Briebart.com: Ranchers Wiped Out for Tortoise Allegations

The tale began with the 1989 decision by the federal government to declare the Mojave desert tortoise an endangered species. At the time, there were 50 cattle-ranching families   in Nevada's Clark County. The federal government asserted that livestock grazing destroyed desert tortoise populations, largely because cattle ate the grasses and spring growth of cacti, which the tortoises also ate. Yet in 1994, the federal government admitted in its Desert Tortoise Recovery Plan that the “extremely controversial” question of whether that assertion was true was not settled.

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