Cattle In The Cold Desert, Expanded Edition

by James A. Young, B. Abbott Sparks

First published in 1985, Cattle in the Cold Desert has deservedly become a classic in the environmental history of the Great Basin, brilliantly combining a lively account of the development of the Great Basin grazing industry with a detailed scientific discussion of the ecology of its sagebrush/grassland plant communities. The volume traces the history of while settlement in the Great Basin from about 1860, along with the arrival of herds of cattle and sheep to exploit the forage resources of a pristine environment and, through the history of John Sparks, a pioneer cattleman, illustrates how the herdsmen interacted with the sagebrush/grasslands of the cold desert West. As the story unfolds on two levels - that of the herdsmen adapting their livelihood to the challenging conditions of the Great Basin's scanty forage, aridity, and fierce winters, and that of the fragile ecology of the desert plant communities responding to the presence of huge herds of livestock - we see the results of a grand experiment initiated by men willing to venture beyond the limits of accepted environmental potential to settle the Great Basin, as well as the often ruinous consequences of the introduction of

Genres: History

336 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 1986

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Reviews

[Corinne Schroeder · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a highly informative book on the history of various topics relating to the Great Basin, North America's largest biome.

At times dry, this book can hold your attention if a particular topic is interesting to the reader. For example, the history on haying in the area wasn't something that kept my eyes open but the history of fire regimes and cattle drives did.

I appreciated how the authors kept a critical eye on things and provided a balanced viewpoint. Largely, the Great Basin is a fragile ecosystem that has become highly degraded due to overstocking and then non-commonsense laws (although how one makes site specific regulations, who's to say) on how to improve the range based on what we now know to be faulty science.

I think for fellow rangeland ecologists, particularly those in the Great Basin, who care about these spaces, this book provides a good look into how we got to where we are today. The great "experiment" of ranching in the Great Basin by white dudes took guts. Now, it will also take brains if ranching is to survive the ecological disaster that is a combination of introduced annual grasses, fire, overstocking, and climate change.