This is what welfare country looks like.
This is what welfare country looks like. BGSmith/shutterstock.com

It's now reported that the armed Bundy gang occupying a bird sanctuary in Oregon are removing a part of a fence that the US government erected to protect its pastures from land-hungry ranchers. The gang's leaders, Ammon and Ryan Bundy, promise to replace the government's fence with a gate that local ranchers can use to go in and out of the sanctuary as they please.

This act is nothing but political. It's done to connect the illegal occupation with the grievances that are deep and widespread in the area's small ranching community. As one Oregon rancher, Keith Nantz, explained in a recent Washington Post op-ed, the federal government comes up with all sorts of rules and regulations that make grazing on public land very difficult. The government is either protecting some kind of bird or some type of plant at the expense of the livelihood of hardworking, tax-paying Americans.

Nantz also points out that raising cows demands lots and lots of land, and if a rancher can't get access to land, it forces him or her to reduce the number of his or her herd, and this reduction in cows leads to a loss of jobs and a weaker regional economy. Though Nantz does not agree with the Bundy gang's tactics, he does understand their position on cows and federal land.

All of this talk about cows reminded me of a book I have on my list, Denis and Gail Boyer Hayes' Cowed. Denis Hayes is the president of the Bullitt Foundation and an environmentalist with a long history in national politics—he headed the Solar Energy Research Institute during Jimmy Carter's time in office. Denis also played an important role in the development of one of the greenest buildings in the world, the Bullitt Center on Capitol Hill.

The book he and his wife wrote examines the heavy impact that the 93 million cows have on America's health and environment. The writers recommend that people eat less beef and that the animals be raised in better conditions, and not just for moral reasons but also environmental ones. The industrial production of beef demands a great amount of energy.

"Feeding cows corn," explained Hayes to me over the phone, "is like feeding your kids only on that Halloween candy corn. That's what gets the beef to be marbled [fatty], but marbled beef requires lots of energy to produce... The standard American beef product is in pasture for a year or two and then moved to a confined feeding operation. It is then feed for two years on corn.

"The fattening operations are expensive. There is the nitrates you need for the soil, the transportation of the corn, the confined feeding operations, and the refrigeration of the cows. All of this just to make marbled meat, which is not only bad for you, but it tastes the same. Pasture-finished beef, on the other hand, has a distinctive taste. It depends on the grass the cows eat and the kind of cows they are. It also has less fat, which is good for you."

When asked for an opinion on Keith Nantz's Washington Post op-ed and the claim that the government was making it hard for him and his kind to make a living, Hayes said: "These are folks whose livelihoods are wildly subsidized by the federal government. They pay grazing fees that are trivial. The federal government does all sorts of things to provide them with feed during difficult times, times when winter storms come in or extensive droughts. The government also do this very expensive and harmful process of predator control. The favors goes on and on. But these guys continue to garner public sympathy by saying they're creating jobs and also by being a part of this Wild Wild West myth. But all of this is foolish. These are just welfare cowboys, and it's kind of ridiculous to be complaining about the government or seizing federal property, which is not even the best property, because that tends to be privately owned."

Hayes thinks we should take federal land away from cows and give it to bison. They are adapted for this kind environment and their meat tastes better.