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Preface - Introduction - CHAPTERS: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8 - 9 - 10 - 11 - 12
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Mechanical Methods

Numerous and sundry mechanical means are employed to physically destroy plant enemies. Prominent among these is "chaining," in which a heavy chain (or a heavy cable) is dragged between 2 crawler-type tractors to rip out all woody plants. The heavy equipment and huge anchor chain kill wild animals, destroy nests and burrows, kill many non-woody plants, damage the soil, drag and dislocate large rocks, and generally trash the land. In This Land Is Your Land, Bernard Shanks reports that chaining has likewise effaced hundreds of federally "protected" Native American ruins and archaeological sites (Shanks 1984). After chaining, the woody debris is burned or left to rot.

In an average year hundreds of square miles of Western public land are chained, hundreds or even thousands of acres at a time. Utah State University research scientist Ronald Lanner a decade ago found that more than 3 million acres (the size of Connecticut) of public pinyon/juniper land had been chained for cow pasture (Shanks 1984). Lanner recently stated that the weight of published research does not support any of the reasons used to condone chaining. Yet, common to the remote West is the chained landscape -- thousands of broken juniper, pinyon, greasewood, or sage skeletons scattered about the ravaged land, a few cows seeking forage among them.

A harrow is an agricultural implement consisting of a row or rows of metal teeth, spikes, or upright discs protruding downward from a supporting frame. Harrows are dragged across public land behind tractors to kill shrubs, brush, and other "unacceptable" vegetation. Similarly, railroad rails, channel irons, "H"-beams, and other heavy implements are pulled across the ground to break off and kill brittle shrubs in what is generally termed "railing." Environmental damage is similar to chaining.

Public land is even plowed and disced as if it was private farmland. With these techniques, soil is penetrated and displaced to the depth of a foot or more to kill offending vegetation -- sagebrush, creosote, and "weedy" plants in particular. These methods not only destroy all plants but damage topsoil, increase soil erosion, and destroy animals, soil dwellers especially, and their habitat.

Towed units chop as well as crush for better brush and slash treatment. On steeper slopes these units should be towed up and down the slopes to prevent erosion and avoid sideslip. Rolling choppers should move at high speeds for maximum effect. Production rates vary from two to nine acres per hour.

--From Range Seeding and Brush Management by Gilbert L. Jordan

Other machines and implements are driven or pulled across public land, raking, mowing, cutting, crushing, chopping, beating, shredding, and otherwise destroying "undesirable" vegetation. Sometimes vegetation is simply scraped off the land with bladed bulldozers. "Root plowing" by large tractors destroys brush roots to a depth of a foot or more. Some machines "grub" individual bushes or trees, cutting, ripping, and yanking roots, pushing or pulling plants out of the ground. Grubbing and "weed" killing are also accomplished by hand, with axes, mattocks, spades, and hoes.

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Chaining trees and brush in an attempt to increase cattle forage. (SCS, USDA)

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A BLM rotor-beater brush removal in Elmore County, Idaho. (BLM)

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Discing the range in the central California hills.

The 72-ton machine ("tree crusher") uproots, crushes, and splinters juniper trees in one operation. Because most trees are pushed out of the ground before being crushed, the percent kill is high (about 80%). On fairly level terrain, this machine can crush about 4 ha [10 acres] per hour.

--from Range Management (Holechek 1989)

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BLM land in Hamlin Valley, Beaver County, Utah.

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A crawler tractor piling brush. (SCS, USDA)

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Chainsaws are a favorite tool for increasing livestock production. BLM, McKinley County, New Mexico.

Large stands of trees and brush often are felled with chainsaws. Smaller stands may be cut with hand saws, axes, machetes, and brush hooks. Another method of "control" is "girdling" -- cutting off a strip of bark around the circumference of the trunk of a tree or large bush, which will kill it. Trees, brush, and weeds alike -- ranchers and range managers eradicate the unwelcome plants by just plain hacking away with axes, mattocks, hoes, spades, bushwhackers, weed whackers, hatchets, pruners, pocket knives, and potato peelers.

After vegetation is uprooted, cut, or by whatever manner taken to pieces, it may be pushed or raked into rows (windrowed) or piles and burned to prepare the land for intensified livestock grazing. Roads, fences, tanks, and other "improvements" may then be installed and management further intensified.

