Grazing

Restaurant patrons are increasingly going out to pasture, “grazing” their way through smaller servings instead of sitting down to longer and more expensive meals in a shift that has eateries rushing to adjust. Nearly half of diners now say they're snacking twice a day, compared with the quarter who said the same in 2010, according to research group Technomic . More than 6 in 10 customers said that the snacks they bought were impulse purchases. Snack brands at Stockton, Calif.-based Diamond Foods Inc. are doing well, the company said Tuesday , with Kettle chips and Pop Secret popcorn both seeing sales increases in the 12-week period ending Feb. 18. Sales from the Emerald nuts brand were up 29% compared with the same period a year earlier.

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.

The sound of hundreds of goat hooves echoed through a small valley overlooking the ocean Saturday in the Palos Verdes Nature Preserve, surprising passerby who watched as the animals munched their way through yard after yard of invasive weeds. FOR THE RECORD: Goat grazing: An article in the March 6 Section A about the use of goats to clear invasive weeds in the Palos Verdes Nature Preserve referred to boar goats. The correct term is Boer goats. ? The 230 goats are the first step in a project to restore natural flora and fauna to a 12-acre portion of the 1,400-acre preserve that was burned in a fire in 2009.

Re "Chain Reaction of Thirst in California Desert Dry Spell," June 23: As our native desert wildlife suffers in a severe drought, the Bush administration allows damaging livestock grazing to continue on 5 million acres of the California Desert Conservation Area and Mojave National Preserve. A handful of cattlemen already subsidized to graze their herds on our public lands are being allowed to hammer habitat to dust, and then when all the scant forage is gone, Interior Secretary Gale Norton's field managers permit them to keep grazing livestock on our stressed deserts by supplementing their feed.

Re "High Noon at the Blair Ranch," Feb. 9: All credit to the Center for Biological Diversity, the Sierra Club and Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility for bringing the litigation to stop grazing on this land. It is time for this ranch, and others like it, to go. The ranchers pay $6,000 a year to control 210,000 acres. That is ridiculous. The damage and degradation caused by the cattle are hundreds of times that, never mind the destruction of habitat for the endangered species.

It began with a high bid of $30. That was eight years ago. Eventually it may spell the end of one the most storied epochs in American history and usher in another that's more in tune with the times. That's because this small cash offer forced a very expensive question: What are Western range lands worth--those 270-million acres of public property now leased by ranchers to produce 3% of the nation's beef and lamb? The answer, as demonstrated by that first bid and others that followed, seems to be that these public lands are worth more than ranchers can pay, or at least are willing to pay. Which is good news for conservationists and taxpayers.

Several recent letters to the editor addressed the controversy over cattle ranching on Santa Rosa Island in the Channel Islands National Park. These letters contained a remarkable amount of misleading information about the situation on the island. The letters stated that cattle ranching is not degrading island resources. This is simply not true. The Regional Water Quality Control Board, range scientists from the University of California and other universities, as well as volunteer and staff scientists from the California Native Plant Society and other organizations have all documented severe cattle-related degradation.

All of the patrons at Al Johnson's Swedish restaurant in Sister, Bay, Wis., will be surprised to learn that they have been served Swiss meals with lingonberries and goats grazing on the roof. Frank Riley (Oct. 6), like Homer, sometimes nods. GEORGE JOHNSON Santa Barbara

In response to "Partners in Survival--Tortoise, Waste Site," Part I, March 7: In the above mentioned article, BLM associate manager Hugh Riecken states that the Bureau of Land Management is doing everything it can "to protect as much of the habitat as (it) can." The public should be aware that every acre of "desert tortoise critical habitat" in the East Mojave National Scenic Area is being grazed! The bottom line is that native plant communities are the basis for all terrestrial native animal populations, so it is folly trying to preserve an animal species and not preserve its habitat.

