Grazing Lands

* Re “Amid Drought, a Range War Erupts in Utah Over Grazing Restrictions,” Dec. 26: Livestock grazing on federal lands, particularly arid lands, has always been and always will be a lose-lose situation for the wildlife resources of this country and for the government, which subsidizes this absurd practice.

Back when the West was young, many users and managers of the land were ignorant about grazing on lands that could not support this type of abuse. The majority of the well-informed in this country, backed by sound economic sense and hard science, now realize that these degraded, arid lands are more valuable to the American people if they can be given the chance to recover their historic biodiversity and water-storage capacity.

This can only be accomplished by removing livestock, including feral horses and burros, from these fragile areas. Grazing on federal lands may be argued by a loud minority to be a cherished cultural right; however, this country has wisely chosen in the past, as it did with the issue of slavery, to cast aside destructive American cultural practices and move ahead.

SCOTT HARRIS

Granada Hills