In Texas, where the golden-cheeked warbler depends upon mature Ashe juniper for nesting, removal of junipers as a range-improvement measure caused such a serious reduction in numbers that it was declared a threatened species by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

-- Denzel and Nancy Ferguson, Sacred Cows (Ferguson 1983)

Chemical Methods

Without chemicals, life itself would be impossible. --A motto of Monsanto chemical company

Aerial application of herbicides affords the possibility of chemically treating half of the United States acreage at one time or another --Maureen K. Hinkle, Environmental Defense Fund (USDA, USDI, CEQ 1979)

Herbicide application is a comparatively easy way for ranchers to destroy large areas of less-profitable vegetation (especially since the government usually does the work and the taxpayer foots the bill). Unlike mechanical methods, herbicides can quickly denude thousands of acres at a time. This explains the strong push by the ranching establishment to increase herbicide use on public lands. With almost religious fervor, many recommend its application for virtually every vegetation eradication proposal. Behind it all are the huge national and multi-national chemical companies with their multi-million dollar promotion campaigns. With convincing presentations, they offer a variety of herbicides as the answer to a host of range problems created or perceived by the grazing industry.

Major herbicides used on public ranges today include 2, 4-D, Picloram, Dicamba, Atrazine, Dalapon, Tebuthiuron, Glyphosate, and Hexazinone. Of these, 2, 4-D accounts for a large percentage of acreage "treated." Range managers sometimes test combinations of these.

The commonly used rangeland herbicides 2, 4, 5-T (a defoliant used in the Vietnam War) and Silvex were finally banned by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in the early 1980s when they were found to be carcinogenic. They contain dioxin, a deadly poison shown to have adverse effects on wild and experimental animals. Dr. Diane Courtney, head of the Toxic Effects Branch of EPA's National Environmental Research Center, states that dioxin is "by far the most toxic chemical known to mankind," while Dow Chemical states that "2,4,5-T is about as toxic as aspirin." Near where 2,4,5-T was sprayed in Oregon National Forests, pregnant women experienced increased miscarriages, and birth defects, prompting rural rebellions with angry locals shooting at spray helicopters. Silvex and 2,4,5-T were outlawed under public pressure, and despite years of irrational defense by the chemical, timber, and ranching industries.

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An ad for range herbicide. Look closely. (Julia Fonseca)

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A Forest Service helicopter spraying herbicide on vegetation noxious to livestock. Beaverhead National Forest, MT (USES)

By far most range herbicide is applied in spray solution from small aircraft and helicopters equipped with sprayers. It may also be applied with boom-type broadcast sprayers mounted on trucks or pulled behind tractors, or with hand sprayers. The poison lands on foliage, enters through the leaf surface, and is translocated to the root system, where it kills the plant. Some herbicide comes in dry "bullets" or pellets, which may be applied aerially or by hand from vehicles, horseback, or on foot. These "soil applied" herbicides enter the soil in solution with precipitation and directly kill plants when absorbed by the roots. Trees and bushes may be killed individually with subsoil and trunk herbicide injectors.

There are 70 million acres of mesquite, 76 million acres of juniper, 96 million acres of sagebrush, over 40 million acres in of scrub oaks, and 78 million acres of cacti which are significant contributors to unproductive rangeland. The benefits of herbicides are virtually self-regulating.... Our ecosystem is under dynamic change, whether managed by man or nature. It is important that we manage it in the proper direction.

-- C.S. Williams, Business Manager, Dow Chemical Company, at a rangeland symposium (USDA, USDI, CEQ 1979)

Herbicide is used to kill sagebrush, snakeweed, mesquite, acacia, shadscale, greasewood, creosote, scrub oak, manzanita, rabbitbrush, other brush and shrubs, juniper, pinyon, tamarisk, cacti, yucca, and a great variety of "weedy" plants and livestock-unpalatable grasses. Herbicide also is used to kill regrowth following use of other methods of vegetation eradication.

The wide-spectrum herbicides commonly used on the Western range poison most or all plants in a given area. Eliminating vegetation has, of course, serious environmental consequences, too numerous to detail here. Animals that rely on these plants, especially smaller or sedentary animals unable to move to unpoisoned areas, suffer and die. Those that can relocate infringe upon existing residents. If vegetation is not soon replaced, soil erosion increases greatly. Cryptogamic plant communities are simultaneously destroyed, along with the stability and protection cryptogamic crusts provide the soil's surface and soil below. Consequently, water infiltration and retention may be reduced. After natural vegetation is removed, usually a more uniform cover of only a few plant species (often exotics) grows back or is seeded or planted, setting up conditions conducive to explosions of pest animals. Because of this, herbicide use is one of the main reasons for the dramatic rise in pesticide use in recent years.

