Cattle grazing and misplaced priorities (v2.0)
-- Illegal Grazing Starts --
In the fall of 2001, just before I was ready to harvest the bagged
flower heads, I received an angry call from the land owner. He said
that cows from a rancher had wandered onto his land. These cows were
not supposed to be on the land. He had not given the rancher permission.
The cows were in violation of the conservation easement.
Before I could get to the site, wildfires in the Sierra Nevada closed
access
to the area for several days. During this time, the cows revisited
at least one more time.
This is a photograph of the site, when I first saw it after the first
few cow tramplings. I'll admit that to those unfamiliar with the site,
it is hard to see the cow damage in this photo. I will adjust the
image characters of stretch, etc, so you can see it better on the
next page.
