SCOTT'S BUDDHIST/VEGGIE/ANIMAL RIGHTS BLOG: January 2016

Friday, January 29, 2016

If any two words were synonymous with veganism – it would be ‘animal rights’. Since its inception in 1944, veganism has been a position of non-participation in animal exploitation. With the word ‘vegan’ becoming more popular, the meaning has become weakened, or the benefits to humans are touted more than the original intent of animal rights. ALL animals – whether human or other species – by virtue of being feeling and conscious – possess the birth right not to be bought and sold as a commodity, owned like a slave, oppressed, exploited, or attacked by humans. Animals have the inherent right not to be forcibly impregnated, have their newborn who they painfully just gave birth to - kidnapped and then killed – all socially accepted “normal” practices of the dairy industry.

What society accepts as normal is in fact not normal – customary, but it’s not normal behavior to separate a newborn from his or her mother so people can drink the milk of another species; milk which is meant to grow an 80 pound calf into a 1,000 pound cow in less than a year. How normal would it appear to see a human suckling on a cow's udder?

An animal farmer selling cows online described my vegan views (that we don’t have a right to buy and sell a cow) as strange. I have a very different way of defining strange. Eating corpses is strange. Being entertained by animals who were forced to endure painful misery, humiliation, and captivity - horse and dog racing, animal fights, circuses, rodeos, animal acts, seaquariums, zoos – now that’s strange. What is socially accepted and passes for normal is actually cruel and callous. We need to raise the ‘normal bar'.

Because humans are in fact animals, we are able to have empathy for fellow animals; who have many similar features. And when we empathize, we can clearly see that animals feel. They leap in joy. They speak - but like someone from another country, they speak a different language. If we tune into them and want to hear what they are saying – we can communicate and see that they feel much like we do - they want to live their lives naturally and free from harm, and protect and nurture their offspring. When we empathize, we see that animals have two eyes, a face, and a brain. They have a nervous, reproductive, digestive, circulatory, and respiratory system. They have pain receptors; and therefore feel pain as we do. Animals feel; that’s essentially what it means to be an animal.

We have known friendship with dogs and cats, but those of us who have rescued animals of various other species – are certain that these animals are more ‘family’ than ‘food’. They're more friends than enemies to dominate, wear their skins, hunt and hang their heads on walls as trophies. Farming, imprisoning, and anally electrocuting fur-wearing animals so we can adorn ourselves in their skins, as well as any number of business-as-usual practices presently considered 'normal' by society – are, in reality - savage. We can all do better. Each of us can do our part in uplifting the collective consciousness of humankind. What role could be more important for us to play in this feature film called Life? We can be forerunners, pioneers of a new world; a non-violent one…it’s what “everybody” has been wishing for ~ Peace on Earth…Goodwill to All… But to actually bring about Peace on Earth, we necessarily have to live the ideals of veganism. We can't just say “we love animals” while we eat, wear and use products containing remnants of their tortured and mutilated bodies. We have to expand our respect for others to include anyone; any being with feelings and consciousness.

Long-term vegans have established a way to live without directly demanding animal exploitation. For 35 years, my cosmetics and toiletries, food, clothing, and products have been free of animal ingredients nor were they tested on animals. Despicably testing products in the eyes of bunnies, forcing beagles to inhale cigarette smoke, vivisection on cats and pigs, holding primates captive and forcing them to learn what humans want them to learn, medicines tested on rats and mice and whoever else, dissecting frogs in schools – ‘animal experimentation’ is just too similar to the Tuskegee syphilis experiment; where African-American men were unknowing and did not consent to being “guinea pigs” in a lethal-to-them experiment. When humanity adopts veganism, there won't be derogatory or speciesist words that are an abomination to the English language. For example: “guinea pigs” or “livestock” – “the butcher” – “slaughterhouse” – “leg of lamb” – “kill two birds with one stone” – “you rat, you dog, you animal”; as if being an animal is bad or lowly. It is a mistaken belief that animals are higher or lower – they are other species of animals, fellow Earthlings.