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A National Forest mountainside (background) divested of trees and brush by herbicide provides increased cattle forage.

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Cattle seek herbage amongst herbicided juniper skeletons on west-central New Mexico BLM range.

One cannot help but question the wisdom of registering, selling and spraying an herbicide [picloram] known to persist in the environment, volatilize, leach into groundwater, damage nontarget plants, contain carcinogenic contaminants, lack any acceptable chronic effects testing affect humans adversely and display synergism and carcinogenicity.

--Mary O'Brien, National Coalition for Alternatives to Pesticides

Notwithstanding downplay by chemical companies and other vested interests, herbicides are dangerous poisons. Workers handling these chemicals have experienced numerous ailments. Though advertised as being non-toxic, or as losing their toxic qualities within hours or days after use, many herbicides have been shown to retain toxic qualities for weeks or months, or in some cases years. Research has proved that some accumulate in the tissues of plants and animals and in mothers' milk. Other studies show that these chemicals break down under natural conditions to form compounds sometimes more toxic than the herbicides themselves. Picloram is assumed to be carcinogenic even by the BLM, as is glyphosate by the EPA; nearly all the others are considered possible or probable carcinogens, even by the agencies. And, EPA regards some herbicides to have high leaching potential, making them hazardous to groundwater supplies.

Herbicide may enter animals' bodies by absorption through skin, lungs or breathing tubes, or in food and water. Small contaminated animals are eaten by larger ones, which are eaten by larger ones, and so on; depending on a host of variables, this chain of events may or may not increase concentrations of harmful chemicals faster than they break down into less harmful substances. Such an increase is called bioaccumulation. Although a waiting period of 2-3 months is recommended before grazing livestock, this is often not followed. Livestock themselves occasionally are sprayed, accidentally or because the rancher did not expend the effort to move them.

There are so many variables in the foliar application of herbicide that it is virtually impossible to guarantee environmental protection -- to predict for sure where the chemical will go or what it will do. These variables include wind speed; temperature; humidity; sunlight; precipitation; skill and attitude of the operator; marking of target area; type and condition of equipment; preparation of herbicide and condition of materials used; nozzle size, pressure, and orientation; spray pattern; flight height; obstacles such as powerlines, buildings, and high rocks; topography; condition, stage of growth, and height of both target and non-target plants; plant disease and insect damage; the species and behavior of animals; soil type and amount of soil moisture; amount and nature of any water which may be present; and management before and after "treatment." Many things can and often do go wrong. If the spray height is too high or nozzle holes too small, some of the herbicide mixture may volatilize and drift somewhere else. If the wind picks up, herbicide may end up on cattle or in other vegetation, streams, or someone's garden. If heavy rain falls soon after spraying, herbicide may be carried into waterways.

Soil-applied herbicides are likewise risky. In addition to many of the problems above, herbicide pellets or granules may be accidentally mixed with human food stores or water supplies, swallowed by wild or domestic animals, or dropped in non-target areas. Additionally, herbicide in pellet or granular form generally persists in a toxic state much longer than it does in spray form.

Another chemical method of killing unwanted plants involves pouring oil, diesel fuel, kerosene, and other poisons around the bases of offending plants. Ranchers also sometimes dump these substances on the stumps of bushes and trees after being cut. Much of this activity occurs without agency knowledge or consent.

Since the early 1980s, rangeland herbicide use has declined. As mentioned, EPA outlawed the formerly popular, more effective 2,4,5-T and Silvex, and public concern over the effects of herbicide use has risen dramatically. Even costs have become somewhat prohibitive, especially in drier, less productive, and degraded areas where there is so little potential forage that the cost-benefit ratio is glaringly disparate.

Despite the recent downturn, however, there is reason to fear herbicide will regain prevalence as public upheaval subsides. For example, BLM's recent Draft Vegetation Treatment EIS proposes to increase herbicide spraying in the West from the current average of 37,475 acres per year to 141,515 acres per year; 90% of this would be on rangeland. Ranching pressure remains strong, and the current Congress and Bush administration, like all others, contain many ranching advocates.

It is so popular in these days of environmental awareness to be opposed to herbicides and other pesticides as pollutants, that it takes courage to advocate their use, particularly on forests, ranges, and watersheds where livestock, wildlife, and streams are exposed ....

