ABSTRACT
Ranching is both a business and a lifestyle in the Rockies. Ranching is also an industry struggling for economic survival and social respect, like much of the American farm sector, and facing the pressure of economic change with little help from a citizenry out-of-touch with agricultural issues. Throughout the Rocky Mountains, growing demand for residential and commercial land offers ranchers a "golden parachute" out of the squeeze between low returns on investment and the hassle of grazing on the federal lands. The current boom in Rocky Mountain ranchland is not a classic suburbanization process, nor the result of a dynamic agricultural-land market. Ranchland, which might be valued at $1,500 to $2,000 per animal unit in the Rockies, now sells for twice to ten times that amount, sometimes for ranching and sometimes for residential development. Ranchland conversion in the Rockies plays out in a complex ecological and political landscape.
