Cop ''takes care'' of kittens

[mistermack]

It would be perfectly simple to show whether farmers are subsidised or not.
Compare the cost of privately rented grazing to the government charge.
People rent grazing all the time. Many people rent entire farm estates. I doubt if you could get grazing privately, for what the government charges.

[Seth]

They pay a fee per head. How is that welfare?

As of 2013, the fee is $1.35 per head/month. You can't buy a bale of straw for $1.35, much less graze a cow or a sheep on your own land for $16.20/year, so it amounts to a taxpayer-funded subsidy. Welfare pure and simple.

Nah, they just graze on public lands that are otherwise unused, unproductive and cannot be cropped, so they are a net gain to the government. No cattle leases = $0.00 income to the government. Plus, the ranchers have to pay for all the necessary improvements like fences, stock tanks, culverts, irrigation, and whatever else they need to run their cows.

Moreover, cows and sheep are taxpayer-funded ecosystem destroyers and public land ranchers are taxpayer-funded artificially-introduced predators.

Actually, they aren't. This is a common eco-propagandist lie that has no real truth to it. If you compare public rangelands that have been withdrawn from grazing for more than 40 years and rangelands literally right across the fence that have been properly grazed for the same period, the grazed land is almost always in superior condition. The reasons are complex, but basically it has to do with the way that cattle break up the soil crust, spread seed and create pockets that hold rainfall which allows grass to germinate and grow. What you see when you look at the anti-cattle propaganda photos that show broken down streambanks and barren patches and mud holes are very deliberate and carefully sought-out lies that show very small, very limited and very widespread places where the impacts of cattle are concentrated, such as around watering tanks and stream fords and the like. These photos NEVER accurately represent the overall health of the lease ecosystem.

What also goes unsaid by the ecozealots is that natural wildlife does much the same thing in particular places like watering holes and trail choke points. While overgrazing is possible, it's not at all routine because public lands ranchers depend on healthy grasslands for their livelihood, so they take care of them by limiting the numbers of cows and rotating them through different pastures. Not to mention the fact that the government's rangers are always on the lookout for adverse impacts and will happily close down a lease area and demand removal of the cattle if there is any sign of lasting or widespread damage...and sometimes when there is no actual damage at all but rather for political reasons associated with eco-zealotry within the Department of Agriculture.

Any issue of "Range" magazine includes plenty of examples of government abuse and overreach in the public lands stewardship program. Not to mention egregious abuse and unlawful interference with private property in the west.

Isn't it racist to assume that no blacks or hispanics are ranchers?

Not in Sand Point, Idaho or Chugwater, Wyoming...You must be thinking of Lopez Foods, one of McDonald's major meat suppliers and major corporate welfare recipient?

It's completely racist.

[Seth]

It would be perfectly simple to show whether farmers are subsidised or not.
Compare the cost of privately rented grazing to the government charge.
People rent grazing all the time. Many people rent entire farm estates. I doubt if you could get grazing privately, for what the government charges.

It's location dependent. Public lands used for grazing are open undeveloped lands that are suitable for grazing that are not used for any other purpose. They are not tilled or cultivated and the forage is not managed. In other words, ranchers with public lands leases are doing exactly what those public lands are intended for, just like foresters who lease forest lands to harvest renewable crops of trees. This is part of the government's policy of "multiple use" of such suitable public lands.

In managing livestock grazing on public rangelands, the BLM’s overall objective is to ensure the long-term health and productivity of these lands and to create multiple environmental benefits that result from healthy watersheds. The Bureau administers public land ranching in accordance with the Taylor Grazing Act of 1934, and in so doing provides livestock-based economic opportunities in rural communities while contributing to the West’s, and America’s, social fabric and identity. Together, public lands and the adjacent private ranches maintain open spaces in the fast-growing West, provide habitat for wildlife, offer a myriad of recreational opportunities for public land users, and help preserve the character of the rural West.

Grazing use on public lands has declined from 18.2 million AUMs in 1954 to 8.9 million AUMs in 2012.

At $1.35 per AUM, multiplied by 8.9 million AUMs comes out to more than twelve million dollars PER MONTH of income to the Department of the Interior, not all of which goes back into making grazing more productive. Some of it is used for improving recreational opportunities among other things.

Livestock grazing can result in impacts on public land resources, but well-managed grazing provides numerous environmental benefits as well. For example, while livestock grazing can lead to increases in some invasive species, well-managed grazing can be used to manage vegetation. Intensively managed “targeted” grazing can control some invasive plant species or reduce the fuels that contribute to severe wildfires. Besides providing such traditional products as meat and fiber, well-managed rangelands and other private ranch lands support healthy watersheds, carbon sequestration, recreational opportunities, and wildlife habitat. Livestock grazing on public lands helps maintain the private ranches that, in turn, preserve the open spaces that have helped write the West’s history and will continue to shape this region’s character in the years to come.

More can be found here.

[mistermack]

If it wasn't intended as a subsidy, the grazing would be regularly put up for auction, just like other government-owned assets are.

No free market means that someone is getting looked after. If anyone should be getting the benefit, it should be the indigenous people who's ancestors were robbed of it, not farmers who are already rich.
But personally, I think it should be sold at auction for a fixed term. If it's not making the money that it could, the taxpayer is subsidising those who are getting it cheap.

[piscator]

They pay a fee per head. How is that welfare?

As of 2013, the fee is $1.35 per head/month. You can't buy a bale of straw for $1.35, much less graze a cow or a sheep on your own land for $16.20/year, so it amounts to a taxpayer-funded subsidy. Welfare pure and simple.

Nah, they just graze on public lands that are otherwise unused, unproductive and cannot be cropped, so they are a net gain to the government. No cattle leases = $0.00 income to the government. Plus, the ranchers have to pay for all the necessary improvements like fences, stock tanks, culverts, irrigation, and whatever else they need to run their cows.

No cattle leases=no $40M BLM & USFS infrastructure to (poorly) manage cattle leases=net gain to taxpayer.

Moreover, cows and sheep are taxpayer-funded ecosystem destroyers and public land ranchers are taxpayer-funded artificially-introduced predators.

Actually, they aren't. This is a common eco-propagandist lie that has no real truth to it. If you compare public rangelands that have been withdrawn from grazing for more than 40 years and rangelands literally right across the fence that have been properly grazed for the same period, the grazed land is almost always in superior condition.

