Cattle grazing and misplaced priorities (v2.0)
-- Revenge? --
Do you see the plant flopping down in the right hand portion of the
photo? The one with the large, striped-looking leaves?
That is Veratrum californicum. The cows have been chewing on it,
too.
Veratrum californicum is a lovely native California plant in
the Lily family. One of its many attributes is that it
is toxic to cows---in particular, it can mutate
the foetal calves into horrifying, one-eyed monsters. The cyclopean
monstrosities are usually, fortunately, born dead.
While the cattle ranchers do not care enough about the
rights of their neighboring land owners to keep their cattle in their
grazing allotments, perhaps a spring's crop of dead calves will wake
them up.
Of course I am not blaming the cattle. Cows are cows---big, dumb, eating,
excreting animals. Their habits, by nature, are different from those of
deer and elk---while deer and elk
are satisfied to drink from the edges of streams, cows love to wander into
rivers and wallow, shit, and just hang out.
Ranchers know this, but in this case, the rancher
just does not care enough to watch the animals.
Well, enough about the evidence. What happened next? I was enraged. The
land owners were enraged about the illegal cows tromping onto their
property. The organizations that held the conservation easement to the
property were enraged. However, showing patience, we all licked our wounds
and looked towards the future. Yet, the cows came back. The land owners
observed the brand on the cows---they were same bunch as before.
We found out who owned the cows.
At first we were given the run-around (at times even being advised to
talk to the local animal control clinic!). Finally, they tracked down
the appropriate officials in the US Forest Service. Here is what we
found out...
