These are some unbelievably ignorant comments coming from someone who “can claim to be a rancher.”
Would you prefer grazing price for AUMs to be higher? What’s a fair number in your eyes? Because that grass is a highly renewable natural resource. It either gets used or it sits there going to waste waiting to burn. Utilizing it to feed the country is a relatively good alternative, is it not? Who else is doing a better job paying their way for use on public lands?
Cattle prices are at record highs because the US beef herd is at record lows. It’s supply and demand. You claim to own a ranch but it sounds like you don’t have any understanding of the cost of inputs to raise beef in America, which include these grazing permits. This is very long overdue correction in the market. And even now, there sure aren’t many ranchers getting rich off of it. If they were, family ranches wouldn’t be getting sold on a daily basis to corporations and wealthy individuals outside the cattle industry.
I, for one, would hate to see the effect it would have on beef prices if ranchers in the west suddenly could no longer graze on public lands and were relegated to private property. It would absolutely cripple domestic production. That would mean exponentially higher prices and an almost complete reliance on Brazil and Argentina for our beef.
All for what? So we can see a few more deer and elk around? Just because we are hunters doesn’t mean we can be that short sighted.