In a first, cattle ranchers are grazing national parkland
In the United States, it’s fairly common for cattle to graze on public land, though this might be surprising to many. That’s because it happens mostly out of public view, on more than 240,000 miles of rangeland controlled by the Bureau of Land Management, and leased to ranchers for rock-bottom prices—much to the chagrin of some conservationists and wild horse lovers. Could cows come to our national parks next? NBC News reports on a first-of-its-kind project at Cuyahoga Valley National Park, about 20 miles south of Cleveland, where farmers are leasing land to grow berries and raise chickens, goats, and other livestock. It’s being marketed with the gauzy language of climate change mitigation and local food access, but as President Trump proposes to slash the national parks budget by $500 million, it’s hard not to see this as yet another public good being auctioned off to private enterprise.
