Cows in the National Forest: It Seems Like a Dung Deal
We turned off the highway and made our mountain trek over several dirt roads before finally arriving at a secluded spot at the edge of the wilderness to camp overnight. My husband, the avid camper, and I, not so much, unloaded our minimal gear and set up camp. I had to admit that what our surroundings lacked in modern amenities, was made up for by the natural setting of flora and fauna. The light of the day was beginning to fade, and we had just enough twilight hours left to prepare a camp meal and enjoy a few moments of relaxation before settling into our tent for a deeply satisfying sleep that can only be found away from city lights and noise.
The next morning there was no need for a raucous alarm clock as sunlight softly began to creep through the nylon walls of our tent. As the intensity of the light grew, the sounds of the forest began to emerge - the whispering of leaves, a distant babbling brook, the chatter of birds and chipmunks, and the nearby clatter of… cowbells? Loud cowbells accompanied by mooing? I peeked my head out of the tent opening to find we were in the national forest surrounded by cows! I was having a moment of what I can only describe as cognitive dissonance. “Why,” I asked my husband, “would we travel so far to be with a bunch of cows?
It was not common knowledge to me at the time that among the animals found in the forest the list included domestic livestock. How did that happen? To me, that equated to having lions in downtown San Francisco. As magnificent and regal as they are, if lions appeared in San Francisco they would probably not be wanted. And people would definitely want to know how they got there. I felt the same about cows being in the national forest.
Upon arriving home, I did what every good researcher does and began an intense search on Google. Apparently, back when the West was being won, with no restrictions in place, ranchers brought herds of cattle into the mountains to graze. The animals were left unattended and roamed freely to their heart’s content. As is often the case when a non-native species is introduced into a habitat, environmental consequences followed. In this instance, the cattle overgrazed forest meadows, trampled streambanks, and crushed delicate ecosystems. In an effort to address the livestock problem and other issues, the U.S. Forest Service was formed in 1905 to oversee the administration of these public lands, now known as national forests. It’s a long and complicated history, but the primary use of federal public lands between 1930 and 1960 was for livestock grazing along with some level of logging. Yet even then, the depletion of the American wilderness was recognized as a problem that needed solving. The Taylor Grazing Act of 1934, the Bankhead-Jones Farm Tenant Act of 1937, and the formation of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) were all attempts to find a resolution. Still, large amounts of federal land were unregulated and open to grazing, and these actions did little to reduce the widescale damage that was happening in the forests.
Then, in the mid-1960s, public use of these federal lands began to change, and the Wilderness Act was passed in 1964. The primary author of the bill, Howard Zahniser, saw the grazing of livestock as a threat to the wilderness areas in the national forests; and while the first draft of the bill explicitly forbade grazing in the wilderness, the language was changed in the final bill to allow grazing and appease the politically powerful livestock and agricultural industries. Zahniser felt that without the language changes to appease cattle interests, the Wilderness Act had no chance of passing.
This long, arduous, and hard-to-follow history is what I found in my search to find out why one morning, far from the nearest dairy or ranch, I woke up in the national forest surrounded by cattle. The historical events continue and get even more complicated after the Wilderness Act was passed. Terminology such as “non-conforming uses” seems to make things even more complex, and the topic broadens to include structures, motorized use, and other possible inclusions under those terms. But for now, we will focus on the cows.
Aside from the obvious frustration of having a herd of cows disrupt my serene camping site, is there really anything wrong with having cows in the national forest? Well, from my perspective, it turns out the answer is “yes, yes, and yes.” Here are a few other ways that the archaic practice of grazing cattle in the national forest is affecting our outdoor resources:
For those of you old enough to remember, it used to be possible to take a sip of water from a mountain stream without worrying about contracting some micro-organism that you can’t even pronounce — like giardia or schistosomiasis. Not anymore…
Why?
Cattle. The water is polluted with cow dung. Well-informed outdoorsmen and women don’t dare take a drink of mountain water without first using a filter. Clearing cows out of the forest would potentially return the water back to pristine conditions within only a season or two.
Many meadows that contain a variety of wildflowers, bushes, and native grasses are being severely overgrazed and damaged.
Why?
