The rancher strings barbed wire across the range, drills wells and bulldozes
stock ponds everywhere, drives off the elk and antelope and bighorn sheep,
poisons coyotes and prairie dogs, shoots eagle and bear and cougar on sight,
supplants the native bluestem and grama grass with tumbleweed, cow shit, cheat
grass, snakeweed, anthills, poverty weed, mud and dust and flies--and then
leans back and smiles broadly at the Tee Vee cameras and tells us how much he
loves the West.
-- Edward Abbey