What is considered normal - is not normal. Humans have been bullies, captors, slave-masters. In Truth (with a capital T), what is really normal is the vegan concept; the perspective where every animal has the right not to be exploited or violently assaulted by humans. We can be protectors, defenders, friends to animals, rescuers - however, at the very least, people have a duty to not harm beings that are unquestionably sentient. Humans must return to the animals what is rightfully theirs. Animal rights advocates are not asking for “better treatment” or “better welfare conditions” within a system that is completely unethical. Would we ask for bigger beds in the Holocaust’s concentration camps - or - would we work to wipe out the concentration camps? We are advocating for fundamental rights of anyone sentient. We are shining a light of Truth on indefensible habits, social custom, traditions that have been accepted as the “norm”.

The many benefits of plant-powered living are too vast to ignore. Veganism is a solution for what ails our planet; violence and war, dwindling resources and expanding human population, lack of health and vitality, and a ‘clouded way of thinking’. The United Nations and World Watch Institute have reported that animal agriculture is the worst threat to environmental devastation and global warming. The human population is unfortunately ever-growing, and the logical way to feed all these humans is to stop syphoning most of the grain and soy crops inefficiently through animals. Theoretically, we could feed all the starving children by simply making it illegal for humans to purposely breed animals into existence. It is morally wrong to breed other animals. Plus these billions of farmed animals together are contributing greenhouse gases to global warming; more than all the transportation in the world put together, while greatly depleting and polluting our water supply. Animal agriculture is the reason for the clear cutting of Amazonian rainforest, which is the lungs of our planet.

Most significantly, we are misguiding the next generation that violence is normal behavior. You and I were indoctrinated since day one by society - that humans are ‘top of the food chain’, the crown of all creation, that God gave us the right to kill and eat animals, or that some animals are “pets” while others are to be ill-treated, and other falsehoods that molded all of us. The time has come for us to break the cycle and stop filling the precious innocent minds of children with the lies we were taught; lies like humans can abuse animals. Teach the next generation to respect feeling, breathing, living, and perceptually-aware animals, regardless of species. We may like to be close to a dog, while not a fish, some animals might be adorable while some look alarming – but they all deserve, at least, not to be harmed (by humans). We are reaching a point in human evolution where we are undeniably able to thrive without consuming anything animal-derived. Many plant-powered athletes, for example, the world champion extreme marathoner and vegan: Fiona Oakes and other vegan athletes - are living proof that we can more than thrive on a vegan diet.

The reason we can legally own, enslave, buy and sell, and murder animals – is because of the almighty ‘money god’ that humans truly worship over their other deities. The profit motive supersedes what is right. However, ethics and social justice must trump unethical ways of attaining money. Slave masters were driven by their personal monetary gain only, which is comparable to animal harmers (oops farmers). Abolitionists proclaimed that money and profit are irrelevant when it comes to the objectionable behavior of owning a human being. It still holds true. We need to build a new world that is not built upon enslaving anyone sentient. Animals are individuals that should have basic rights, equally under the law, not to be a slave to a human, not to be “a someone” who is perceived and treated as “a something”, not to be a he or a she who is seen and referred to as an “it”. This objectification of other animals is to make people feel okay about their abnormal violent exploitation of others; that is socially accepted but is nonetheless wrong – even if the majority doesn't yet see it.

Be vegan for ‘what is right’ - including every individual animal's right. The vegan ideal is open to all; rich or poor, atheist or theist, young or old, any shade of skin, any nationality or ethnicity; any gender identity - everybody. Help educate others that what is presently accepted as normal; is just unacceptable. Veganism has far reaching ramifications for a saner, cleaner, less violent world. Veganism is a protest to “the way it is”. Veganism is a Great Truth whose time has come. Veganism is the antidote to a world ravaged with violence. It’s a solution to our planetary problems. Veganism is our next step. With humanity's acceptance of vegan living, we are making history; bringing about a world where veganism is the new normal.

