>These vegetarians get their realms of discourse mixed up when they claim
>that we should all be vegetarian because it takes more land to produce
>meat (for human consumption) than it does to produce non-meat foods.

I live in a very mountainous state (Idaho). Most of the land to the north
of where I live is wild and uninhabited. The growing season is short, and
nothing really grows there - except - grazing animals. Cattle and sheep
roam some of those areas for most of the year.

It's estimated there are millions of acres of land like this in the U.S,
and Canada where crops don't grow, but free-range animals thrive. Bonus:
it's been documented (both by guv'ment agencies and private researchers)
that the land inhabited by such animals actually *improves* because of
their presence. I have personally seen it happen in the Stanley Basin area
- beautiful mountain meadow areas created from what we used to call
'scrub'. Second bonus: free-ranging animals don't need any help from us to
do what comes naturally. Just let them loose, and they know *exactly* what
to do.

Environmentalists (mostly vegetarian I'd wager) have good intentions, but
they don't always get their facts straight. Show them a picture of a
clear-cut (logging) out west, and they seem to assume *all* of the trees
have been wiped out (even though the clear-cut in the picture represents
.0000001% of the total). I've seen it happen time and time again. Same with
their assumptions regarding ranching.