Pretty much, that is indeed the case. (humans routinely underestimating animal intelligence, either because it is different from theirs, is not highly pro-social like theirs, or the animal has a convenient material utility, which accepting the intelligent nature of the animal would make difficult to exploit.)
I would again point out the data presented by the USDA concerning total cattle operations, and the number of actual factory dry feedlots in the country. It really is around 50 total. They just happen to also be basically concentration camps for cows. (and naturally, I am strongly against their use)
Those 50 or so drylots produce a very alarming amount of beef in the US, but it is not upwards of 50%. (I will need to re-read the figures-- it HAS been over a year, and we HAVE had an international pandemic up our asses. Lots of stuff on my mind chasing things out lately.) Removing the drylots would reduce beef availability, but not by the seemingly expected amounts imagined by vegans. People need to eat less meat anyway, and the subsequent rise in beef prices would only be beneficial in cementing the natural pasturage operations: The beef production would be the most profitable use of that land. (and if coupled with quality regulations prohibiting the destruction of other kinds of habitat to produce cattle, and similar methods to prevent people being idiots, and destroying farmland to raise cattle, seeking that high high price per pound of flesh, it not be a significant source of problems.) Most of the issues with zoonotic pathogens comes from people feeding cattle absurd amounts of corn and silage, which is highly acidic, and basically gives the cows dietary distress, which makes them susceptible to diseases. To combat that, they shoot the cattle full of lots of antibiotics, because those are cheap, and proper pasturage is expensive. Proper regulation to prohibit drylot operations, would make it nonsensical to continue such practices. This would have a naturally correlated reduction in the amount of antibiotics shot into cattle, and thus strongly reduce the capacity for the cattle ranching operations to produce antibiotic-resistant superbugs.
Beef and other meat products SHOULD be expensive. That is kinda necessary, since the demand for the product is not going to go down. (Only the supply, through regulation.) I do not consider that a bad thing, since again, a high unit price means highly profitable cattle ranching operations on appropriate grazelands, and would be a strong incentive to not over-extend the pasturage (since drylotting would be illegal, and overpasturage results in drylot conditions.)
You would have lots of angry cattle farmers looking at "how much they COULD be making if you would just allow drylotting again", but that is not the same thing as cattle ranching being unprofitable. If there is any lesson this century should have writ large, it is that unregulated capitalist enterprises fuck the commons faster than anything else. Regulation is a good thing. Embrace it. Demand it. That very same regulation should also prohibit the clearcutting or conversion of inappropriate biomes to convert them into pasture.