SIX ARGUMENTS for a GREENER DIET

SIX ARGUMENTS for A GREENER DIET - by Michael F. Jacobson, Ph.D

Visit: http://scottsbuddhisttveg.blogspot.com/2015/03/welcome-to-factory-farm-hell.html

Page 73) Better Soil

Producing food animals, and the grains and soybeans that speed their growth, takes a tremendous toll on farmland - particularly its precious topsoil. Growing crops for animal feed frequently erodes the soil, as does overgrazing of grasses by livestock. Further, cattle's constant trampling of vulnerable rangeland can almost irreparably damage the environment. The immense quantities of fertilizers - including old - fashioned manure, urban processed sewage sludge, and conventional chemicals - and pesticides used to grow feed grains contain nutrients and toxins that disrupt the soil ecosystem, poison wildlife, and pollute local and far - off waterways.

Agriculture has an enormous impact on soil and soil quality: Grazing land and cropland are the second - and third - largest uses of land in the United States (forests are the largest), together accounting for just under half of America's total acreage. In contrast, urbanization affects only about 3 to 5 percent of the U.S. land area.

Page 74) Importance of Good Topsoil

Soil, along with water and sunlight, is one of the three fundamental elements of crop production. A thick layer of topsoil, rich in such nutrients as nitrogen, phosphorous, and potassium, absorbs and holds rainwater well and provides the best environment for growing crops.

But topsoil can be lost, leached away by water or blown away by wind. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) estimates that almost 2 billion tons of topsoil eroded from cropland in 2001. That's a huge amount, but represents a 40 percent decline since 1982. The main cause of erosion is the lack of plants that hold the soil in place. Native meadow grasses, hay, and small grains such as wheat help protect topsoil by providing a solid cover over a field. Many large farms, however, plant livestock feed crops, such as corn and soybeans, that are grown in rows and endanger topsoil since the bare patches between each row are relatively susceptible to erosion. The loss of topsoil reduces fertility, which increases the need for chemical fertilizers. And the switch from healthy natural topsoil to artificial nutrients leads to a whole host of problems - nutrient imbalances, runoff, and water pollution - detailed later in this chapter.

Page 75) Livestock's Demand on Soil

Feeding grain to livestock and then eating the livestock (or their eggs or milk) needs a lot more land than just eating the grains themselves. Raising livestock creates a huge demand for corn, soybeans, and a few other crops. About 66 percent of U.S. grain ends up as livestock feed at home or abroad. While pigs and chickens consume a good share of that grain, cattle at feedlots are the biggest consumers, in part because they are the least efficient converters of grain to meat. Outside the United States, livestock consume only 21 percent of total grain production, with the vast majority of grains consumed directly by people. But as nations' incomes rise, so does their appetite for pork, chicken, and grain - fed beef.

Frequently, farmers respond to the huge demand for feed grains by turning to monocropping - raising single crops over huge areas - or they use limited rotations, where two crops destined for livestock feed are raised in alternating years. About 16 percent of corn - over 12 million acres - is raised without any rotation at all, though the majority of corn - 59 percent - is rotated with soybeans. Meadow grasses and small grains (such as wheat), both vital to the preservation of topsoil, are included in only 8 percent of corn rotations, according to the USDA.

Page 80) Effects of What We're Putting on the Soil

Loss of topsoil decreases productivity, so to compensate for that farmers add soil nutrients. That means applying fertilizer - and lots of it - in the form of chemicals, manure, or treated sewage sludge.

Chemical Fertilizers

Fertilizer causes environmental problems primarily because farmers often apply too much to their land. Because about half of all fertilizer applied in the United Sates is used solely for raising feed grains for animals, reducing that usage could reduce environmental degradation.

Even when not over - applied, nitrogen fertilizer causes serious environmental problems. That fertilizer is usually applied as ammonium nitrate, which can react with oxygen in the air and release ammonia. Ammonia can damage local ecosystems, including the plant life on the fertilized land. When carried by wind and rain, the ammonia may be deposited in waterways and affect distant ecosystems. When the oxygen content of soil is low, nitrogen fertilizer undergoes a process called denitrificatiion, which yields a variety of nitrogen - containing gases, including nitrogen gas, nitric oxide and nitrogen dioxide (which are together known as NOx, since, in the presence of sunlight, they rapidly interconvert), and nitrous oxide.

