If we stopped farming cows would their population increase or decrease?

random_man

Cows are domestic animals. They don't live and reproduce in the wild. If we stopped farming and ranching, we would stop breeding cows, and their numbers would dwindle.

rick29148

They don't exist in the wild ...........................................

adrian

They'd explode from having too much milk.

Dobiegal

bovine life expectancy is about 9-10 years

Paula

They would decrease. The USA and Canada used to support about 50 million bison. The population now is about 150,000 with aboutb100 million cattle. With no farming, the numbers would fall toward the 50 million mark. Except the plains of USA and Canada are now fenced. So the 50 million number could not be supported. Perhaps half that number would.

Born Yesterday

The debate is interesting. Ruminant populations are influenced by forage availability, predation, epizootics, climate, etc. The irony is that urban wildlife (wild birds, squirrels, etc.) are probably more successful as scavengers in predator free environment than in a wilderness area. The argument goes way beyond exponential population growth. They would likely disappear even if we did too.

Abraham

Oh god