My only major problem with ranchers centers around the public discourse and overly romanticized portrayal of them. Whenever in a debate regarding cattle and rangeland health with ranchers or proselytizing pro rancher people they go the “Clayton Mortenson” or other “good actor” rancher route with their argument.
However, whenever I agree with the practices of the good rancher and ask how I can help them make those practices the law and the norm they wane. They tend to use the positive exceptions only to excuse the damaging norm and not as a motivation and catalyst for real change. I always ask, “Is there a bill or policy I can call and make comments on? Is there any action I can do to make the good actor ranchers practice the minimum? Because it sounds great! You’re right. I love it! Let’s do it!” They always balk at that.
I’m not inherently anti-ranching but I have a hard time seeing the industry as a whole as good allies when they claim to have found a better way but refuse to make it the rule and not the exception.
Addition: Also, one’s views of ranchers is hugely dependent on the ecotype they run around and hunt in. I’ve been in areas where the grass is thick, the soil hardy, and cattle roam. If that’s where one lives and hunts they might see the cattle as just benefitting the land and in those areas they may be right. I’ve run around mostly in the arid high desert Great Basin. Where soils are loose, grass sparse, invasives primed, and water holes vulnerable to sedimentation and erosion. There is no plus side to the species there. I have seen completely nuked landscapes and completely destroyed creeks devoid of any fish life. Just from livestock damage. They can be the cure or the poison. I just see the latter more and the rangeland health studies in my area show that as the norm.
