Wild Lands of the West | The BLM, National Geographic Magazine: Western Cattle Drive

Shrouded in dust, cowgirl Heidi Redd drives cattle through Beef Basin to reach water during the dry summer months. The Nature Conservancy’s Dugout Ranch on Indian Creek near Monticello, Utah, is surrounded by public land. Earth whipped into dust by a dry winter offers little forage for cattle on this Bureau of Land Management allotment. In the spring, Redd drives cattle to higher, wetter ground.

Ranchers pay for grazing allotments that allow them to run cattle on public land.

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