Post Race!

[Witis]

If your image of cows is a nice green field, picture cows in a desert, as that's what we have. You can't have all that many cows per square KM, because there isn't all that much forage, but there is enough to sustain cows. The soil is fairly fragile, as a single car track across a desert can take decades to fade away (the wagon tracks from the Oregon Trail are still visible where development hasn't wiped them out). So, the hoofprints of cattle will remain for years. Their pies last at least a year, and probably a couple years, too, but they dry out thoroughly, and can probably be used as firewood (it is used in some places).

Some farmers power their entire milking operations from the methane generated from cow dung.

Streams in this environment are the major location of water, so along streams are the only places where vegetation grows thick and green year round. Trees only grow along the banks of permanent streams, too. The vegetation shades and cools the water, while the streams form undercut banks. Both the vegetation and the undercut banks provide shade and cover for fish, while keeping the water temperatures cool enough for the fish to survive. Once cows get to the stream, they trample and consume the vegetation on the banks. If that was brief, it would be survivable, but unfenced banks are destroyed in short order. All the vegetation goes away, the banks cave in, the water temperature rises, and sedimentation increases. This suffocates the fish, destroys redds, and heats the water to the point where fish can't live there anymore.

Fish need shade? Not in the ocean. If they do there must be underwater plants and even shade from underwater overhangs that can provide the fish with the relief they need. Also I highly doubt that cows kill the trees along the banks and they probably only eat some of the species of plants that grow by the streams. Also there has always been animal life, even in the desert, and such animals have to drink a certain amount of water every day to survive meaning that river banks always have to endure some degree of animal traffic every day. As a result I still find it difficult to believe that cows are somehow the river bank vandals that you make them out to be. Don't they tend to use the same watering spots/holes to drink from on a regular basis leaving most of the river bank untouched?

One of the biggest challenges we face are getting ranchers to fence off streams so that cows can't get near them. The fact that salmon and steelhead are endangered has made it more urgent, but also somewhat more possible in areas where those species spawn.

It's not the cows, I ate all the salmon. =)

Generally, ranchers are pretty supportive once they see how much nicer the streams become once fenced, and we've gotten lots of them on board. It's not all that cheap to build cow-proof fences, though, so it's hard to get ranchers to do that on their own. They don't often have huge profit margins. Still, there are lots of fenced off areas around water on public lands grazing, and the water that is protected is dramatically better quality than the water that isn't fenced off.

Fencing is expensive, an eyesore, and can even put humans off. If the cows aren't getting their water from the streams where do they get a nice cool drink from in the desert?