The harmless nitrogen gas simply returns to the atmosphere. However, NOx destroys ozone, impairs lung function, and contributes to fog and acid rain. It travels even farther from its source than ammonia. Nitrous oxide is a destructive greenhouse gas 300 times more potent than carbon dioxide. Agriculture contributes about 37 percent of all nitrous oxide releases in the United States, with much of that coming from fertilizer.

Besides polluting the air, fertilizers also increase the acidity of the soil. That reduces the soil's ability to hold nutrients and can permanently reduce soil productivity. Acidification ordinarily is controlled by applying even more chemicals, such as lime (calcium carbonate).

Page 90) Irrigation Water: Trillions of Gallons Wasted

American farmers irrigate about 56 million acres of land, or 88,000 square miles. Some 23 million of those acres - an area the size of Indiana - are devoted to crops destined to feed livestock.

The most frequently irrigated crops are corn (some is also used to produce ethanol fuel) and hay, with another 4 to 5 million acres each being planted in soybeans; sorghum, barley, and wheat; and cotton (cottonseed meal is used as livestock feed). In stark contrast, vegetables, vineyards, and fruits and nut tree orchards together occupy only 7 million acres of irrigated land.

The amount of water devoted to irrigating alfalfa and other hay - 7 trillion gallons annually - exceeds the irrigation needs of all vegetables, berries, and fruit orchards combined.

Of the roughly 28 trillion gallons of water used for irrigation each year, about 14 trillion gallons are applied to the grains, oilseeds, pasture, and hay that are fed to livestock in the United States, and an additional 3 trillion gallons are used to produce grains for food or export.

Irrigation Methods Are Often Inefficient

Efficient irrigation methods could help preserve scarce water supplies, but about half of the irrigated acres in the United States use wasteful systems. The least efficient ones either run water down furrows (trenches) or simply flood fields. Roughly 45 percent of irrigated acres rely on more efficient systems, such as center - pivot sprinkler irrigation (creating those large circles that can be seen when flying over Nebraska and other Great Plains states).

But only 4 percent use highly efficient low - flow systems, such as drip irrigation. Though more expensive than flooding systems, drip irrigation can reduce water use by 30 to 70 percent and increase crop yields by 20 to 90 percent. Adopting better conservation practices and more efficient technologies, which many farmers are now doing, could save tremendous amounts of water.

The timing, as well as the method, of irrigation can waste water and result in "waterlogging, increased soil salinity, erosion, and surface and groundwater quality problems associated with nutrients, pesticides, and pathogens," according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).

In 2003, only 8 percent of farmers who irrigated their crops measured the moisture content of their plants or soil before irrigating. University of California at Berkeley researchers found that the use of computer models enabled farmers to use 13 percent less water and increase crop yields by 8 percent.

Page 91) Irrigation may Be a Bad Investment

Irrigated crops account for about half of all crop sales in the United States, even though they are harvested from only one - sixth of all cropland. Using irrigation to increase yields means that less land is required to meet the same production goals (it may also contribute to over - production).

In the case of feed crops, the USDA estimates that 100 gallons of irrigation water generates only a few cents in increased farm revenue - hardly a great bargain. The same water could be used for more lucrative purposes. For example, an irrigated acre of corn yields about 163 bushels, which in 2002 was worth about $383. In contrast, 1 irrigated acre could produce about $2,400 worth of potatoes or $4,100 worth of apples. The non - profit Natural Resources Defense Council estimated that "a 60 - acre alfalfa farm using 240 acre - feet of water would generate approximately $60,000 in sales. In contrast, a semiconductor plant using the same amount of water would generate 5,000 times as much, or $300 million."

Page 93) Livestock's Consumption of Water is Huge - and Growing

Farm animals directly consume about 2.3 billion gallons of water per day, or over 800 billion gallons per year. Another 200 billion gallons are used to cool the animals and wash down their facilities, bringing the total to about 1 trillion gallons. That is twice as much as is used by the 9 million people in the New York City area.

