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....   One difference between the paleolithic hunting of
>>animals and modern animal husbandry is that the number of animals needed
to
>>support a wild hunter is much larger than the number needed to support a
>>civilized meat eater.  To elaborate, the wild forager takes only a small
>>percentage of the herd, so the land required to deliver that small
>>percentage is great in proportion to the meat it produces.  The civilized
>>carnivore, on the other hand, takes a large percentage of the herd, if not
>>all of it eventually, so the same amount of land required to feed one wild
>>carnivore will feed many civilized carnivores.  This is possible because
>>modern herds are more efficient producers of meat:  there's artificial
>>insemination requiring fewer bulls, breeding to produce disease resistant
>>animals that also grow larger on less food, veterinary practices, no wild
>>predators etc.  Also adding to this efficiency is the fact that
>domesticated
>>animals are docile and easy to catch and kill.

>Granted that modern 'cattle farming' is more efficient than hunting

I think you are getting caught in the illusion of efficiency of the
domestication , It is true only when you looked thru a narrow lens ( short
term economic values) , when you looked at even a slighly bigger picture you
can see that the real cost of our agriculture or animal husbandry make it
rather ineficient and if you really looks deeper it becomes obvious that a
more rich ecosystem (varieties of species) is more productive in a
sustainable way.
We replace  the rich ecosystem of the prairies with all its fauna and flora
( varied available food sources) by cattle and sage , agremented with grain
fields (to make them economically
worth it by fattening them. )

Now the relative efficienty can be mesured with differents objectives in
mind do we want a rich varied source of foods or a beef based diet.?
 A rich ecosystem is very valuable at sustaining human but not so much to
sustain their wallets. The issue of efficienty is related to the attribution
of value ( a big steak is better than the equivalent in calorie in a small
mamal or bird ; )
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