For creating dust storms and strawmen. Few cattlemen treat Public Land like their own, and those that do usually block public access, dump chemicals, and dam streams on it.

And just what do you mean by "Superior condition" anyway? Superior condition to monocrop cattle at taxpayer expense?

The reasons are complex, but basically it has to do with the way that cattle break up the soil crust, spread seed and create pockets that hold rainfall which allows grass to germinate and grow.

I like the vast background in this pic...

...and how it shows the carrying capacity of the 14 Sections it includes after a 100 years of the stewardship of rationally self-interested cattlemen.

To paraphrase Seth, '...basically it has to do with the way that cattle compact water-holding soil crust to create high runoff velocites, spread wheat and corn seed in cow shit, and create hog wallows in what were once functional stream banks that hold rainfall and urine which allows invasive nonative species to germinate and grow.

What you see when you look at the anti-cattle propaganda photos that show broken down streambanks and barren patches and mud holes are very deliberate and carefully sought-out lies that show very small, very limited and very widespread places where the impacts of cattle are concentrated, such as around watering tanks and stream fords and the like.

Like cattle only ford streams at approved crossings....Turns out a lot of these riparian areas, while small in relation to most of the high deserts of the American West, are vital to the ecology and all the other "nonproductive" (wild) fauna and flora. Or rather, used to be until the cattle fucked it all up. Same with the underground aquifers that cattlemen exploit while trying to make a go of raising cattle in the fucking desert.
I suppose next Seth will gallop along extolling the virtues of vast areas of stomped down cattle-compacted topsoil. Oops. He already has...

These photos NEVER accurately represent the overall health of the lease ecosystem.

But you do?
The only way to develop a baseline for the health of a natural ecosystem is to get the fkn cows off it.

What also goes unsaid by the ecozealots is that natural wildlife does much the same thing in particular places like watering holes and trail choke points.

Like between cattle fences and gas drilling pads?
Srsly, there haven't been enough buffalo to fuck up much cattle forage land since the 1870s. Or are you just whining about pronghorn and deer congregating around stock tanks since the streams went dry or got choked with cow shit?

While overgrazing is possible, it's not at all routine because public lands ranchers depend on healthy grasslands for their livelihood, so they take care of them by limiting the numbers of cows and rotating them through different pastures.

"More than 410 million acres of U.S. rangelands-public and private-are in unsatisfactory ecological condition, according to an estimate by the Natural Resources Conservation Service. This is an area four times the size of California, or 21 percent of the continental United States, and nearly all of it is in the West. These lands are severely damaged, with at least 50 percent of the desirable plant species eliminated, high erosion and weed invasion rates, and riparian areas unable to function normally.

Although public lands usually get more attention from the media, statistics compiled by the Natural Resources Conservation Service indicate that more total acres and a higher percentage of private lands in the West are in unsatisfactory condition as compared with public rangelands. This is particularly egregious in that private lands tend to be more productive and better watered than public lands-hence more resilient to livestock abuses.

In truth, ranchers are fighting an impossible battle against the natural limitations of the landscape. The West is not only an arid region but one in which annual precipitation varies widely. The amount of precipitation that falls in a year is directly reflected in the amount of grass production, meaning that forage quantity varies widely from year to year as well. This makes it very difficult for ranchers to maintain a stable business operation while also managing herds so as not to damage the land.

To be a good steward, ideally one not only must have a sense of responsibility and concern for the land-as many ranchers do-but also must treat the land in a way that conserves its fertility, productivity, diversity, and beauty for the future. Yet by raising domestic animals that demand large quantities of water and forage in a place that is dry, and by favoring slow-moving, heavy, and relatively defenseless livestock in terrain that is rugged, vast, and inhabited by native predators, ranchers have put themselves in a position of constant warfare with the land. They funnel most of the grass into their own animals, at the expense of the wild herbivores. They divert water from rivers to grow hay and other crops to feed cows, leaving fish and other aquatic life with hot, shallow trickles. They allow their cattle to graze and trample riparian areas-habitat on which 75 to 80 percent of all wild animal species in the West depend-polluting waterways with manure and adding excessive sediments to the water as they denude the land. And although "beauty is in the eye of the beholder," it's arguable whether most people would prefer a place where the grass is chewed down to stubs and the ground is littered with cow pies, over a grassland of tall and waving stems, dotted with wildflowers."

Not to mention the fact that the government's rangers are always on the lookout for adverse impacts and will happily close down a lease area and demand removal of the cattle if there is any sign of lasting or widespread damage...and sometimes when there is no actual damage at all but rather for political reasons associated with eco-zealotry within the Department of Agriculture.

That's just the thing about grazing your cattle on the Commons: "Rational self-interest" demands grabbing the most one can in the shortest possible time, before someone else gets it.
Someone has to step in and break up the gang rape before it gets really ugly, usually at taxpayer expense. Us taxpayers that fund that on our Public Lands call it, "Enlightened self interest".

Any issue of "Range" magazine includes plenty of examples of government abuse and overreach in the public lands stewardship program. Not to mention egregious abuse and unlawful interference with private property in the west.

I'm touched. Really. But the best way to avoid all that pesky government interference is to get off the welfare and run all your cows on your own fee estate. It's your free choice, and it's fee simple!

[JimC]

Kittens have evolved into grazing bovids...

Well I never!

[piscator]

Kittens have evolved into grazing bovids...

Well I never!

[Seth]

If it wasn't intended as a subsidy, the grazing would be regularly put up for auction, just like other government-owned assets are.

What do you mean? Mineral rights are auctioned, but once auctioned the buyer has perpetual rights to the minerals. The nature of grazing requires that someone who owns lands adjacent required for the other aspects of cattle production, so the leases, many of which have been in place for generations, are considered property rights because without them the ranch involved would not be able to continue in business. What you suggest would simply consolidate public land leases in the hands of major corporate beef producers who can afford to truck cattle to and from remote leases and it would destroy the family ranch system that has many benefits for the area that absentee lessees do not provide. For an anti-corporatist you seem to favor corporate control of rangeland ranching.

No free market means that someone is getting looked after.

Obviously you've never ranched cattle. Having a grazing lease is no guarantee of success in the cattle business, it just makes it possible to run a ranch surrounded by public lands. But without access to the public lands for grazing (for which the rancher pays the statutory lease fee created by Congress) every one of those small ranches would go out of business immediately, which would have a domino effect on local economies all over the west, and would, like the spotted owl regs have, destroy entire communities by wiping out the source of income that belongs as much to the people of the community as it does anyone else.

