4 ms·

We have around 27 million cattle (in the US) today. There were something like 30-50 million bison in the US before we almost eradicated them. Were the bison equ

We have around 27 million cattle (in the US) today. There were something like 30-50 million bison in the US before we almost eradicated them. Were the bison equally bad? Or is the problem that we’re feeding these ruminants unnatural diets? Incidentally, I’d love to see the Great Plains return to huge roaming ruminant populations, and find a way to build our meat industry around that.

j16sdiz 2mo ago
I think the problem is how we keep the cattle. In natural environment, they cohabitant with other animals. They migrates. When we farm them, we remove anything not our primary product.
- simonsarris 2mo ago
  That is not how we keep cattle in the United States. In the US about 82% of grazing land is rangeland, which continues to support the natural ecosystems (prairies, shrublands, steppes, etc). In places like Ireland, where cows have existed for 6000 years, they're also part of the ecology by any meaningful metric. There are a lot of more recently arrived species considered native! Mice, hedgehogs, rabbits, and red deer all came later.
  - toasty228 2mo ago
    What do you even mean lol This is how cattle is kept in the US: https://www.hcn.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/sucked-dry-thumb.jpg https://www.hcn.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/sucked-dry-th... I'd love to read your definition of "natural ecosystems", is it something like "a system in nature", with "nature" meaning "on planet earth"?
    - simonsarris 2mo ago
      That's a feedlot for finishing. Throughout its life, a cow will spend 70-80% of its life in pasture. Feedlots are only efficient for the finishing of the cow.
simonsarris 2mo ago
I make this point and several more here, with some emissions figures: https://map.simonsarris.com/p/veganism-and-moral-intuitions https://map.simonsarris.com/p/veganism-and-moral-intuitions The ecology of it, including emissions, isn't really that bad if you're American. We're very efficient at beef production. It's really the global south that's most of the novel emissions, and that's mostly from counting land-use changes.
toasty228 2mo ago
You're really close to figuring out that natural equilibriums and man made abominations have nothing in common even when the numbers look the same
dqv 2mo ago
No, we slaughter that many each year. And maximize how they're fed in the last months of their lives in feedlots. They were certainly not killing 30 million bison each year. The only answer here is less meat production, especially feedlot-finished, no matter how people try to twist it.

j16sdiz 2mo ago

I think the problem is how we keep the cattle. In natural environment, they cohabitant with other animals. They migrates. When we farm them, we remove anything not our primary product.

simonsarris 2mo ago
That is not how we keep cattle in the United States. In the US about 82% of grazing land is rangeland, which continues to support the natural ecosystems (prairies, shrublands, steppes, etc). In places like Ireland, where cows have existed for 6000 years, they're also part of the ecology by any meaningful metric. There are a lot of more recently arrived species considered native! Mice, hedgehogs, rabbits, and red deer all came later.
- toasty228 2mo ago
  What do you even mean lol This is how cattle is kept in the US: https://www.hcn.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/sucked-dry-thumb.jpg https://www.hcn.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/sucked-dry-th... I'd love to read your definition of "natural ecosystems", is it something like "a system in nature", with "nature" meaning "on planet earth"?
  - simonsarris 2mo ago
    That's a feedlot for finishing. Throughout its life, a cow will spend 70-80% of its life in pasture. Feedlots are only efficient for the finishing of the cow.

simonsarris 2mo ago

I make this point and several more here, with some emissions figures: https://map.simonsarris.com/p/veganism-and-moral-intuitions https://map.simonsarris.com/p/veganism-and-moral-intuitions The ecology of it, including emissions, isn't really that bad if you're American. We're very efficient at beef production. It's really the global south that's most of the novel emissions, and that's mostly from counting land-use changes.

toasty228 2mo ago

You're really close to figuring out that natural equilibriums and man made abominations have nothing in common even when the numbers look the same

dqv 2mo ago

No, we slaughter that many each year. And maximize how they're fed in the last months of their lives in feedlots. They were certainly not killing 30 million bison each year. The only answer here is less meat production, especially feedlot-finished, no matter how people try to twist it.