Wild Horses 2

There was an issue sometime back on one of the list that I sometimes read, about horse meat. You might remember that the US used to have slaughter houses that turned horses into meat for both people and animals to eat.

Some people saw nothing wrong with that, other people were upset, but what got my attention was which people were upset by it. Not who I would expect, so I read up on it a little.

There are issues other than the obvious, involved in the horse meat argument:

1. Many slaughtered horses are race horses whose have been given chemicals which made their meat unfit to enter the human food chain. If they are turned into meat meal they could be fed to hogs or chickens, and that would be unhealthy for people.

2. There was a case of dogs who became ill after being fed horse meat, and it was feared that this diseases could be spread from sick dogs to people. It seems strange that dead race horses would be fed to live greyhound racing dogs, but I guess it happens.

3. Americans don't eat horses. What happens is that tax money is used to regulate and inspect the horse meat industry but then the horse meat is exported. So the horse meat company is getting government workers to do some of the work, but Americans aren't profiting from it - our food inspection process are set up to protect us, not to protect the whole world, free of charge.

It is to this last item, that I address the issue of cattle on public land, and do these cattle benefit Americans?

If the rancher pays a token sum (less than what a hiking club would pay) for use of public land, then I expect his cattle should feed America.

If his cattle are sold, or fattened and then sold, overseas, then the American public is not profiting from American lands, and our public paid food inspection process is being used by business for a foreign country.

If that were the case, then the rancher is getting the lease, but the end result is a foreign country getting cheaper beef. IF that were the case, then I would say that the rancher should have to bid for the lease and the hiking club should get to bid too.

But, it is never that simple, is it? While ranchers out west get to use public lands, small land owners who run a few cattle on their property each year to keep down the weeds and make a little money, have complained that letting the western ranchers graze cattle on public lands, brings down the price of their cattle, and they feel this is unfair.

Cattle raiser can be divided. Many western ranches do not produce ready-for-market beef. They run cows and a few bulls. What they sell are weaned calves, or not-finished steers. The calves are bought by feed lots and fattened up.

If you are a person who buys calves from western ranchers, you might like getting a good deal on calves, but if you are an eastern rancher who sells calves for fattening, then you are going to feel that the western ranchers get favors.

Back and forth, back and forth the debate continues.

Now about horses and burros on public lands. Don't waste my time trying to tell me that they graze harder than cattle.

If the equines are in Public Park lands, where no cattle are allowed, then the equines are destroying natural habitat.

But if the horses are on land, where after they are shot, the only change is that now more cattle can be grazed there, then why shoot the horses?

So that a business man can make more money running more cattle on public land, at a lease price of less than what a hiking club would pay to lease the land?

Wild Horses 1

I found myself not in complete agreement with terrierman on the subject of feral horses and burros on government lands.

http://www.terriermandotcom.blogspot.com/
Sat. Nov 21, 2009 - "Sheryl Crow is an Idiot"

Not that I am going to comment on Sheryl - she can speak for herself - but I do want to speak about animals on public lands.

I love natural lands, but life just isn't that simple, and neither is the "multiple use policy" of the BLM (Bureau of Land Management). BLM lands aren't meant to just be for animals, trees, miners, or recreation - it is meant to have multiple uses.

I am NOT an authority, but here it is, as I understand it to be, with my opinion added.

Multiple use means the land does get used a lot - it isn't treated the same way that National PARKS are. Traditionally public lands have been logged, mined, and had cattle grazing on them.
Today, the old policies die hard, but other people than the usual users of land are interested in it. People like to hike, hunt, fish, and play on public land, and some of those people don't want the trees cut down, the land tore up, and they don't want it turned into a feed lot.

That is part of what multiple use is. That is what land management is about. Ranchers are allowed to graze cattle, but not so many that the land becomes a feed lot.

Rules vary from state to state and depend on which agency controls that piece of land. There is federal land, state land, and various agencies control different hunks of land.

Hikers have said that they are legally permitted to hike a piece of land but have been kept off it by the person who only leases the right to run cattle on the land - not the land itself. And that those ranchers run many more cattle than what they are allowed and what they pay to graze there.

Ranchers have said they pay the full amount, never run extra cattle, and the hikers are a problem because they leave gates open.

I'm sure that there are bad ranchers and bad hikers, as well as good ranchers and good hikers.

Back to policy. There have been people who have wanted to pay more than what the ranchers pay to run cattle on public land, just to let the land lay fallow.

In other words, a hiking group might say that for every $100 a rancher will pay to be permitted to run cattle on that piece of pulic land, we will pay $101 to lease it, but we won't run any cattle, we will just let the land recover.

It sounds like a good deal - but not to the rancher. The ranchers have said that being out of business for a year would be too hard on them.

People wanting the land to revert to it's natural state view the rancher as selfishly standing in the way of a whole group of people who would have been able to enjoy the land for generations to come.

From the rancher's point of view: he provides meat for the whole country, and a small group of hikers are selfishly standing in front of Americans and their food supply.