerted and resolute measures
directed specifically at Congress to once and forever remove the
most pervasively destructive activity on public land – cattle
ranching.
Tim Lengerich
Tucson, Arizona
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Time to take cattle off public land.
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