If anyone should be getting the benefit, it should be the indigenous people who's ancestors were robbed of it, not farmers who are already rich.

Like I said, it's obvious that you've never set foot on a ranch and have not the slightest clue of how things work. The "indigenous people" you refer to can and do own cattle leases, along with large tracts of land that they hold sovereign control over.

But personally, I think it should be sold at auction for a fixed term. If it's not making the money that it could, the taxpayer is subsidising those who are getting it cheap.

Well, the government likes grazing because it's good for the land, and Congress has said that grazing leases, like timber and oil/gas leases, exist for the purpose of making productive use of those federal lands, and that it's not "highest bidder" takes all. Several anti-cattle ecozealot organizations have tried to outbid on leases (which do in fact come up for auction and are limited in time) so that they can remove cattle and let the land lay fallow, but the law does not allow this, and gives preference to people who can (and do) actually make productive use of the land, because Congress recognizes that grazing provides many benefits for public lands and that laying it fallow may in many cases actually degrade habitat and water quality.

[piscator]

If it wasn't intended as a subsidy, the grazing would be regularly put up for auction, just like other government-owned assets are.

What do you mean? Mineral rights are auctioned, but once auctioned the buyer has perpetual rights to the minerals.

Wat? You must be talking about oil leases on Federal Reservations, which run for a fixed time period...

Federal grazing leases are available to local landowners only, and are based on their private holdings. So they primarily benefit large operations, mostly corporate.

[Seth]

They pay a fee per head. How is that welfare?

As of 2013, the fee is $1.35 per head/month. You can't buy a bale of straw for $1.35, much less graze a cow or a sheep on your own land for $16.20/year, so it amounts to a taxpayer-funded subsidy. Welfare pure and simple.

Nah, they just graze on public lands that are otherwise unused, unproductive and cannot be cropped, so they are a net gain to the government. No cattle leases = $0.00 income to the government. Plus, the ranchers have to pay for all the necessary improvements like fences, stock tanks, culverts, irrigation, and whatever else they need to run their cows.

No cattle leases=no $40M BLM & USFS infrastructure to (poorly) manage cattle leases=net gain to taxpayer.

Er, public lands have to be managed whether or not cattle are grazed on them, so removing cattle reduces income which offsets the required costs of management

Moreover, cows and sheep are taxpayer-funded ecosystem destroyers and public land ranchers are taxpayer-funded artificially-introduced predators.

Actually, they aren't. This is a common eco-propagandist lie that has no real truth to it. If you compare public rangelands that have been withdrawn from grazing for more than 40 years and rangelands literally right across the fence that have been properly grazed for the same period, the grazed land is almost always in superior condition.

For creating dust storms and strawmen. Few cattlemen treat Public Land like their own, and those that do usually block public access, dump chemicals, and dam streams on it.

Lie.

And just what do you mean by "Superior condition" anyway? Superior condition to monocrop cattle at taxpayer expense?

Superior condition to ungrazed public lands.

The reasons are complex, but basically it has to do with the way that cattle break up the soil crust, spread seed and create pockets that hold rainfall which allows grass to germinate and grow.

I like the vast background in this pic...

...and how it shows the carrying capacity of the 14 Sections it includes after a 100 years of the stewardship of rationally self-interested cattlemen.

Typical propagandistic disinformation. What you see around the stock tanks pictured has nothing to do with the quality of the rest of the pasturage, nor does the propaganda include comparison photographs to similar public lands that have not been grazed for a long time, which are inevitably in worse condition, as has been proven time and time again by actual range scientists, which is why the BLM says what it says about public lands ranching.

To paraphrase Seth, '...basically it has to do with the way that cattle compact water-holding soil crust to create high runoff velocites, spread wheat and corn seed in cow shit, and create hog wallows in what were once functional stream banks that hold rainfall and urine which allows invasive nonative species to germinate and grow.

Um, range cattle aren't fed corn and wheat. You're drinking the anti-cattle Kool-Aid and your ignorance is manifest.

What you see when you look at the anti-cattle propaganda photos that show broken down streambanks and barren patches and mud holes are very deliberate and carefully sought-out lies that show very small, very limited and very widespread places where the impacts of cattle are concentrated, such as around watering tanks and stream fords and the like.

Like cattle only ford streams at approved crossings....Turns out a lot of these riparian areas, while small in relation to most of the high deserts of the American West, are vital to the ecology and all the other "nonproductive" (wild) fauna and flora. Or rather, used to be until the cattle fucked it all up. Same with the underground aquifers that cattlemen exploit while trying to make a go of raising cattle in the fucking desert.
I suppose next Seth will gallop along extolling the virtues of vast areas of stomped down cattle-compacted topsoil. Oops. He already has...

More propagandistic disinformation that amounts to ignorant lies.

These photos NEVER accurately represent the overall health of the lease ecosystem.

But you do?
The only way to develop a baseline for the health of a natural ecosystem is to get the fkn cows off it.

You're wrong, and the BLM knows it, as does every public-lands rancher out there. There are plenty of withdrawn areas that haven't been grazed in 40 or more years and are often right on the other side of a fence from grazed pastureland, and comparison photos clearly show the grazed lands to be in better condition than the ungrazed ones.

Here's one example of "wilderness ethic" disaster for public lands in progress.

Here's a great example of how zealots in the government set out to destroy ranchers.

What also goes unsaid by the ecozealots is that natural wildlife does much the same thing in particular places like watering holes and trail choke points.

Like between cattle fences and gas drilling pads?
Srsly, there haven't been enough buffalo to fuck up much cattle forage land since the 1870s. Or are you just whining about pronghorn and deer congregating around stock tanks since the streams went dry or got choked with cow shit?

I'm saying that your allegations are untrue.

While overgrazing is possible, it's not at all routine because public lands ranchers depend on healthy grasslands for their livelihood, so they take care of them by limiting the numbers of cows and rotating them through different pastures.

"More than 410 million acres of U.S. rangelands-public and private-are in unsatisfactory ecological condition, according to an estimate by the Natural Resources Conservation Service. This is an area four times the size of California, or 21 percent of the continental United States, and nearly all of it is in the West. These lands are severely damaged, with at least 50 percent of the desirable plant species eliminated, high erosion and weed invasion rates, and riparian areas unable to function normally.

