A plant-based diet is not only beneficial for your health, but it also saves the lives of prairie dogs and the ecosystems they live in.
Land usage for animal feed
Countless prairie dogs are killed each year as more and more land is plowed for grain production to feed livestock.
·
More
than half of the harvested agricultural acreage in the United States is used to
grow livestock feed.
·
For
every 16 pounds of grains and soybeans fed to cattle, only one pound of meat is
produced.
·
To
supply one person who eats the standard American, meat-oriented diet with food
for a year requires 3 ¼ acres of land. Supplying one lacto-ovo-vegetarian with
food for a year requires ½ of an acre. Only 1/6 of an acre of land is required
to supply one pure vegetarian (vegan) with food for a year.
à In other words, a given
acreage can feed 20 times as many people eating a pure
vegetarian-style diet as it could
feed people eating the standard American diet.
Cattle grazing
In 16 western states, 307 million acres of federal lands are leased for grazing. That is an area the size of the Eastern seaboard from Maine to Florida.
·
Ranchers
fear that prairie dogs will destroy the rangelands used by their cattle for
grazing. Although it has been demonstrated for more than 20 years that prairie
dogs do not pose a significant economic threat to ranching, prairie dogs are
continually poisoned to make way for grazing cattle.
·
Although
cattle and prairie dogs do have a mutually beneficial relationship, cattle are
a poor substitute for the environmental benefits of prairie dog-bison
societies.
·
Excessive
cattle-grazing can ruin the prairie dog’s native habitat.
Predator
“control”
To make way for grazing cattle, ranchers and government agencies use taxpayer dollars to kill thousands of potential predators in their natural habitats. When these predators disappear, whole ecosystems become unbalanced.
· The number of predators killed by Wildlife Services (a federal agency) was 98,514 in the fiscal year 1999. This was an increase of approximately 10,000 predators from 1998.
· Conservation biologists view the status of grizzly bears, wolves, lynx, wolverines and black-footed ferrets as an indication of an ecosystem's health. Predator “control” can rob an ecosystem of its most essential element for balance.
Seeing the connection between diet and prairie dogs
As shown below, our eating habits are closely related to prairie dog populations, their habitats and even whole ecosystems.
Prairie
dogs are a keystone species of the grasslands, so their existence is incredibly
important to all species. Implementing a plant-based diet is an important piece
of interrupting their rapid decrease in population.
For
more information on the benefits of a plant-based diet, visit www.health.rmad.org.
This fact sheet is available in PDF
format. For more information about PDF files, click
here.
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