Chapter 5. — Range 



The Nation's Range Base 



This chapter includes (1) a description of the range 

 resource base, its distribution, ownership, condition, 

 utilization, and management; (2) a discussion of the 

 demand for range grazing by livestock as influenced 

 by national demands for meat and fiber; (3) projec- 

 tions of the supply of range grazing; (4) demand- 

 supply relationships; and (5) the opportunities and 

 research needed for improving and managing the 

 range resource to increase supplies of range grazing. 

 The discussion concentrates on the use of forests and 

 rangelands for livestock grazing. Other products and 

 uses, such as wildlife, water, recreation, and timber 

 and their interactions, are discussed in other chapters 

 in this report. 



The material presented here relies heavily on the 

 conceptual framework and issue delineation of "The 

 Nation's Range Resources — A Forest-Range Envi- 

 ronmental Study,"' "Opportunities to Increase Red 

 Meat Production from Ranges of the United States, "^ 

 and "The Nation's Renewable Resources — an Assess- 

 ment. "^ Many agencies and many people cooperated 

 in developing the resource data and providing infor- 

 mation about condition and productivity of the range 

 resource.'* 



Definition of range. — Range is land that provides 

 or is capable of providing forage for grazing or brows- 

 ing animals. It includes all grasslands and shrublands 

 (collectively called rangelands) and those forest lands 

 that will continually or periodically, naturally or 

 through management, support an understory of her- 

 baceous or shrubby vegetation that provides forage 

 for grazing and browsing animals. Also included are 

 those lands that have been seeded to nonnative plants 

 but are managed as if the species were native. ' The 

 pinyon-juniper and chaparral-mountain shrub eco- 

 systems, classed as other forest land in the chapter on 



' U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service. The Nation's 

 range resource — a forest-range environmental study. Forest 

 Resource Rep. 19, 147 p., illus. 1972. 



2 U.S. Department of Agriculture, Interagency Work Group. 

 Opportunities to increase red meat production from ranges of the 

 United States. Washington, D.C., 100 p. 1974. 



3 U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service. The Nation's 

 renewable resources — an assessment, 1975. Forest Resource Rep. 

 21, 243, p., illus. 1977. 



'' Data on non-Federal lands were provided by the Soil Conser- 

 vation Service and by State agencies. Data about the Federal lands 

 were provided by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Bureau of Land 

 Management, Fish and Wildlife Service, Forest Service, National 

 Park Service, and the Department of Defense. In addition, more 

 than 200 people from Federal and State agencies and universities 

 participated in four workshops. They developed production co- 

 efficients and estimates of range potential. 



5 Adapted from the Glossary of range terms used in range man- 

 agement. Society for Range Management, 32 p. 1964. 



Forest and Range Lands, are included in rangelands 

 in this chapter because their responses to range man- 

 agement principles and practices are similar to those 

 of shrubland ecosystems.* Lands designated as im- 

 proved pasture, cropland pasture, and grazed crop- 

 land are not included in the range base used in this 

 assessment because they are routinely cultivated, 

 seeded, fertilized, or irrigated.^ 



Description of the range. — A complex array of 54 

 ecosystems, characterized by a variety of vegetation 

 life forms, makes up the Nation's range base. More 

 than half the range area is dominated by grasslands 

 and shrublands and the balance by coniferous and 

 deciduous forests. In the Pacific Coast area, the range- 

 land ecosystems are characterized by annual grasses, 

 bunchgrasses, sagebrush, chaparral, and mountain 

 meadows while the forests are primarily coniferous. 

 The arid and semiarid ranges of the Southwest and 

 the Intermountain Great Basin area are dominated by 

 a complex of bunchgrasses, annual grasses, cacti, 

 salt-tolerant shrubs, sagebrush, pinyonjuniper, and 

 chaparral. A mosaic of sagebrush, grasslands, mead- 

 ows, aspen, and conifers makes up the rangelands 

 and forests of the Rocky Mountains. East of the 

 Rockies are the Great Plains ecosystems character- 

 ized by short grasses and midgrasses and low shrubs 

 on the western part of the plains, and by tall grasses, 

 shrubs, shinnery, and savanna on the eastern edge. 

 East of the 95th meridian, forest ecosystems domi- 

 nate the landscape with only remnants of prairie and 

 wet grasslands. 



Distribution 



When the Europeans first colonized what is now 

 the United States, virtually all of the 2.255 billion 

 acres of land were forests or rangelands. As settle- 

 ments occurred, first in the Southwest in the early 

 1500's and later in the East, forests and rangelands 

 were converted into cropland and pastureland to 

 provide food for the people and forage for livestock. 

 Later, towns, cities, highways, railroads, mining, and 

 other industrial activities further encroached upon 

 the forests and rangelands. By 1976, about 1,557 mil- 

 lion acres, or 69 percent of the Nation's land area, 

 remained as forests and rangelands (table 2.1). In the 

 lower 48 States, 64 percent of the land area remains 



'The pinyon-juniper and chaparral-mountain shrub ecosystems 

 occupy 62,782,000 acres in the 17 western States (table 2.8). There- 

 fore, in this chapter, total forest area is short and total rangeland 

 long by that amount as compared to forests and rangelands in the 

 chapter on Forest and Range Lands. 



'These lands were classified according to accepted definitions 

 and standards developed by the Soil Conservation Service and are 

 included in "other lands," table 2.1. 



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