A weakened Hurricane Earl brushed North Carolina's fragile Outer Banks with stiff winds and high waves Thursday night, striking a glancing blow before spinning offshore up the Eastern Seaboard. If the storm stays on its projected path, it could bring storm surges and spot flooding from Virginia north to Cape Cod on Friday and Saturday. But forecasters said Earl would continue to weaken and stay out to sea before skirting the Massachusetts coast Saturday as a Category 1 storm with sustained winds below 95 mph. Forecasters predicted that the storm would graze the Virginia coast Friday morning, then blow past beaches in Delaware and New Jersey and on Long Island while remaining out to sea. Earl was not expected to make landfall along the East Coast before breaking up farther north over the Labor Day weekend.

When word trickled out of Nicaragua in November that Vicente Padilla was shot, his agent said the bullet only "grazed" his leg. Some graze that was. Pointing to a spot high on his right thigh, Padilla said, "It went in here." Touching the back of his leg, he continued, "And it went out the other side." Padilla said the wound healed in about two weeks. Padilla laughed several times as he recounted the incident, in which the pitcher was accidentally shot by a friend who was trying to fix his gun for him at a shooting range.

Got grass? The U.S. Department of Agriculture has imposed strict new standards for what kind of milk qualifies as organic: Cows must get plenty of fresh grass and spend at least four months a year grazing in pastures. The rules, which will go into effect June 17, are aimed at standardizing industry practices and easing consumer concerns about how the milk they buy is created. Current rules require milk marketed as organic to come from cows whose feed was grown without chemical fertilizers, pesticides or genetically modified seeds.

A rare Southern California butterfly and desert bighorn sheep have won a round in their contest for territory in the San Jacinto Mountains. National forest officials are rethinking the extent of cattle grazing on 51,000 acres in the San Jacintos that include habitat for the endangered quino checkerspot butterfly and the peninsular bighorn sheep. In response to appeals by environmental groups, the U.S. Forest Service withdrew one decision and reversed another involving the renewal of grazing allotments on San Bernardino National Forest lands.

Vicente Padilla, who revived his career in the Dodgers' run to the National League Championship Series, was treated for a minor self-inflicted gunshot wound in his right leg at a hospital in his native Nicaragua on Tuesday, his agent Adam Katz said. Katz described the incident as a "hunting accident," saying that Padilla was grazed in his right thigh by a bullet. Katz said that Padilla spent 30 to 40 minutes at a hospital and was discharged. "He's fine," Katz said. News reports out of Nicaragua stated that Padilla was hurt at a shooting range.

Clifford P. Hansen, a cattle rancher who became Wyoming's governor and then served two terms as a U.S. senator, has died. He was 97. Hansen died at his home Tuesday after receiving hospital treatment for a broken pelvis. A Republican, he served as governor from 1963 to 1967, when he went to Washington after defeating Teno Roncalio, Wyoming's only congressman and a Democrat, in a bid for the Senate. Hansen sat on the Senate Finance and Veterans Affairs committees and was a ranking member of the Natural Resources Committee.

I read Rich Roberts' article about buffalo hunting (Oct. 12) with disgust. Anyone who can do elementary mathematics can easily see the deceit behind the (Arizona) Department of Fish and Game's logic (or excuse) for the hunt. According to the DFG, buffalo grazing threatens to "deprive all species (of wildlife) of natural food." If the DFG is really so concerned with native species of wildlife, they'd better change the status of beef cattle to "big game" species, like the buffalo, because there's a lot more cattle per acre grazing away out there than buffalo.

Re "Clinton Tries to Beef Up Cattle Market," May 1: President Clinton told the Agriculture Department to open environmentally sensitive land (Forest Service land) for grazing. "We have to do it quickly. We can't fool around," he said at the start of a meeting with members of Congress from ranching states. No, no, no, Mr. Clinton. This land is our land, not yours to give away to a few ranchers who will destroy our heritage. Grazing fragile public land will destroy streams, limit fishing and hunting for the general public as well as defiling land for the benefit of a few subsidized ranchers.

A 4-year-old girl caught in a crossfire was grazed by a bullet Thursday, police said. Three men were shooting at someone in a car in the 1200 block of North Centinela Avenue about 12:40 p.m. when the girl was wounded in the head. She was reported in stable condition at a nearby hospital. -- My-Thuan Tran