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| In spite of the death toll on native species, federal and state land agencies continue to promote and protect livestock grazing on public lands in the West. Livestock ranching on federal public lands is subsidized to the tune of $100 million annually in direct payments; indirect subsidies may be three times that. Taxpayers are footing the bill for ranchers to run livestock on 270 million acres of federal public land in the 11 western states-an area that represents fully one third of these states' total land area | ||||
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| Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge. 18 years cow-free. Notice the bare dirt on the right side of the fence that separates the grazed land outside of the NWR. |  |
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| Range fencing detrimentally affects wildllife. Here we see a dead Long eared owl entangled in barbed-wire. Owls are nocturnal hunters that cannot see the invisible fencing at night. |  |
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| Appelton Whittell preserve, SE Arizona. The work on Appleton Whittell contrasted a 30+ year cow free area with adjacent grazed areas in which researchers report that grasses in winter on the AW were taller (4.4-fold) and had higher basal area ground cover (2.5-fold), canopy cover (2.2-fold), and reproductive canopy cover (10-fold) than in the grazed area after a drought. 19 species of ground-foraging, seed-eating birds (e.g., doves, quail, sparrows, towhees) were 2.7 times more abundant. Significant differences persisted even after a year of reduced stocking in response to drought on the grazed areas. Bock & Bock, (1993) also found that grass canopy cover was greatest on the ungrazed AW than on adjacent grazed sites. The tallest species showed the greatest height recovery increases in ungrazed plots. |  |
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| Tall grass in the Upper Sonoran Desert. Cow-free for 50 years. |  |
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| San Pedro River, 1984. Heavily grazed riparian area. |  |
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| San Pedro River, 1998. Same location, cow-free for 12 years! |  |
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A project of the Sierra Club and the Center for Biological Diversity
Read the Sierra Club's public lands grazing policy | Read the Center for Biological Diversity's public lands grazing policy
Website developed and maintained by Dylan Edwards - www.dylane.net