Last week, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) introduced their Beef Industry Plan aimed at “fortifying” a subset of American business owners who already receive significant subsidies and handouts funded by taxpayers – livestock producers. The plan outlines various initiatives that are concerning enough on their own but most alarming is the Administration’s focus on expanding public lands grazing and targeting predators (wolves) who pose miniscule threats to producers.  

This plan offers “solutions” for problems that simply don’t exist, and aims to reform endangered species management and increase grazing access:

PROTECTING AND IMPROVING THE BUSINESS OF RANCHING: Strengthening the foundation of U.S. cattle production through endangered species reforms, enhanced disaster relief, increased grazing access, increased access to capital, and affordable risk management tools. 

The paper is riddled with inaccuracies (read Western Watersheds Project’s corrections here) and promises a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between USDA and the Department of the Interior (DOI) in November. The Predator Management and ESA Reform section directs USDA and DOI to develop new standards of evidence to compensate ranchers for predation by wolves in Arizona, New Mexico, and other states. These new standards will certainly be weaker and will change the definition of a verified loss, and could also provide expanded ability for wolves to be killed.  

The Facts Don’t Support the Fear

Wolves are not a significant cause of livestock loss across the United States and a disproportionately large number of wolves are killed by the federal government every year in misguided (and taxpayer-funded) attempts to stop livestock attacks. In 2023, 305 gray wolves and two Mexican gray wolves were killed (PDR-G Report) by Wildlife Services (a secretive branch of USDA that kills millions of native animals every year at the behest of the livestock industry) across the Great Lakes, Northern Rockies, and Southwest – amounting to over 4% of the wolf population across those states. By comparison, gray wolves killed approximately 0.002% of 24.78 million cattle across these states.  

Approximately 155 million acres of public lands in the United States are leased for livestock grazing. Public lands grazing is environmentally destructive, negatively impacts native species, and shortchanges the American public. One cow-calf pair consumes the same amount of forage as approximately two elk, and cattle often displace native wildlife from public lands.  

A Hidden Taxpayer Burden

Livestock producers who graze on public lands are compensated long before any potential interactions with native predators, and American taxpayers pay the subsidy. Public lands grazing fees are set to the lowest legal level of $1.35 per AUM (the amount of forage needed by an “animal unit” grazing per “month”). By comparison, private grazing leases can be upwards of $20 per AUM.  

Unlike the narrative pushed by the Trump administration, public lands livestock producers don’t sustain the economy – rather, we sustain them. The livestock industry receives billions of dollars annually in federal handouts, and producers are able to profit off of lands that belong to all Americans.  

This new plan simply increases the handouts received by public lands ranchers, to the detriment of wolves, wildlife, ecosystems, and Americans.