How Cattle Grazing Is Destroying Clean Water and Native Wildlife Habitats
Cattle grazing has been a longstanding tradition in the Western United States, but the practice has become outdated and the preservation of land and wildlife needs to come first.
There are countless documented cases of animals being killed to make way for ranchers who leave an environmentally destructive path in their livestock’s wake.
Grazing cattle can destroy wildlife habitats.
In 2016, almost an entire Washington State wolf pack was killed after cattle were attacked on federal grazing lands known to be the pack’s territory, The Washington Post reports. At the ranchers’ request, the wolves were shot from a helicopter.
Just 4 years later, Washington state wildlife managers killed off an entire pack of wolves that roamed near the Canadian border in the remote Colville National Forest, after ranchers claimed the wolves killed cattle grazing on both private and public land, according to Courthouse News.
Many native animals, like wolves, coyotes and foxes have been killed to protect livestock.
More than 100,000 coyotes, wolves, and bears from Washington down to Nevada are killed each year by Wildlife Services to protect livestock producers, as well as foxes, prairie dogs, and other native species, the Center for Biological Diversity reports.
Meanwhile, ranchers save tons of money by using federal land for grazing instead of buying feed for their livestock.
This puts precious water sources in danger from grazing. Plant life — which feeds and sustains the wildlife in the region — is consumed instead by close-grazing livestock which decimates the careful ecological balance of the prairies, according to the Center for Biological Diversity.
Help us tell the BLM to stop allowing livestock to graze on federally-owned lands.
With native wildlife, plant life, and water sources in danger and being destroyed, the use of federal land for livestock grazing needs to come to a stop immediately. The BLM must also curb the practice of killing animals — some of whom are endangered — to protect those livestock invading the western range.
Click below and help us ask the Bureau of Land Management to end livestock grazing on federal land and protect the precious land and wildlife in the West!
