- .... 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 ; ) >