Although public lands usually get more attention from the media, statistics compiled by the Natural Resources Conservation Service indicate that more total acres and a higher percentage of private lands in the West are in unsatisfactory condition as compared with public rangelands. This is particularly egregious in that private lands tend to be more productive and better watered than public lands-hence more resilient to livestock abuses.

In truth, ranchers are fighting an impossible battle against the natural limitations of the landscape. The West is not only an arid region but one in which annual precipitation varies widely. The amount of precipitation that falls in a year is directly reflected in the amount of grass production, meaning that forage quantity varies widely from year to year as well. This makes it very difficult for ranchers to maintain a stable business operation while also managing herds so as not to damage the land.

To be a good steward, ideally one not only must have a sense of responsibility and concern for the land-as many ranchers do-but also must treat the land in a way that conserves its fertility, productivity, diversity, and beauty for the future. Yet by raising domestic animals that demand large quantities of water and forage in a place that is dry, and by favoring slow-moving, heavy, and relatively defenseless livestock in terrain that is rugged, vast, and inhabited by native predators, ranchers have put themselves in a position of constant warfare with the land. They funnel most of the grass into their own animals, at the expense of the wild herbivores. They divert water from rivers to grow hay and other crops to feed cows, leaving fish and other aquatic life with hot, shallow trickles. They allow their cattle to graze and trample riparian areas-habitat on which 75 to 80 percent of all wild animal species in the West depend-polluting waterways with manure and adding excessive sediments to the water as they denude the land. And although "beauty is in the eye of the beholder," it's arguable whether most people would prefer a place where the grass is chewed down to stubs and the ground is littered with cow pies, over a grassland of tall and waving stems, dotted with wildflowers."

More propaganda. What happens to grasslands that are left ungrazed is that they deterioriate. Grasslands flourish with grazing and that's simply a fact of nature. Federal forage allotments are overseen by the federal government, which has no compunctions at all about withdrawing a grazing allotment from use if signs of overuse are present. Many of the areas that are "unsatisfactory" are places where there has been no cattle grazing for decades. Unsurprisingly to those who understand range science, these areas recover when cattle are grazed on them.

Not to mention the fact that the government's rangers are always on the lookout for adverse impacts and will happily close down a lease area and demand removal of the cattle if there is any sign of lasting or widespread damage...and sometimes when there is no actual damage at all but rather for political reasons associated with eco-zealotry within the Department of Agriculture.

That's just the thing about grazing your cattle on the Commons: "Rational self-interest" demands grabbing the most one can in the shortest possible time, before someone else gets it.

Except that's not how it works. And that's part of the reason WHY public lands forage leases give preference to adjacent ranch owners. You see, when you operate a ranch for generation after generation the LAST thing you want to do is go out and "rape" the land and destroy its forage productivity for a short-term profit. Public lands rancher are good stewards of the grassland and forage environment because they must be in order to survive. It is public lands ranchers who do the most to keep grazing lands productive through a lot of hard work, which includes controlling invasive species, preserving and protecting water supplies and properly managing cattle rotation. Unlike the lies you purvey here, public lands ranching is not a free-for-all that goes unregulated or unsupervised. That might have been the case in 1870, but not today. If a rancher destroys the carrying capacity of his lease then he can't raise cattle on it because there is no forage, and it's not like he is going to load up his herd and move on to another bit of public property to "rape" it. He's stuck with his historical allotments and can't run cows anywhere else, so it is in his rational self interest to carefully maintain the productive capacity of the land, which benefits everyone and everything.

Someone has to step in and break up the gang rape before it gets really ugly, usually at taxpayer expense. Us taxpayers that fund that on our Public Lands call it, "Enlightened self interest".

Too late. Public lands ranchers have already stepped in to do exactly what you want done: manage public lands to enhance habitat and environmental values. They've been doing it for more than a century now.

Any issue of "Range" magazine includes plenty of examples of government abuse and overreach in the public lands stewardship program. Not to mention egregious abuse and unlawful interference with private property in the west.

I'm touched. Really. But the best way to avoid all that pesky government interference is to get off the welfare and run all your cows on your own fee estate. It's your free choice, and it's fee simple!

Well, that's exactly how I did it my whole life, without a dime from the government for anything at all. But there's a lot of public lands out there that need management and stewardship that are best served by local ranchers running cows on it, which is why they are allowed to do so. It's a win-win relationship and the feds make a lot of money that goes towards all sorts of public lands management far beyond that required on ranched public lands.

[Seth]

If it wasn't intended as a subsidy, the grazing would be regularly put up for auction, just like other government-owned assets are.

What do you mean? Mineral rights are auctioned, but once auctioned the buyer has perpetual rights to the minerals.

Wat? You must be talking about oil leases on Federal Reservations, which run for a fixed time period...

Federal grazing leases are available to local landowners only, and are based on their private holdings. So they primarily benefit large operations, mostly corporate.

Wrong. A lease is a lease and while grazing allotments are considered "property rights" that accrue to historic users the government can and does cancel leases, and it issues restrictions on grazing on leases, as required by the ecological condition of the specific allotment. During periods of drought where grazing will be harmful allotments are closed or limited to preserve the condition. And given a valid reason, an allotment can be withdraw from being leased entirely. The main reason that grazing leases are heritable to the land is that most of those ranches have been in operation since long before the public lands management system even existed, so they constitute an ongoing "grandfathered" conditional use.

And it is not always the case that allotments are based only on adjacent private holdings. Many allotments require that cattle be driven to the range, and the laws regarding the right to drive cattle are quite old. One interesting example is DeBeque Canyon on the Colorado River between DeBeque and Palisade, east of Grand Junction. Historically ranchers in the Grand Valley drove cattle through the canyon to the DeBeque area for the summer, and when I-70 was built through the canyon it destroyed the traditional cattle drive trail. The federal government had to permit cattle owners who wished to do so to drive their cattle ON THE INTERSTATE through the canyon twice a year as a condition of building the highway. Now that hasn't happened but once, right after the highway was completed, but the right still exists.

So, once again you don't know what the fuck you're talking about.

[piscator]

They pay a fee per head. How is that welfare?

As of 2013, the fee is $1.35 per head/month. You can't buy a bale of straw for $1.35, much less graze a cow or a sheep on your own land for $16.20/year, so it amounts to a taxpayer-funded subsidy. Welfare pure and simple.

