© USF&WS
My co-worker Jason sent me this interesting story...
"Biologists will tell you that there are plenty of wild animals and natural processes that do not mesh well with cattle ranching — grizzly bears, wolves, prairie dog towns. If you need the land primarily for cattle, then the dog towns have to be reduced. And if you reduce the dog towns, you reduce the swift fox, the ferruginous hawk, the mountain plover, the prairie rattlesnake, the badger, the complex web of plants and animals that evolved with them. You reduce the black-footed ferret to extinction. You have made the most common trade in our world today, an ecosystem in exchange for what you hope will be profitable land use."
Link: Full story from Orion Magazine