The Long Run · Episode 2 of 7 · 20 min
$1.69 a Cow: The Real Cost of Grazing on America's Public Land
The government lets private herds graze public land for $1.69 an animal a month, about a tenth of the private rate, and spends more running the program than it collects. The episode walks the ledger: the frozen fee formula, the subsidy, who actually holds the permits, and a federal predator program that killed roughly 1.9 million animals in 2024, while giving permittees' thin margins a fair hearing.
Who's who
- Gifford Pinchot+12 more episodesFirst Chief of the Forest Service; author of the "greatest good" yardstick
Where it happens
- MontanaState where NPR and OPB found predator kills without recorded livestock loss
Timeline
- 1934Taylor Grazing Act creates the BLM permit system
- 1978Public Rangelands Improvement Act sets the grazing-fee formula
- 1986Executive Order 12548 floors the fee at $1.35 per animal unit month
- October 2024NPR and OPB publish an investigation of predator kills in Montana
- 2024Wildlife Services kills 1,928,932 animals
- March 2026The $1.69 per animal unit month fee takes effect on about 23,500 permits
Still debated
What the fee should represent is disputed: ranchers say it reflects costs they bear that private leases do not, while critics call that special pleading. The Wildlife Services total mixes invasive species and pest birds with native carnivores, so how much protects livestock is not cleanly separable.
← PreviousThe Greatest Good? How the Forest Service Promised to Manage Public LandNext →Grazing vs. the West's Water: The Damage Nobody Counts
Connected episodes in other series
The Fight Over FishFishing for a Solution · Episode 1Also features Gifford Pinchot
How One Arizona Hillside Built Modern ForestryGround Truth: Forest Service Research · Episode 1Also features Gifford Pinchot
How America Made Indigenous Fire a Crime, and Its ReturnThe Fire This Time · Episode 3Also features Gifford Pinchot
Why Taxpayers Fund the Killing of Millions of Wild Animals for Private RanchersThe Uncosted West · Episode 7