03/31/26 - Entry 1: Cattle Drive Documentary

 The cattle industry is huge in America, our country alone has 10's of millions of cattle and produces 10's of billions of dollars annually. Over the last two classes we watched a documentary called the The Drift: An American Cattle Drive it displays a group of families that own ranches in the Green River Drift. The documentary shows us how these ranchers move thousands of cattle from up to 100 miles across the drift so they can graze.  The trip is very tough physically and brings many challenges such as herding, protecting the herd from predators and makes sure each one is healthy and marked. 

For the people living in the drift ranching is not just a profession but a way of life. These ranches have been worked and passed down from generation to generation, but as time moves on life gets harder and harder for them. The once rural area is quickly becoming more populated making it harder to move the herd and the cost to maintain the land and cows is leaning towards costing the ranchers more than what they are profiting. To make ends meet these families have to work separate jobs as these ranches can't keep up with what the cattle industry superpowers are producing today. 

It's really sad for me to see a long family tradition fade away as these are probably the last cowboys we'll likely see with the coming future. After watching the documentary a couple questions I have are can this traditional style of ranching survive in our modern world? How to we balance a growing society with tradition? What will happen with the land if these ranches go out of business?

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