🚀 go-pugleaf

\\Why is grazing in the Mojave bad?

1) Impact of hooved animals on the desert tortoise through compaction of 
burrows, crushing of the tortoises themselves, and competition for forage.

2) Competition for forage with other, native ungulates.

3) Overstocking of domestic cattle leads to overgrazing, with cascade 
effects on the local plant communities.

4) Cattle trample the few riparian areas in the desert, truncating this 
severely threatened ecosystem.

5) Ranchers are the major political force behind ecologically stupid 
"predator control" and "pest control" policies.

6) You pay the ranchers to run cattle on this land. About 5 percent of US 
beef is produced by western public lands grazing, at a cost several 
times that of eastern or feedlot beef. You pay for roads, stock watering 
tanks, Animal Damage Control, fence repairs, and, if you're lucky, 
restoration of overgrazed desert lands. If all public lands grazing were 
ended, the price of beef would remain the same, and availability would 
not suffer, especially considering changing US eating habits.

7) Cattle damage the fragile cryptogamic soil covering much of the desert.

8) Cattle disrupt the growth of cacti and yuccas by grazing and trampling 
young plants.

9) A fraction of a percent of all desert area employment is provided by 
grazing.

10) Cattle are a reservoir for infectious diseases communicable to native 
ungulates such as the bighorn sheep.

11) Read _Waste of the West_ by Lynn Jacobs for more info.