Although water used for livestock accounts for a tiny share of national water consumption - about 0.5 percent - it is the fastest - growing portion, both in terms of water to drink and the "virtual" water used to grow grains, oilseeds, hay, and pasture. From 1990 to 1995, most categories of water (surface and ground) consumption fell, but water for public use grew by 4 percent and water used for livestock (including fish farming) grew by 13 percent. Combined with the growing number of livestock over the past 20 years, the increasing number of large cattle feedlots and industrial hog farms may contribute to rising demand for water.

Hog farms use large volumes of water to prepare manure for storage in huge lagoons, and feedlots employ misting systems to cool cattle. On traditional farms, in contrast, livestock might find shade or other natural ways to cool off.

Page 94) Modern Farming Practices Pollute Water

Irrigation, water, pesticides, fertilizer, manure, drugs . . . they are all widely used or produced on farms, and they often end up polluting nearby streams. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has estimated that "agriculture generates pollutants that degrade aquatic life or interfere with public use of 173,629 river miles (i.e. 25% of all rivers surveyed) and contributes to 70% of all water quality problems in rivers and streams." The pollution, if great enough, kills fish and other aquatic life, prevents people from swimming, reduces crop yields, and impairs drinking water.

Page 95) Irrigation Leads to Erosion, Runoff, and Salinization

In addition to wasting water, irrigation can degrade the environment. Erosion affects over 20 percent of America's irrigated cropland. When furrows are used to channel irrigation water, sediment runoff often exceeds 9 tons - and sometimes even reaches 45 tons - per acre. Center - pivot sprinkler irrigation causes soil losses as high as 15 tons per acre. The financial cost of replacing nutrients from lost soil runs into billions of dollars annually. In southern Idaho, for example, irrigation - induced erosion has reduced overall crop - yield potential (the estimated seasonal maximum yield) by about 25 percent.

Eroded soil pollutes waterways. The USDA considers sediment from eroded soil to be the "largest contaminant of surface water by weight and volume." In addition, excess irrigation water may pick up contaminants and carry them into rivers and streams. Those contaminants commonly include pesticides and heavy metals (which contaminate fish) and nutrients from manure and fertilizer (which can lead to algal blooms and loss of oxygen). In California, selenium - which is a naturally occurring element in soil - was so highly concentrated in irrigation water runoff that it caused an epidemic of deformities in migrating waterfowl, including hatchlings born with no eyes or feet.

Water extracted from lakes and streams may contain pollutants, such as long - banned pesticides. When that water is applied to farmland, some of it evaporates, leaving behind higher concentrations of those pollutants. In other cases, pollutants settle at the bottoms of streams and lakes, causing them to concentrate and degrade water quality.

Perhaps the most serious danger posed by irrigation to agriculture and the environment is salinization. Water - especially surface water - naturally contains salt. Irrigation water carries those salts onto cropland. When the water evaporates, salts are left behind. Salt buildup can reduce crop yields, and, in extreme cases, may force farmers to abandon once - fertile land. Most estimates put the affected acreage at about 10 million acres, or almost 20 percent of all irrigated land.

Page 113) Argument # 6 - Less Animal Suffering

"Our inhumane treatment of livestock is becoming widespread and more and more barbaric . . A Texas beef company, with 22 citations for cruelty to animals, was found chopping off the hooves of live cattle . . Secret videos from an Iowa pork plant show hogs squealing and kicking as they are being lowered into the boiling water that will soften . . the bristles on the hogs and make them easier to skin . . . barbaric treatment of helpless, defenseless creatures must not be tolerated even if these animals are being raised for food. . . Such insensitivity is insidious and can spread and is dangerous. Life must be dealt with humanely in a civilized society." - U.S. Senator Robert Byrd

Many animals die to please our palette. About 140 million cattle, pigs and sheep are slaughtered annually in the United states - about half an animal for every man, woman, and child. Add to that 9 billion chickens and turkeys - 30 birds for every American - plus millions of fish, shellfish, and other sea creatures.