Nah, they just graze on public lands that are otherwise unused, unproductive and cannot be cropped, so they are a net gain to the government. No cattle leases = $0.00 income to the government. Plus, the ranchers have to pay for all the necessary improvements like fences, stock tanks, culverts, irrigation, and whatever else they need to run their cows.

No cattle leases=no $40M BLM & USFS infrastructure to (poorly) manage cattle leases=net gain to taxpayer.

Er, public lands have to be managed whether or not cattle are grazed on them, so removing cattle reduces income which offsets the required costs of management

Removing cattle reduces the additional costs of managing welfare cattle ranchers.

Moreover, cows and sheep are taxpayer-funded ecosystem destroyers and public land ranchers are taxpayer-funded artificially-introduced predators.

And just what do you mean by "Superior condition" anyway? Superior condition to monocrop cattle at taxpayer expense?

Superior condition to ungrazed public lands.

So "Superior for cattle ranching" is what you're talking about. Biodiversity just gets in your way.

I like the vast background in this pic...

...and how it shows the carrying capacity of the 14 Sections it includes after a 100 years of the stewardship of rationally self-interested cattlemen.

Typical propagandistic disinformation.

So you're saying that pic's a Photoshop? Or are you saying that pic is of private land?

To paraphrase Seth, '...basically it has to do with the way that cattle compact water-holding soil crust to create high runoff velocites, spread wheat and corn seed in cow shit, and create hog wallows in what were once functional stream banks that hold rainfall and urine which allows invasive nonative species to germinate and grow.

Um, range cattle aren't fed corn and wheat. You're drinking the anti-cattle Kool-Aid and your ignorance is manifest.

So you're saying they just run around eating all the wild stuff and happily compacting soil and conscientiously eschewing streambeds until it's time to round them up and run them through a sale, and that this benefits the land? A lot of welfare ranchers supplement range forage with grain and hay.

What you see when you look at the anti-cattle propaganda photos that show broken down streambanks and barren patches and mud holes are very deliberate and carefully sought-out lies that show very small, very limited and very widespread places where the impacts of cattle are concentrated, such as around watering tanks and stream fords and the like.

Like cattle only ford streams at approved crossings....Turns out a lot of these riparian areas, while small in relation to most of the high deserts of the American West, are vital to the ecology and all the other "nonproductive" (wild) fauna and flora. Or rather, used to be until the cattle fucked it all up. Same with the underground aquifers that cattlemen exploit while trying to make a go of raising cattle in the fucking desert.
I suppose next Seth will gallop along extolling the virtues of vast areas of stomped down cattle-compacted topsoil. Oops. He already has...

More propagandistic disinformation that amounts to ignorant lies.

What an imaginative and well-reasoned retort! Thank you for your thoughtful and rational debate.

These photos NEVER accurately represent the overall health of the lease ecosystem.

But you do?
The only way to develop a baseline for the health of a natural ecosystem is to get the fkn cows off it.

You're wrong, and the BLM knows it, as does every public-lands rancher out there. There are plenty of withdrawn areas that haven't been grazed in 40 or more years and are often right on the other side of a fence from grazed pastureland, and comparison photos clearly show the grazed lands to be in better condition than the ungrazed ones.

Like we've established, when you say "Better", you mean, "Better for raising cows to make $$", which is not only your chauvinistic opinion as a cattle rancher, but implies you look upon wild things in wild places as "waste", and "opportunity costs".
Besides, don't you think it's a little unreasonable to demand that one photo "Accurately represent the overall health of the lease ecosystem" in the three or four states I mentioned?

What also goes unsaid by the ecozealots is that natural wildlife does much the same thing in particular places like watering holes and trail choke points.

Like between cattle fences and gas drilling pads?
Srsly, there haven't been enough buffalo to fuck up much cattle forage land since the 1870s. Or are you just whining about pronghorn and deer congregating around stock tanks since the streams went dry or got choked with cow shit?

I'm saying that your allegations are untrue.

How so? That deer, elk, and antelope tracks are somehow bad for the land, but cow tracks are good? That buffalo and elk wallows somehow diminish wildlands, but cows destroying streams are beneficial to leased range?

While overgrazing is possible, it's not at all routine because public lands ranchers depend on healthy grasslands for their livelihood, so they take care of them by limiting the numbers of cows and rotating them through different pastures.

"More than 410 million acres of U.S. rangelands-public and private-are in unsatisfactory ecological condition, according to an estimate by the Natural Resources Conservation Service. This is an area four times the size of California, or 21 percent of the continental United States, and nearly all of it is in the West. These lands are severely damaged, with at least 50 percent of the desirable plant species eliminated, high erosion and weed invasion rates, and riparian areas unable to function normally.

Although public lands usually get more attention from the media, statistics compiled by the Natural Resources Conservation Service indicate that more total acres and a higher percentage of private lands in the West are in unsatisfactory condition as compared with public rangelands. This is particularly egregious in that private lands tend to be more productive and better watered than public lands-hence more resilient to livestock abuses.

In truth, ranchers are fighting an impossible battle against the natural limitations of the landscape. The West is not only an arid region but one in which annual precipitation varies widely. The amount of precipitation that falls in a year is directly reflected in the amount of grass production, meaning that forage quantity varies widely from year to year as well. This makes it very difficult for ranchers to maintain a stable business operation while also managing herds so as not to damage the land.

To be a good steward, ideally one not only must have a sense of responsibility and concern for the land-as many ranchers do-but also must treat the land in a way that conserves its fertility, productivity, diversity, and beauty for the future. Yet by raising domestic animals that demand large quantities of water and forage in a place that is dry, and by favoring slow-moving, heavy, and relatively defenseless livestock in terrain that is rugged, vast, and inhabited by native predators, ranchers have put themselves in a position of constant warfare with the land. They funnel most of the grass into their own animals, at the expense of the wild herbivores. They divert water from rivers to grow hay and other crops to feed cows, leaving fish and other aquatic life with hot, shallow trickles. They allow their cattle to graze and trample riparian areas-habitat on which 75 to 80 percent of all wild animal species in the West depend-polluting waterways with manure and adding excessive sediments to the water as they denude the land. And although "beauty is in the eye of the beholder," it's arguable whether most people would prefer a place where the grass is chewed down to stubs and the ground is littered with cow pies, over a grassland of tall and waving stems, dotted with wildflowers."

