ABSTRACT
Control of animal numbers is the first and most important rangeland management principle. As each animal grazes, it reduces available herbage both in quantity and quality, thereby changing the habitat for itself and altering future animal/habitat relations. Many organizations have had a long term interest is grazing animals and grazing lands and have used different terms to define the same concept. Range management literature lists many terms related to numbers of animals. Many factors determine grazing capacity for both livestock and wild grazing animals. Animal equivalents have little application in expressing equivalent impacts on range vegetation from animals with wide differences in food habits. Animals, or their demand for forage, are imposed on the cycle at a more or less constant rate in a few range operations. Animal-to-area expressions are preferred because they are more directly related to grazing pressure and production per hectare than is area per animal.
