I've actually worked on ranches in Colorado. Ranchers do graze their stock in the mountains. The other side of the coin is that the habitat for wolves is from sea level to approximately 9800' (3000m). They hunt wherever they can find herbivores. One part of ranching people don't seem to understand is that the rancher (by rancher I mean whoever is working on the ranch) is caring for living animals. That means he is looking out for these animals on a daily basis. I know their are ranchers who don't get attached to their stock, but they are definitely the minority. It's hard to care for anything daily and not get attached. I've seen ranchers in tears over the loss of a single cow, because they've cared for that cow since it was born. From time to time I would take a steer to slaughter so that we had meat in the freezer. The last thing I would do after unloading the steer would be to thank him for giving his life to feed my family. When a pack of coyotes take a calf, it is heart breaking to see the reaction of the mama cow. My neighbor last spring came upon a cow that was struggling to give birth and she was down. The coyotes had killed the calf and were eating it even though it was only part of the way out of the cow. Do you think that might have upset him a little? Now they want to release a much larger predator onto the land he is trying to care for. How do you think that makes him feel? There is more to caring for livestock than money.
You could work in Commerce City and be smelling the hydrocarbons all day, and maybe even getting cancer.
They do graze in the mountains, just not much compared to the rest of the state. Not really a fan of that either as the cows leave excrement all over trails and roads. If this prevented the practice and nothing else I'd still be for it. Cows aren't supposed to be part of nature, they're an environmental disaster themselves.
This seems to be mostly just an emotional appeal rather than a practical one.
Also, we should totally get rid of the refinery too, I'm all for equal opportunity environmentalism.
Ever heard of South Park? How about North Park? Kremlin is a Ranching community. So was Baily at one time and some of the ranchers still live there even though it is almost part of the Metro area now. Eagle is a ranching community. I could go on. Cow excrement is only fermented grass. I handle it with my bare hands. How long does an animal have to live in an environment before it becomes a part of it.
When range and wild life management is turned over to voters and the educated managers are ignored, it becomes an emotional issue.
Do you ride a bicycle to the grocery store?
Most of those areas are pivoting to tourism with the exception of maybe South Park which is desolate enough I don't see wolves making a habitat there.
Cow excrement is absolutely not just fermented grass. It contains pathogens that can be harmful to humans and end up in drinking water. Cows have existed in this area for less than 200 years, out of the millions of years the biome has existed. It's absolutely an emotional issue if you don't understand how ecosystems work.
I'd rather not give out too many personal details of my living situation but it's safe to say my little car doesn't get much use at all.
I don't know if you are still following this conversation or not. The snow stopped yesterday and I had to go do my work. In case you are, I found this conversation rather thought provoking and wanted to continue for a while. Here is a link to information on agriculture in Colorado:
https://www.nass.usda.gov/Publications/AgCensus/2012/Online_...
It does not break things out by ranch or farm, but it does show that overall in Colorado between 2007 and 2012 there was a 1% increase in farms. If you click on the map you can see the breakout by county. In some of the mountain counties farming has decreased close to 50%. In other mountain counties it has increased. But it does show that farming is still a strong industry in the mountain counties.
I must confess that I have not spent much time studying ecosystems. But I live very close to one. I know this, if it takes millions of years for an eco system to evolve, the eco system in the Western United States is completely non-existent. Agriculture has only existed for 12,000 years or so. Most of the crops grown by humans can be viewed as invasive species, same as you are claiming cattle to be. Some studies conclude that the little ice age was caused by the dying off of native Americans (also an invasive species as so we are) after the arrival of Europeans. They were so devastated that the lack of Agriculture effected global climate, or so the theory goes. Now there are a great many invasive species in both flora and fauna that the ecosystem is not what it would have been even 15,000 years ago. The climate has not even been stable for the past million years. So a million year old eco system does not exist.
There are those that point out that the bovine replaced the bison in the ecosystem of the American grass lands. While I can accept this to a point, I do think it at best a near replacement. This I know from direct observation, if you pull cattle off the land for a number of years, the quality of the flora suffers. I can't offer an explanation. The same can be said for over grazing as well.
One of the gripes I have with climate change advocates is that they want everyone else to give up their petroleum habit, but they themselves still drive SUV's. When I had a city job, to support my ranching habit, I used mass transit, and supplemented it with a (TreK) bicycle. I didn't even live in the city!
One last antidote. A Business man and a Rancher hit the same jackpot in the lotto. It was a large sum and they were to split it. A reported asked the Business man what he was going to do. He said he was going to retire and and travel the world the rest of his life, living in hotels and being waited on. The reported then asked the rancher what he was going to do. He replied that he was going to keep ranching until the money ran out!
You could work in Commerce City and be smelling the hydrocarbons all day, and maybe even getting cancer.