I live in a temperate zone. During the colder months there are not a lot of options for local plant based foods. They are for the most part shipped long distance from somewhere else. Local animals are available year round though.
I attended year round "local food" potlucks in Indiana. People had local food available year around. During the winter it kept in cool storage (like onions), or had been frozen, dehydrated, canned, or grown in a greenhouse.
If year-round local plant-food was more of a priority for people, more could be produced.
Besides, where are the local animals getting their food during the winter? The options are basically the same: either they have local food that's been preserved or their food is getting shipped in too, making a rather inefficient way to deliver calories to humans.
I was with you until your position that animals eat the same food humans do (because if people can't find local food, how can animals?). This is very, very wrong - even in pretty bad climates where nothing edible will grow for humans it isn't impossible to raise some sort of cattle that grazes. That's more or less the point of cattle: to take a thing you cannot eat and turn it into something you can.
This isn't entirely unrelated to how many marginal ecosystems are currently being destroyed by domesticated grazing animals, which are typically invasive species that will overpopulate the area either because of lack of predators or because humans are protecting them from predators.
This maybe wasn't such a big deal centuries ago when natural forces also placed stronger limits on the size of the human populations in those areas. Nowadays, though, I think we very much have to think about the possibility that, regardless of any romantic notions about traditional ways of life, using livestock to live in places we otherwise couldn't is not something we do to respect nature, it's something we do that's destroying it.
This is the sort of black and white rhetoric that I think does not do a service to the reality involved. Of course you are correct that overgrazing is a problem, but to go from that to "using livestock to live in places we otherwise couldn't is something we do to destroy the environment" is plain wrong. I would instantly concede your point if you could moderate it to "we need to stop overdoing things", which I think is compatible with what we both see and still has merit.
Sure thing, but if you look at the first example I found regarding meat consumption by type [1], what you claim seems disconnected the reality, because only 1.1 percent of all meat consumed is lamb or mutton. And I'm sure most of it is produced in ways that pay off (that is big scale operations, same as with all the other meat on the market).
You are replying to statements I have not made. Even if what you say is technically true, I have not made any claims about percentages or majorities - I was merely pointing out a configuration of reality that exists and was not kept in mind when the person I was responding to wrote his comment.
I also don't understand why you are bringing up lamb and mutton, as those are far from the only animals you can keep in the conditions I mentioned. It's not unthinkable that you are making a point of some sort there, but without elaborating on it further the reader is left guessing.
I live in a temperate zone. During the colder months there are not a lot of options for local plant based foods. They are for the most part shipped long distance from somewhere else. Local animals are available year round though.