That’s right! COWS are great, natural recyclers and fire-fighters! Too bad they’ve been pushed OUT of the hills and rangelands where they might have HELPED California fight fire!!! That’s right………
Most Americans just didn’t know that:
Cattle are sometimes found ranging in the hills and mountains. WANT TO SEE SOME NATURAL FIRE RETARDANTS AT WORK????? CHECK OUT WHERE CATTLE ROAM…..Contrary to the MYTHS about cattle, where cattle are found in the mountains, the meadows are green and lush, the dry matter that burns so easily, is reduced drastically.
Cattle enhance the environment by recycling, fighting fires and reducing erosion. Cattle also enhance the environment by grazing areas that are not suitable for building houses, or growing food crops. This adds up to about 1.2 billion acres (one-half the size of the United States, excluding Hawaii and Alaska). While grazing, cattle even work to REDUCE erosion and improve the grass. They aerate the soil with their hooves, allowing oxygen, water and other nutrients to enter the ground more easily, just like bison a hundred + years ago.
They also push needed seed into the ground and provide a natural fertilizer. Cattle serve as Natural and responsible and EFFECTIVE fire-fighters; their grazing helps prevent the spread of wildfires by reducing the length of grass. Plus, did you know the components from their blood are utilized to MANUFACTURE fire retardants, as well?????
Indeed, in Canada, farmers and ranchers are PAID to take cows, sheep, even goats into the mountains to graze so that they can reduce the dry, brittle matter that is easily burned. They keep the mountains lush, and because over-grazing is not allowed, they can be a TOOL of farmers and foresters.
Where are the cows now, though???? They’ve been kicked out of most hills and ranges where they once roamed or grazed. And in years like 2008, where everything is DRY, how wonderful it WOULD HAVE BEEN to have had the cows grazing earlier in the spring, thereby reducing tremendously the thousands and thousands of acres of land. TOO BAD, isn’t it? Instead of using cows to help us out, the Forest Service and the Sierra Club and every other extreme environmental group, has THROWN cows out of the hills and have left the forests and hillsides RIPE for MAJOR fire!!!
Cattle are some of our BEST recyclers. They not only digest cellulose which is indigestible by humans, but they also eat non-edible by-products of food production such as potato skins, fruit pits, almond hulls and sugar beet pulp. This helps greatly reduce the amount of waste that goes into our nation’s landfills.
COWS ARE AMAZING ANIMALS and the Bad PRESS they’ve gotten in the last 5 years is a terrible and ridiculous mythology. There were once more than 65 MILLION bison that roamed the Great Plains. Cows are in the same family of animals and work in CONCERT with the environment. Where damage has been done 50 or more years ago, there has been tremendous recovery. RANCHERS and FARMERS love their animals and also love the environment where they live.
