Species Endangerment

Wild animals suffer not only the collateral damage of meat-related deforestation, drought, pollution and climate change, but also direct targeting by the meat industry. From grazing animals to predators, native species are frequently killed to protect meat-production profits. Grass-eating species such as elk, deer and pronghorn have been killed en masse to reserve more feed for cattle. Important habitat-creating animals such as beavers and prairie dogs have been decimated because they disrupt the homogenous landscapes desired by livestock managers.

"Predator control" programs designed to protect the livestock industry helped drive keystone predators like California grizzly bears and Mexican gray wolves extinct in their ecosystems. Adding insult to injury — and flying in the face of modern conservation science — the livestock industry remains the leading stodgy opponent to otherwise-popular efforts to recover species like the Mexican gray wolf in Arizona and New Mexico.

A recent article about the connection between livestock production and the decline of wolves and other carnivores describes some of the brutal methods used to target predators:

“To support a global rise in per-capita meat-eating, livestock farming continues to expand, shrinking and fragmenting natural habitats in the process. And when cramped predators adapt by preying upon livestock, some ranchers go to extreme measures to keep them away, such as strapping pouches of neurotoxins to the necks of grazing lambs, or calling upon the United States Department of Agriculture to shoot down predators from government helicopters.” [9]

More than 175 threatened or endangered species are imperiled by livestock on federal lands [10], where livestock grazing is promoted, protected and subsidized on 270 million acres of our public lands in 11 western states. Livestock grazing — not including the large portion of agriculture devoted to cattle production or other forms of meat production — is among the greatest direct threats to imperiled species, affecting 14 percent of threatened or endangered animals and 33 percent of threatened or endangered plants [11].

In addition, at the behest of ranchers, a federal agency known as Wildlife Services shoots, traps, and poisons millions of animals every year, including wolves and foxes and bears in National Forests, to make more room for cows and other ranched animals.