More propaganda. What happens to grasslands that are left ungrazed is that they deterioriate. Grasslands flourish with grazing and that's simply a fact of nature. Federal forage allotments are overseen by the federal government, which has no compunctions at all about withdrawing a grazing allotment from use if signs of overuse are present. Many of the areas that are "unsatisfactory" are places where there has been no cattle grazing for decades. Unsurprisingly to those who understand range science, these areas recover when cattle are grazed on them.

That's why ranchers have to move cattle off a piece of land after they eat everything edible. That's why the Federal government has to step in and take land out of the grazing programs to let it recover.
The fact is that grasslands only recover after the cows get gone. Not while they're there eating everything down to the ground.

Not to mention the fact that the government's rangers are always on the lookout for adverse impacts and will happily close down a lease area and demand removal of the cattle if there is any sign of lasting or widespread damage...and sometimes when there is no actual damage at all but rather for political reasons associated with eco-zealotry within the Department of Agriculture.

That's just the thing about grazing your cattle on the Commons: "Rational self-interest" demands grabbing the most one can in the shortest possible time, before someone else gets it.

Except that's not how it works. And that's part of the reason WHY public lands forage leases give preference to adjacent ranch owners. You see, when you operate a ranch for generation after generation the LAST thing you want to do is go out and "rape" the land and destroy its forage productivity for a short-term profit.

Unless it's not yours and you need the $$. Then it pays to be short-sighted.

Public lands rancher are good stewards of the grassland and forage environment because they must be in order to survive. It is public lands ranchers who do the most to keep grazing lands productive through a lot of hard work, which includes controlling invasive species, preserving and protecting water supplies and properly managing cattle rotation. Unlike the lies you purvey here, public lands ranching is not a free-for-all that goes unregulated or unsupervised. That might have been the case in 1870, but not today. If a rancher destroys the carrying capacity of his lease then he can't raise cattle on it because there is no forage, and it's not like he is going to load up his herd and move on to another bit of public property to "rape" it. He's stuck with his historical allotments and can't run cows anywhere else, so it is in his rational self interest to carefully maintain the productive capacity of the land, which benefits everyone and everything.

And this is why 21% of the Continental United States- public and private -are in unsatisfactory ecological condition due to cattle ranching?

Someone has to step in and break up the gang rape before it gets really ugly, usually at taxpayer expense. Us taxpayers that fund that on our Public Lands call it, "Enlightened self interest".

Too late. Public lands ranchers have already stepped in to do exactly what you want done: manage public lands to enhance habitat and environmental values. They've been doing it for more than a century now.

And with such fine results! For cows...sometimes.

Any issue of "Range" magazine includes plenty of examples of government abuse and overreach in the public lands stewardship program. Not to mention egregious abuse and unlawful interference with private property in the west.

I'm touched. Really. But the best way to avoid all that pesky government interference is to get off the welfare and run all your cows on your own fee estate. It's your free choice, and it's fee simple!

...the feds make a lot of money that goes towards all sorts of public lands management far beyond that required on ranched public lands.

It's a pittance, and it doesn't even begin to pay for the thousands of skilled people it takes to keep the destruction in something resembling control. Regardless of what some ranching propaganda rag cherry picks.

And if you want to compare welfare ranching to the revenue generated keeping wildlands wild, just look at the news from a couple months ago:

"WASHINGTON -- Local economies in the communities that border national parks are expected to lose as much as $30 million a day as a result of the government shutdown, according to an analysis from the National Parks Conservation Association, the nonprofit advocacy group that supports the park system.

The closures are clearly bad for anyone who works in the parks or who may have planned a family vacation to one of the 401 national parks across the country. But in towns near park entrances, the shutdown also affects businesses, including grocery stores, camping supply stores, equipment rental services, restaurants and hotels that rely on tourist traffic to the parks. (See a list of 13 parks you won't be able to visit because of the shutdown.)"

Cheap grazing leases amount to government subsidy. So the next time you get the mean and retributive idea to put welfare recipients to work killing urban rats for $0.10/rat tail, start with public land ranchers who've been collecting welfare for so many generations, they've built a regional culture out of it.

[Warren Dew]

It's a pittance, and it doesn't even begin to pay for the thousands of skilled people it takes to keep the destruction in something resembling control.

It's amazing America wasn't a barren wasteland when the Europeans got here, what with millenia of uncontrolled destruction by wild ungulates. Good thing for the indians that thousands of skilled Europeans got here in time, eh?

Of course, if you believe in that evolution junk, prairie is actually adapted to being grazed on. I guess that's too far fetched an idea to bring up.

[Seth]

No cattle leases=no $40M BLM & USFS infrastructure to (poorly) manage cattle leases=net gain to taxpayer.

Er, public lands have to be managed whether or not cattle are grazed on them, so removing cattle reduces income which offsets the required costs of management

Removing cattle reduces the additional costs of managing welfare cattle ranchers.

It also removes the revenue generated which is much greater than the costs of managing ranchers.

Moreover, cows and sheep are taxpayer-funded ecosystem destroyers and public land ranchers are taxpayer-funded artificially-introduced predators.

And just what do you mean by "Superior condition" anyway? Superior condition to monocrop cattle at taxpayer expense?

Superior condition to ungrazed public lands.

So "Superior for cattle ranching" is what you're talking about. Biodiversity just gets in your way.

Biodiversity and habit for wild animals are improved by proper grazing techniques. So no, you're still wrong.

I like the vast background in this pic...

...and how it shows the carrying capacity of the 14 Sections it includes after a 100 years of the stewardship of rationally self-interested cattlemen.

Typical propagandistic disinformation.

So you're saying that pic's a Photoshop? Or are you saying that pic is of private land?

Could be both, it's not at all unusual for eco-zealots to do such things. But the point is that the barrenness of the ground immediately around the stock tank doesn't represent the quality of the forage in even the mid background, much less across the entirely of the "14 Sections" you allude to. Heavy use around stock tanks is an anticipated condition and it's acceptable because of its very limited scope. As I said, it's precisely those sorts of disingenuous photos that are used as mendaciously false propaganda by the anti-cattle zealots. Walk 200 yards in any direction and take another photo and you won't even see the stock tanks much less the barren area. Given the general appearance of the shot, it looks like sagebrush country that's well maintained. The sagebrush is not over-tall or decadent and I can clearly see a green tinge in the open areas that indicates the growth of forage vegetation. And the claim that three cows and one calf represents the carrying capacity of "14 Sections" (8960 acres) is ludicrously false and constitutes a deliberate lie.