The American Meat Institute contends that "Animal handling in meat plants has never been better." That might well be true, but "never been better" falls far short of "good."

There's no easy way to know what constitutes happiness or contentment or pain for a pig, a cow, or a chicken. We can anthropomorphize livestock, imagining how it would feel to undergo some of the same experiences: having our teeth pulled or being castrated without anesthesia, for example. And in many cases, the pain an animal is experiencing is perfectly obvious. However, that approach is considered by some to be too subjective to establish the effects of such practices on animals. New tests are being developed that use the behavioral and biochemical markers of stress to evaluate farm animal welfare. Because the European, but not the American, legal system treats livestock as sentient, conscious creatures, the majority of that research is taking place abroad.

Food animals are not protected by federal animal welfare laws. In fact, farm animals are specifically exempted from the laws that protect rats, mice, and other laboratory animals. While more than 30 states have livestock anti-cruelty laws, they typically exempt "common" or "customary" practices. Therefore, painful procedures - such as when animals' beaks, horns, tails, or testes are chopped off - are legal because most farmers use them.

As Mathew Scully argues in his book "Dominion: The Power of Man, the Suffering of Animals, and the Call to Mercy," "When the law sets billions of creatures apart from the basic standards elsewhere governing the treatment of animals, when the law denies in effect that they are animals at all, that is not neutrality. That is falsehood, and license for cruelty."

Page 116) stamped as Property

Beef cattle - especially out West - are often "branded" with a logo indicating their ownership. Branding has been used by ranchers for generations and has deep cultural resonance, if limited utility. Depending on its age at the time of branding, the animal is either pinned on the ground or constrained in a chute. The brand is then impressed into its hide using a blazing hot iron, which creates a third - degree burn; that painful process may be repeated when animals are sold to different owners.

Many more humane alternatives for animal identification exist, such as ear tags or retinal imaging, which should consign this outmoded practice to the history books.

Inconvenient Parts Removed

Castration

Nearly all bulls are castrated, which involves removing their testicles. The most common methods are slitting the scrotum and removing the testicles, blocking the circulation of blood to the scrotal sac with a tight rubber band, breaking the spermatic cord with pliers, or injecting the testicles with an acid or other chemical. All are performed without painkillers.

Page 119) Debeaking, Detoeing, and Maceration

Because of the economic losses associated with feather pecking, egg farmers routinely trim off the birds' beaks. Debeaking causes both acute and chronic pain, including during eating. To prevent sometimes serious injury during fights, poultry are often detoed.

Treatment of male chicks is even more grotesque. Because the egg industry has no use for those birds, they are summarily killed. The current method of choice is to dispose of the birds in what is effectively a modified wood chipper. Industry parlance describes this as "instant maceration using a specially designed high - speed grinder." Other methods of disposal, considered less humane, include suffocation and crushing.

- from the book "Six Arguments for a Greener Diet" - by Michael F. Jacobson, Ph.D.,
and the Staff of the Center for Science in the Public Interest
_____________________________________________________________________

MAD COWBOY - by Howard Lyman

Page 137) The government often picks up the tab for water pipelines, fences, cattle guards, seeding, and weeding. The government's Animal Damage Control division kills an estimated 250,000 wild animals annually to accommodate ranchers who don't want them harming their livestock.

Almost all public lands ranching in America takes place in 11 western states, and virtually all land in those states that can possibly be grazed by livestock is currently used for that purpose. Seventy - five percent of the 418 million acres of publicly owned land in the West (federal, state, and local) is used by ranchers for private gain.

Two government agencies - the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and the Forest Service - administer 85 percent of public ranchland, ranging from National Forests to grasslands to shrublands, brushlands, and riparian areas. While raising beef is always an inherently inefficient business, doing so on public land in the arid West takes the grand prize for wastefulness.

The average range steer consumes 6 tons of range plant material before going to slaughter. Vegetation and seeds that are not consumed by cattle are often killed by the trampling of livestock hooves. An untold number of plant species have been wiped out by overgrazing, and often the "invading" plants that have replaced them by virtue of being unpalatable to cattle tend to be highly flammable and to hold the soil less well than native grasses.