-- Boysie E. Day, Professor of Plant Physiology, University of California, Berkeley (USDA, USDI, CEQ 1979)

In conclusion, herbicide use may increase forage production. But this increase can only be temporary so long as livestock use remains heavy; and, it occurs at the expense of the natural environment. Continued ranching inevitably leads to the same recurrent problems, and to more use of herbicide as a "quick fix." For example, one study of herbiciding on sagebrush rangeland showed increased livestock profits of 24% after preliminary application, but that re-application was expected to be necessary on an average of every 12 years (Holechek 1989). Indeed, it is commonly acknowledged that under continued livestock pressure the effective "treatment" life of herbicide is only 10-20 years, at which time herbicide must be reapplied. In this way, rangeland herbicide use is like narcotics addiction.

The ranching establishment has "treated" many thousands of square miles of public land with herbicide to kill both native and ranching - attributable "unwanted" vegetation. Environmental damage has been extensive, the results transitory, and the cost enormous. Once again, the treatment obscures the illness, or becomes part of the illness.

Treatment of the land and air and water with phenoxy herbicides is not the answer They are part of the short-sighted cosmetic solutions supplied by the chemical industry and the government such as have long plagued the management of our public lands.

--Donna M. Waters & John C. Stauber, Coordinators, Citizens National Forest Coalition, Inc.

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Junipers killed by herbicide.

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This central Arizona state range was once a land rich with life. Now, decades after being herbicided for cattle production, there are miles of overgrazed, barren waste.

Biological Methods

Infrequently, biological "controls" utilizing fauna and flora are used to manipulate vegetation on public ranges. Most notable has been the use of insects to eliminate "noxious" plants.

Plants introduced without their natural parasites often show dramatic initial reductions when these parasites are introduced. For example, early in this century the livestock poisonous Klamath weed "invaded" overgrazed ranges in the Pacific Coast states and monopolized more than 250,000 acres near the Klamath River. "Control" efforts long seemed futile. Finally, a leaf-eating beetle (previously introduced into Australia from France) that feeds only on Klamath weed was introduced into these areas. The beetle proved effective -- except, curiously, along fenced, ungrazed roadways, where Klamath weed survived as part of a much more diverse and flourishing plant community. Here it waits today, ready to reinvade adjacent overgrazed ranges when the opportunity arises.

In New Mexico overgrazing has caused broom snakeweed (a native opportunist) to partially replace grass and other more "desirable" plants on an estimated 40 million public and private acres, including 60% of state-owned range. On 4 million acres it has choked out most other vegetation. Snakeweed in quantity is poisonous to livestock, causing sickness and aborted fetuses. It competes with forage plants, compounding depletion from overgrazing. Needless to say -- though they are most responsible for spreading the plant -- stockmen hate snakeweed. Therefore, the government hates snakeweed, and the public is supposed to hate snakeweed. Government and ranchers spend about $2 million annually just to fight snakeweed with chemicals.

According to New Mexico State University researcher David Richman, broom snakeweed in New Mexico has gone "out of control." He and others, along with USDA, are experimenting with biological methods of destroying snakeweed. They have imported an Argentine weevil that during its larval stage bores into the roots of snakeweed, then eats the plants. If proven feasible, the snakeweed-killing weevil may eventually be released on rangelands around the West.

But there always are complications when trying to manipulate the environment. Will the weevil itself get "out of control" and kill too much snakeweed? Snakeweed was an original and essential component of many Western vegetative communities, making up an average of about 10% of vegetation in its range. Shouldn't it be allowed its rightful place in the environment? Will the weevil kill nontarget plants or cause some other unforeseen harm to the environment? Moreover, if livestock are the cause of the snakeweed "invasion," why aren't livestock removed from public lands instead of snakeweed?

Research on biological "control" is mostly a matter of experimenting to determine which organism most effectively kills an unwanted plant, what method of utilizing that organism is most efficient, and what complications might arise. These projects often prove prodigious and expensive -- especially when there really is no practical biological control" to be discovered! They likewise may be environmentally hazardous. For example, some insects introduced to kill "noxious" range plants kill other plants as well, upset natural processes, and pose threats to agricultural crops and ornamental vegetation. Close relatives of some plants targeted for biological extermination are on the Threatened or Endangered Species list and could be further reduced or extirpated. Research on imported parasitic plant fungi poses such a threat to the biosphere that it is carried out only in a custom-built, escape-proof greenhouse at an old Army biological warfare center at Fort Detrick, Maryland.