To paraphrase Seth, '...basically it has to do with the way that cattle compact water-holding soil crust to create high runoff velocites, spread wheat and corn seed in cow shit, and create hog wallows in what were once functional stream banks that hold rainfall and urine which allows invasive nonative species to germinate and grow.

Um, range cattle aren't fed corn and wheat. You're drinking the anti-cattle Kool-Aid and your ignorance is manifest.

So you're saying they just run around eating all the wild stuff and happily compacting soil and conscientiously eschewing streambeds until it's time to round them up and run them through a sale, and that this benefits the land?

They don't compact soil, they till it, except at the few places where they tend to congregate like cattle tanks. And streambed damage is usually limited to crossings, which again are very small in scope, since cattle tend to travel in herds and when not grazing generally follow a narrow trail or set of trails through the brush. Where streamside bank impacts are significant the BLM (not to mention the ranchers...like me) put in drift fences along streams to guide cattle to specific crossings where such impacts can be minimized and concentrated in a small area. And in the shot you post as an example, it doesn't look like there are any stream beds at all. So again, you're being deliberately mendacious.

A lot of welfare ranchers supplement range forage with grain and hay.

Don't know of any who use grain on public lands, and any hay they feed by law must be certified weed-free. And so what? Feeding hay means scattering grass seed for the next spring. That's a good thing.

What an imaginative and well-reasoned retort! Thank you for your thoughtful and rational debate.

You're very welcome. I try to respond with the appropriate rebuttal information whenever I can. Sadly, the argument you provided didn't warrant any more detailed response.

These photos NEVER accurately represent the overall health of the lease ecosystem.

But you do?

Having been a cattle rancher (not a public lands one) for most of my life I'd say emphatically yes.

Like we've established, when you say "Better", you mean, "Better for raising cows to make $$", which is not only your chauvinistic opinion as a cattle rancher, but implies you look upon wild things in wild places as "waste", and "opportunity costs".

Well, as it turns out, a hundred years of cattle ranching has proven that cattle ranching is beneficial to the environment, which happens to include wildlife habitat and natural vegetation. You see, cattle ranching and "wild things" are not at all incompatible uses. I personally created dense, vigorous riparian wildlife habitat on my ranch through good management practices that supports all manner of animals, insects and vegetation in a wide spectrum of biodiversity that didn't exist when the ranch was bought. At that time (1960) it was indeed damaged, overgrazed pasture with few trees and even less forage which was caused by irresponsible management by the previous owners. My family put a stop to that immediately and over the ensuing 50 years the ranch became a jewels of habitat preservation and good stewardship. Believe me, the prairie dogs caused far more harm to the habitat than the cows ever did, which is why I had to cull them every year to keep their impacts in balance with the capacity of the land to host them.

Your false mischaracterization of public lands ranchers as universally rapacious and detrimental to public lands values is belied by the BLM and Department of the Interior itself, which is responsible for supervising and regulating such uses.

Besides, don't you think it's a little unreasonable to demand that one photo "Accurately represent the overall health of the lease ecosystem" in the three or four states I mentioned?

You're the one who posted the photo falsely claiming that it represented the actual carrying capacity and overall condition of "14 Sections" of land (we still don't know if it's private or public because you failed to identify it).

I'm saying that your allegations are untrue.

How so? That deer, elk, and antelope tracks are somehow bad for the land, but cow tracks are good? That buffalo and elk wallows somehow diminish wildlands, but cows destroying streams are beneficial to leased range?

Exactly the opposite. Cattle grazed properly in accordance with law and regulation are no more harmful on a per capita basis than deer, elk, antelope and buffalo, and in places where native species are infrequently found they are actually beneficial to the ecosystem because they do exactly the same thing that wild animals do: they improve grass and forb health by breaking up the crust that prevents seeds from being covered with soil so they will germinate and they leave imprints that act like micro-planting pots which hold water long after the rain stops, which allows seeds to germinate in the tracks themselves rather than being either washed away or being unable to germinate because they are sitting on top of the hard crust that forms on the soil over time when it's not tilled by hooved animals. As I said, there are plenty of comparative photographs in Range showing old, decadent sagebrush areas with little or no underlying grasses or forbs where the sagebrush is more than six feet tall and prone to catastrophic wildfire that have been withdrawn from grazing for decades literally on the other side of a fence line from well-maintained grassy forage areas that are beneficial to cows and wildlife both because it has been properly grazed for the same period. The objective scientific evidence is there if you only choose to look at something other than "cow-free by '93" and other eco-zealot propaganda.





More propaganda. What happens to grasslands that are left ungrazed is that they deterioriate. Grasslands flourish with grazing and that's simply a fact of nature. Federal forage allotments are overseen by the federal government, which has no compunctions at all about withdrawing a grazing allotment from use if signs of overuse are present. Many of the areas that are "unsatisfactory" are places where there has been no cattle grazing for decades. Unsurprisingly to those who understand range science, these areas recover when cattle are grazed on them.

That's why ranchers have to move cattle off a piece of land after they eat everything edible. That's why the Federal government has to step in and take land out of the grazing programs to let it recover.

Nope. Most ranchers do so voluntarily because they can't raise cows and make money year after year, decade after decade on ground that isn't properly managed.

The fact is that grasslands only recover after the cows get gone. Not while they're there eating everything down to the ground.

And your ignorance of the management of grasslands is manifested once again. It happens to be the fact that grass groks being grazed and it's actually healthier when it's cropped close and then allowed to recover, which is done by the ranchers by moving cattle from place to place in a well-planned manner so that at any given time the majority of the forage is in the regrowing process while the grazing takes place in a limited area. Unlike sheep, cattle don't graze down to a nub, they go for the tasty tips, cut the grass fairly short and then move on, which mimics how buffalo and other grazers historically fed. In places where the forage is limited, the rancher either cuts the number of animals on a specific plot or circulates them more quickly to prevent the negative impacts you allude to. That's how I did it for 50 years, and that's how I maintained and actually created a healthy habitat for all sorts of creatures.

So yes, grasslands only recover when the cows "get gone," but unless the cows come back in a regular annual pattern the grassland habitat tends to decay and be damaged by a myriad of natural processes from crusting of the soil to invasive plant species spread by the wind and wildlife to overgrowth of undesirable native plants like sagebrush which prevent grasses and forbs from growing.