Overgrazing also reduces the "organic litter" of brush and leaves that helps plant grow. When there is less plant cover, fewer roots remain to hold soil together. The result is increased soil erosion from winds, rain, and floods. Overgrazing also contributes mightily to a decline in plant diversity, so essential to ecological health, putting more plants on the endangered list than any other cause. In the "State of the World," Lester Brown warned that:

Ecological burdens from intensive livestock operations include loss of native vegetation, decline of fisheries as water is diverted for irrigation and stream habitats are degraded, diseases in native herbivores, and major changes in fire frequency, soils, hydrology, and other ecosystem processes . . . Half of U.S. rangeland, most of it in the mountainous West, is now considered severely degraded, with its carrying capacity reduced by at least 50 percent.

Page 142) It shouldn't be surprising that by damaging streams, grasslands, riparian zones, and forests, livestock wind up devastating other forms of animal life. Keep in mind that cattle are an invading species, not native to our continent.

Cattle have displaced buffalo, elk, deer, pronghorn antelope, bighorn sheep, and moose, among other large herbivores that used to roam our continent in far greater numbers than they do today. These species currently struggle forth with only 1 to 3 percent of their primeval population.

The cattle culture's destructive impact on native species is felt in a myriad of ways. Pronghorn, deer, and other native ungulates, for example, like to hide their newborn in tall grass to protect them from predators. With cattle maintaining sovereignty over the land, tall grass is hard to find, and the newborn are left vulnerable. Grizzly bears experience nutritional deprivation from livestock grazing, and as a result suffer declining fertility.

The bovine is truly a formidable and resourceful killer in the disguise of an innocent, melancholy, big - eyed grass eater. All kinds of animals have suffered under its domination of the West. Rabbits are endangered by the lack of vegetative cover for shelter and food; frogs, toads, and insects miss the rich, moist soil that livestock have dried and hardened; wild pigs are deprived of grasses, nuts, and berries; fish go belly - up in the cow -polluted streams and rivers; elk and antelope perish from diseases borne by livestock - spread bacteria; people get heart attacks, diabetes, and cancer.

Page 128) What the livestock industry does to our air, however, pales next to the extraordinary damage it does to our land and water. Cattle are as adept at destroying streams and rivers as they are at degrading land and fouling the air. Wading cows widen streams unnaturally, as their hooves break off large chunks of soil and deposit them into the water. As naturalist George Wuerthner points out, "This damage is so prevalent that most people do not realize that sluggish brown waterways were not the norm in the pristine West." As the widened, more shallow streams grow warmer by greater exposure to the sun through both greater surface area and reduced plant cover, algae proliferate, water evaporates more easily, and less dissolved oxygen is available for the fish that need it to survive. While an increase of only 5 degrees in water temperature can spell doom for some species of fish, the changes brought on by livestock grazing have been known to increase water temperatures by 10 degrees or more. Massive "fish kills" and the demise of other aquatic animals are often the result.

While cattle hooves widen our streams and rivers, cattle dung pollutes it. Often livestock waste is dumped into streams as the most efficient means of disposal. Feedlot wastes can be several times more concentrated than raw domestic sewage. Ammonia, nitrates, and bacteria generated by this waste inevitably wind up polluting rivers, streams, and wells. It is a problem of awesome dimension. On a typical feedlot, with 10,000 head, as much as half a million pounds of cow dung is produced daily. The largest feedlots, with 100,000 head, have a waste problem equal to that of the largest American cities. Livestock waste exceeds human waste in tonnage nationwide by a factor of one hundred and thirty! It's been estimated that animal wastes are responsible for 10 times as much water pollution in America as the human population. Moreover, every year thousands of cattle carcasses are left to rot in streams and rivers, polluting them further.

Few people realize that it was the taste for beef and the grazing industry that fed it that, more than anything else, virtually wiped out the Native Americans throughout this continent. The competition for land that lay behind the violence between "cowboys and Indians" was made necessary only because the cowboys required vast stretches of grassland for their cattle.
_____________________________________________________________________