"Successes" in biological eradication of unwanted range vegetation are few and far between, but grants for research are numerous. In Montana, a fungus, a fly, and a few other insects are being considered to combat knapweed, which covers 4.5 million overgrazed acres of the 90-million-acre state. The situation is similar in Utah regarding the "invaders" squarrose knapweed and Russian knapweed; Utah State University researchers are also testing a naturally occurring parasitic rust on dyers woad, a kind of mustard that has spread across more than 150,000 overgrazed acres. In California, government researchers are testing, thus far with little success, weevils, flies, and fungi on yellow star thistle, a wickedly spiny exotic that has colonized more than 8 million acres in the overgrazed Golden State alone. In some states various insects have been suggested for killing leafy spurge. Worldwide, according to the Forest Service, only "57 attempts to partially or completely control plants biologically have been successful . . ."

Generally, the ranching community finds biological means too abstract and ineffective. Activity in this field is centered at agricultural colleges and agency research centers, where funding provides the impetus for research. And, though much hoopla is made over the fantastic potential for the biologic breakthroughs that will magically erase rangeland degradation, there is little reason to believe that this is much more than public relations hype.

Livestock Methods

A range ecologist for Rocky Mountain Forest and Range Experiment Station [FS), Duane Knipe was looking for an alternative to prescribed burning, herbicide treatment, or mechanical means such as root plowing or chain-dragging for shrub control. Goats seemed to fit the formula: rowsers that were cheap and environmentally acceptable [emphasis added].

-Jan Barstad, "A New Look," Arizona Highways (March 1987)

Incongruous as it may seem, livestock themselves are sometimes used to help rid the range of "unwanted" vegetation. By manipulating the timing, frequency, intensity, and kind of livestock use, ranchers manipulate vegetation characteristics. Further, studies are underway to determine the effect of chemical and mineral supplements on forage and browse preference so livestock may be "induced" to eat selected plants. Ranching zealot Thadis W. Box reports that other studies are in progress to see if young livestock may be psychologically "conditioned to eat the plants we want them to eat (Box 1987)."

In a broad sense, all livestock grazing is a form of vegetation manipulation -- of favoring some plant species over others. Yet historically this was rarely a conscious attempt. With the recent downturn in herbicide use and mounting public opposition to traditional methods of destroying vegetation, livestock are increasingly used as an "environmentally acceptable" "management tool" ("tools that moo" is a current catch-phrase) specifically to eradicate certain species or types of plants. Flowery industry rhetoric portrays this as a great advance in "progressive, scientific range management." In practice, what it amounts to is that livestock are heavily concentrated on a target area for a certain period in hopes that they will eat and/or trample the unwanted plants into oblivion. This is commonly called "intensive herding."

For example, the "undesirable" plant leafy spurge has "invaded" roughly 3 million acres since it was first sighted in the US in 1827. In Montana, where longstanding cattle grazing has caused leafy spurge to spread over about 500,000 acres of public range, some ranchers are using dense herds of cattle to help eliminate it. Leafy spurge is sensitive to physical injury from intensive trampling; stems are broken and seedlings killed. In theory, when a tightly packed herd of cattle is placed in an "infested" area, the concentrated cows perforce step on and kill most of the spurge plants. In some areas intensive herding has had this intended effect; in others it has not. In either case, it may create or worsen other problems. Sheep and goats like to eat leafy spurge, so herds of these animals are being used to reduce the plant in some areas.

On some National Forests, goats are used to destroy brush to increase cattle forage. Concentrated herds of hundreds of goats are driven into brushy areas where essentially they eat every plant in sight, including all leaves and twigs from bushes. Often in combination with other methods of vegetation manipulation and grass seeding, depending on a host of uncontrollable variables, the goats may or may not have the intended effect of killing off the brush and allowing replacement by forage plants. Where they have, "success" has been highly publicized by ranching advocates. Where they haven't, the land often ends up even more degraded than before, and the ranchers and rangers keep it quietly under their cowboy hats.

In Colorado, ranchers have publicized great "success" using goats to destroy Gambel oak sprouts, increasing fivestock forage in the process. On northeastern Arizona's Tonto National Forest in 1980, Dr. Duane Knipe of the Rocky Mountain Forest and Range Experiment Station launched a goat study. A herd of 240 angora goats was brought in to eradicate brush. "They ate everything, even the grass we planted after we burned the hill," said Knipe. (According to Dan Dagget, head of the mountain lion protection group Lions Unlimited, "Our source tells us that as many as 15 lions have been killed in the vicinity of that goat cell." This aspect of the study was never publicized.) After 2 seasons the goats were removed and the study was terminated due to extreme overgrazing. The goats were then moved to a ranch near Kingman in northwest Arizona, where 3 years later the rancher publicized his "success" decreasing brush and increasing grass with goats. He added reluctantly, "Our progress has been slower than I'd like because we haven't had much rain -- it all depends on rainfall." In checking official climatic records, however, one finds that rainfall in the area during the period was actually higher than normal.