It's a cycle, you see. Cows can be part of the cycle that benefits the land just as much as deer, elk and other animals are, when properly managed. And as I said it's in the best interests of public lands ranchers to protect and improve the forage quality of the lands because that is how they make money generation after generation. It's not like coal mining where you go in, take out the resource and then leave forever. It goes on and on and on in a never-ending cycle and proper range management can generate profits for the government, the rancher, and the economy for decade after decade while doing no permanent harm to the ecosystem and actually benefiting it to a substantial degree as compared to letting the land lie fallow.

Not to mention the fact that the government's rangers are always on the lookout for adverse impacts and will happily close down a lease area and demand removal of the cattle if there is any sign of lasting or widespread damage...and sometimes when there is no actual damage at all but rather for political reasons associated with eco-zealotry within the Department of Agriculture.

That's just the thing about grazing your cattle on the Commons: "Rational self-interest" demands grabbing the most one can in the shortest possible time, before someone else gets it.

Except that's not how it works. And that's part of the reason WHY public lands forage leases give preference to adjacent ranch owners. You see, when you operate a ranch for generation after generation the LAST thing you want to do is go out and "rape" the land and destroy its forage productivity for a short-term profit.

Unless it's not yours and you need the $$. Then it pays to be short-sighted.

No, it doesn't. Public lands ranchers are not one-season opportunists, they are long-term users of the land that they lease from the government, and they are far, far more protective of the habitat and ecosystem values on that land than the general public is because they depend for their livelihoods upon the health and quality of the forage. The biggest scourge on public rangelands is the public and their 4 wheel ORV's.

Public lands rancher are good stewards of the grassland and forage environment because they must be in order to survive. It is public lands ranchers who do the most to keep grazing lands productive through a lot of hard work, which includes controlling invasive species, preserving and protecting water supplies and properly managing cattle rotation. Unlike the lies you purvey here, public lands ranching is not a free-for-all that goes unregulated or unsupervised. That might have been the case in 1870, but not today. If a rancher destroys the carrying capacity of his lease then he can't raise cattle on it because there is no forage, and it's not like he is going to load up his herd and move on to another bit of public property to "rape" it. He's stuck with his historical allotments and can't run cows anywhere else, so it is in his rational self interest to carefully maintain the productive capacity of the land, which benefits everyone and everything.

And this is why 21% of the Continental United States- public and private -are in unsatisfactory ecological condition due to cattle ranching?

Where does it say that it's "due to cattle ranching" pray tell? Plenty of public lands are in unsatisfactory condition precisely because grazing has been prohibited.

Someone has to step in and break up the gang rape before it gets really ugly, usually at taxpayer expense. Us taxpayers that fund that on our Public Lands call it, "Enlightened self interest".

Too late. Public lands ranchers have already stepped in to do exactly what you want done: manage public lands to enhance habitat and environmental values. They've been doing it for more than a century now.

And with such fine results! For cows...sometimes.

For all species, most of the time, as the actual facts demonstrate.

Any issue of "Range" magazine includes plenty of examples of government abuse and overreach in the public lands stewardship program. Not to mention egregious abuse and unlawful interference with private property in the west.

I'm touched. Really. But the best way to avoid all that pesky government interference is to get off the welfare and run all your cows on your own fee estate. It's your free choice, and it's fee simple!

...the feds make a lot of money that goes towards all sorts of public lands management far beyond that required on ranched public lands.

It's a pittance, and it doesn't even begin to pay for the thousands of skilled people it takes to keep the destruction in something resembling control. Regardless of what some ranching propaganda rag cherry picks.

It pays for the management necessitated by public lands ranching and more. It doesn't pay the whole budget for the Department of the Interior because there's lots and lots of public lands that are not suitable for cattle ranching and therefore aren't grazed at all which must still be managed and supervised by the DOI.

And if you want to compare welfare ranching to the revenue generated keeping wildlands wild, just look at the news from a couple months ago:

"WASHINGTON -- Local economies in the communities that border national parks are expected to lose as much as $30 million a day as a result of the government shutdown, according to an analysis from the National Parks Conservation Association, the nonprofit advocacy group that supports the park system.

Apples and horse apples. Of course national parks are major revenue generators. The vast areas of uninhabited federal lands that are sometimes used for grazing are simply not tourist attractions to the same degree. But there's a lot of hunting that takes place there which is a major economic factor to the local economies.

The closures are clearly bad for anyone who works in the parks or who may have planned a family vacation to one of the 401 national parks across the country. But in towns near park entrances, the shutdown also affects businesses, including grocery stores, camping supply stores, equipment rental services, restaurants and hotels that rely on tourist traffic to the parks. (See a list of 13 parks you won't be able to visit because of the shutdown.)"

Yeah? So what? This is a quintessential red herring argument that has nothing whatever to do with the subject under discussion...which could use a split into its own thread.

Cheap grazing leases amount to government subsidy.

Not according to the Department of the Interior and the Congress. Raise the lease rates and the land won't be leased at all because the rancher won't be able to make a profit. So the government can get some money and get the beneficial effects of grazing and stewardship of leased public lands or it can get nothing, have to pay to manage it, and have the ecosystem suffer through lack of grazing.

So the next time you get the mean and retributive idea to put welfare recipients to work killing urban rats for $0.10/rat tail, start with public land ranchers who've been collecting welfare for so many generations, they've built a regional culture out of it.

One which is both profitable and beneficial to the public and has been for a very long time. And if I grant, arguendo that public lands ranching is "welfare" for ranchers, at least they have to work very, very hard for it, rather than sitting around smoking crack, making babies, eating Twinkies and robbing people. I'd gladly ship the urban welfare leeches to the West and put them to work on ranches because at least they would be doing something productive and beneficial to themselves and society. Even rat-catching is a step up from crack-smoking and Twinkie-eating.

[mistermack]

It's a pittance, and it doesn't even begin to pay for the thousands of skilled people it takes to keep the destruction in something resembling control.

It's amazing America wasn't a barren wasteland when the Europeans got here, what with millenia of uncontrolled destruction by wild ungulates. Good thing for the indians that thousands of skilled Europeans got here in time, eh?

Of course, if you believe in that evolution junk, prairie is actually adapted to being grazed on. I guess that's too far fetched an idea to bring up.

Yes, but, it's adapted to different species than domesticated cows.
Where they graze Bison, the prairie suffers far less than land grazed by cows. The difference is quite remarkable.
Apparently. I read that somewhere. Can't give a reference, but I definitely read it in a science publication.