Grazing on public lands is the practice of raising livestock on land that is not privately owned. Livestock such as cattle and sheep eat forage (grass and other herbage) on the public land. Through the twentieth century and into the twenty-first, ranchers grazed livestock on federal and state public land in the western states.

The western livestock industry developed during the decades after the Civil War, according to a Bureau of Land Management (BLM) report. People headed west where the land was open. A prospective rancher just needed a headquarters, some horses and cowboy employees. Some ranches consisted of a dugout shelter for the people and a horse corral.

Livestock grazed on open land called the range. When livestock ate all the forage in one area, the rancher moved the herd and headquarters to another area. By 1870, there were 4.1 million beef cattle...