Letter: Our animal world symbolizes the freedom that our ancestors imagined

It looks like the National Weather Service is estimating the chance of a La Niña event this winter at 60%, which is what happened in Moffat County in 2022-23: the worst winter in 70 years. I guess that could happen every other year.

I haven't seen more than a handful of deer, elk and antelope this year, and Colorado Parks and Wildlife has cut hunting licenses sharply to rebuild the wild herds. Last time, 15 deer starved to death in my front yard — but I managed to feed about 30 through the winter, but none of the does have fawns.

Our wild animals symbolize the freedom our ancestors envisioned, and they are disappearing. In the past, a young man could save up his money for a single-shot rifle, head out into the wilderness, and eat game as long as he had powder and shot. It was different in the hills of England, where the king's deer grazed and were forbidden even to the nobility, let alone the serfs. Has America given up on freedom?

Blame it on global warming, which appears to be causing global cooling, or perhaps the population explosion even as people leave Colorado. My own theory is that the exponential growth of the cattle industry has turned all winter feed into hay fields, which ranchers must cut and stack even if it goes unused, or it becomes a fire hazard. Instead, it becomes merely a token of superfluous wealth, piled up out of reach of everyone, including starving winter animals.

In the past, wild bison would cut trails through deep snow and clear pastures for smaller ungulates, but of course they had to be eradicated to make the huge cattle ranches possible. In the past, the old family ranchers were called stewards of the land, not property gods. Nowadays, it's more about beef and “if it doesn't moo, it doesn't belong here.”

Thomas Anthony
Perhaps