They lie.

--Mike Roselle, progressive activist

To eradicate unwelcome plants, some ranchers experiment with intensive sheep herding. Others try combinations of livestock animals. For example, a mixture of cattle, sheep, and goats can be used to eliminate plant cover as thoroughly as herbicide. Intensive herding may also be used to augment other "control" methods or help prepare the soil for grass seeding, as was done recently with pig herds in Arkansas. In southern New Mexico, camels are being tested on "worthless" vegetation because, according to the experimenter, "they can eat things you wouldn't even want to pick up in your hand." Llamas have also been suggested. And rhinoceroses "because what they didn't eat, they'd bulldoze." Apparently all is fair in love, war, and public lands ranching.

Results, success or failure, are largely in the eye of the beholder. Suppose a huge herd of cattle is concentrated on a range covered with diverse native vegetation. The cattle trample and eat heavily until the area resembles a golf course, with mostly a single species of hardy, low-profile grass withstanding the onslaught. The cattle's owner is happy; to him that green stubble monoculture is much preferable to the less livestock-palatable native vegetation. Or, suppose he moves his herd slowly through a field of livestock-inedible wild flowers. The trampling destroys most of the flowering plants and gives the grasses underneath an advantage. Grass prevails for several years, and he feels successful. In our ranching-oriented society, ranchers, range college pros, and government range personnel define environmental quality to conform to ranching goals.

The "successes" are widely publicized, the failures rarely. Even when intensive herding results in forage decreases, ranchers are prone to feign success, for theirs is not merely an effort to increase forage but to maintain control of public ranching empires. They use alleged "successes" in using livestock to "improve" the range as an argument to justify their operations or even greater numbers and more intensive management of livestock. More than situational occurrences, this is a widespread, calculated attempt by ranching advocates to convince the public- and government that "properly managed" livestock actually promote environmental health, that ranchers should therefore be given even more power over public land.

But it is hard to hide the fact that using livestock to correct livestock-caused problems is an inherently self-defeating proposition. Changes in the kind of livestock and method of management may alleviate some problems, but they invariably create others. Livestock management, particularly intensive herding, entails so many uncontrollable variables that effects on livestock or the environment cannot be predicted with any certainty, especially over years or decades. No amount of scientific knowledge or technological skill can change this.

Admittedly, intensive herding may more than other grazing strategies simulate the herding effect of wild herbivores. Depending on many often ungovernable and variable factors, it may or may not be less environmentally harmful. But again, livestock cannot go far toward imitating Nature.

Despite its increasing popularity, intensive herding will probably never gain widespread acceptance because it has many practical limitations. Endlessly moving herds about to keep them in the most profitable locations while simultaneously protecting the land under constantly changing environmental conditions is essentially impossible. Because herds must be watched closely, packed tightly, and moved often, intensive herding is labor intensive. Most ranchers are unwilling to work that hard or hire extra help. Intensive herding is ineffective against many unwanted species, including plants resistant to heavy cropping or trampling, as well as large bushes or trees. Obviously, it also is useless in areas where toxic or otherwise harmful plants may be encountered. And, except with goats and sometimes sheep, it doesn't work well in rugged country, which makes up a large percentage of the West. Even comments from the most "successful" intensive herders are rife with "Progress has been slower than expected . . .," "If the Forest Service had only let us. . .," "The weather hasn't been cooperating. . ., " "If we'd only . . .," "Next year . . .," and so on. Results are rarely impressive. At worst, they are an environmental tragedy.

As with all artificial methods of destroying unwanted vegetation, intensive livestock herding is an extreme shock to any ecosystem. The resulting radical fluctuations in the amount of plant material may prove disastrous to many dependent animals or give rise to pest infestations. A livestock herd's grazing and trampling can lead to extreme soil erosion if a violent storm strikes before vegetation recovers. However, if adequate precipitation doesn't follow, vegetation may not recover at all. The heavy concentration of domestic animals in an area can spread afflictions to wildlife. Or it may raise sediment levels in waterways so high that aquatic animals and plants die. Recurring denudation of vegetation may eventually eliminate certain native plants. Intensive herding, or any other type of livestock grazing, is simply not worth the risk -- especially when the ultimate goal is more livestock on the range.

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