Cattle… Vulnerable plants can’t hold up to the constant trampling and pocking caused by cattle hooves. In riparian areas along streams, the wildflowers, willows, ferns, and many other lush plants often get intensely grazed throughout the long grazing season. The damage adds up, year after year, making it difficult for many plants to survive and persist.
Over 136 species of plants have been listed as threatened or endangered due in part to…
You guessed it.
Cattle… The most desirable, tasty plants get eaten by livestock so consistently that they often don’t survive long enough to flower and to produce seeds. In heavily grazed areas, cattle can literally wipe out sensitive plant species.
On national forest lands that are public resources to be passed on to future generations, infestations of invasive, noxious weeds are often introduced by…
Once again, the culprit is often cattle. Non-native plant stickers, burs, and other seeds are brought into public forests by livestock, along with diseases and other parasites, adding to the disruption of the forest ecosystem.
This list is certainly not all-inclusive, but at this point in my investigation, there seemed to be enough evidence to support my initial reaction that cattle did not belong in the forest in the 21st century.
Then, why were those cows out there?
As I further tried to make sense of this perplexing problem, I finally found sites with claims tied to the supposed benefit of livestock presence. Historic tradition is one frequent reason. Another argument for having cows in the forest focuses around the theme of fuel reduction, which is the goal to lessen the severity of wildfires. Fires need fuel to burn, and an often-repeated claim is that cows eat grasses — one of the fuels. I found this claim featured in several articles that promoted the use of cows as a management strategy against widespread and destructive wildfires. This new bit of information made me think that perhaps having cows in the national forest was worth the inconvenience and resource effects if it actually protected the forest from damaging wildfires.
More research, however, led me to countering articles that pointed out that grasses and ground covers, the main food that cattle eat, are just minor fuels when it comes to wildfires. It is the dense brush fields, small trees, and heavily stocked forests that provide the fuels for high severity wildfires. Cattle don’t consume any of those major fuel types. In addition, even in some areas such as the Pacific Southwest, where grasses do allow fires to spread in between the trees, fire scientists point out that the supposed benefits of cattle reducing fire risk varies widely, depending on the ecosystem. And even in heavily grazed forest areas, most national forests will have little fuel reduction benefit.
I am not an expert in the field, nor a research scientist who can come to a conclusion on this matter, but at this point, what I had seen from the weight of the evidence available was that without question or controversy, widespread presence of livestock consistently degrades water quality, damages meadows and streambanks, and conflicts with recreation in national forests. The argument for livestock presence in the national forest as a fuel reduction management system did not solidly hold up to the claims espoused by those with a vested interest when examined by unbiased members of the scientific community. As someone who enjoys the mountains, and wants to protect it for future generations, I had to conclude that cattle in the forest, just like a pride of lions in San Francisco, was not logical.
If you are not particularly into the out-of-doors, this all may be of no interest to you. But actually, allowing cattle in the national forest is still impacting you in a very personal way — your pocketbook. As an American taxpayer, you are subsidizing the degradation of public forests by cattle. The Bureau of Land Management’s administrative costs for the grazing program exceed the fees that are collected from ranchers to the tune of about $100 million a year. To add injury to insult, in 2019 the Trump administration lowered the monthly fees paid for grazing on the national forest from $1.41 to $1.35 for each cow (plus its calf) for a full month in the forest. The federal grazing fees do not even cover the cost of administering the permits. In the words of Erik Molvar of Western Watersheds Project: “American taxpayers are footing the bill for a massive welfare program that degrades our public lands.”
But let’s get back to the reason that I started all of this research. Surrounding our campsite in that remote part of the forest, 30 or 40 cattle were moving wherever they chose. No one was present to herd them or manage them. When they stopped at a stream and deposited cow patties, or when they trampled streambanks, or degraded wildlife habitat — their impacts to the area were being repeated at a huge scale all across America’s public lands. And to top it off, my tax dollars were being used to subsidize this program! Until I was awakened that morning by a cacophony of cow bells, and the aroma of cattle and dust, I had no idea that this was happening in our public lands. If you were in San Francisco, and suddenly came across a pride of lions wandering the streets, would you stay quiet?
To learn more about this topic, check out some of the links below:
Center for Biological Diversity
The Real Price and Consequences of Livestock Grazing on America’s Public Lands
