FE5.7 - Home on the Rangelands: Welcome to Cowlifornia (Part 1) - Future Ecologies

Episode Transcript
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Introduction Voiceover (00:01):
You are listening to Season Five of
Future Ecologies

Ashley Ahearn (00:06):
Test test, one, two. Test test, one, two. Yeah,
that should be good. Batterieslook like they're good. All
right, yeah, I think I'm ready.

Adam Huggins (00:16):
Hey, everyone. So it probably won't surprise you.
But Mendel and I are voraciouspodcast listeners.

Mendel Skulski (00:24):
It's true. It turns out if you listen to
enough podcasts, youautomatically become a
podcaster.

And we must have met that threshold something
like five years ago or so. Andlast year, I listened to a
series that challenged the waythat I thought about a fairly
significant portion of the landon Earth.

How... how much of the land on Earth is fairly
significant?

Well, depending on the source between 50 and 70%.

What could that be? The suburbs?

No, not not suburbs, even though they do
sometimes feel like they go onforever.

You're gonna keep me guessing. Okay, well,
what was the series called?

The series is called Women's Work. And it was
produced by one of my favoritepodcasters, Ashley Ahearn

So my name is Ashley Ahern, and I make
podcasts about the urban-ruraldivide and natural resources and
climate change and science andthe environment

The series emerges out of a pretty big life change
that she made a little whileback.

I guess, as a journalist, you're always
looking for the story behind thestory, or you have that sense
when you're not getting thewhole story. And I reported for
NPR in Seattle for seven yearsas their environment reporter
for the leading member stationthere KUOW. And I loved the job,
it was wonderful place to coverthe environment, so much awesome
science and ecology to learnabout.

The problem, she told me, is that public radio
can be a bit of an echo chamber.

And it was really hard to get outside of that
bubble, of sort ofliberal-environmental groupthink
about what's right for theenvironment, and how to manage
our natural resources. Fromfrankly, the urban jungle of
Seattle where, you know, if youwear REI, it's like you're a
card carrying member of the theGreen Revolution, you know,
which I was part of, right?Like, that's what I was doing. I

(02:16):
was doing God's work coveringthe coal export terminals they
were trying to build and, youknow, trying to get the word out
about this or that problem thatwas happening and how things
were changing and what wasbroken.

But that sense that she wasn't getting the
whole story, it just keptcreeping up.

Yeah that sense that I was missing something —
that these questions about howwe manage our natural resources,
how we live in harmony with thelandscape, many of them can't be
answered from the city. So myhusband and I decided, five
years ago now, to move to alittle piece of sagebrush and
live in a very, very smallcabin, and just cut back and
simplify and get closer to theland and closer to the

(02:54):
environment.

Naturally, being new to town, she needed to find
a way to connect with thecommunity. And so she did what
you do when you move out tosagebrush country, apparently.

Which is?

She posted on a listserv.

I basically posted on the equivalent of
like, our 1997, Facebook, likeReddit type thing out here where
people share like "there's someloose goats on East County Road"
or "I have an old horse doesanybody new pasture mate", you
know, blah, blah, blah. And so Iposted and I just said, you
know, I rode horses as a kid,I've been away from it for a
long time, I just want to bearound them again. I'll shovel

(03:28):
horse poop. I will like feed,whatever you need, I just want
to be near them.

What a pitch. Who could resist?

For sure. Before long, Ashley gets a response
from a local rancher.

And turns out she had nine horses, and there was
this one little mare, Pistol.And she and I hit it off. She's
kind of a pain in the ass. She'sonly partially trained. And she
kind of does what she wants todo when she wants to do it. And
this woman has become a verygood friend. And about a month
after I got there, she said, "Ithink... I think you should have
Pistol. I've been sitting withthis and I just think you should

(04:00):
have her". And and that startedthe journey.

Because it turned out that Pistol, in some ways,
helped her access the parts ofthe story that she felt that she
had been missing before.

That horse carried me into this community.
I can't really explain it anyother way. And just the ability
to show up and ride for hoursand not complain and work and
listen and ask sometimes reallystupid questions, but to be
doing it from horseback... it'slike that bridge into their
world that made it safe and madeit different from me showing up

(04:33):
with my microphone to do a storyto bring back to my listeners in
Seattle.

Her first series out in the country was about
Sage Grouse. And once she'dplucked that chicken, she moved
on to cows. And it's the serieson cows that really captured my
attention.

Cows are the glue of so many rural communities.
They are the reason that certaintypes of knowledge persists. All
of these kinds have hands on,call it blue collar, call it
what you will, skills andstrengths, to say nothing of the
way that the community comestogether to help each other when
there's a branding that needs tohappen or a roundup that needs

(05:13):
to happen or calving season isunderway.

Okay. You say it's about cows, but the series
is called Women's Work?

And that's because while most of us grew up
learning all about the cowboys,Ashley's time with rancher is
really impressed upon her howwomen are so often at the center
of the work, to maintain and tocreate positive change in this
very old way of life.

This is ranch life, this is cowboy shit. Like,
you just get up and you work.And you work until the sun goes
down. And being able to be a flyon the wall with my microphone
to see that life in action was areally important part of this
series. And that kind of showedme the level of work and the
amount of heart that goes intothe work for the women that are
doing this. This is really kindof an homage to them, I would
say

The series has all of these great stories of women
across the West, pushing theenvelope in their literal field.

And these atraditional gender roles really
flipped your worldview, huh?

No, that part was fine. Mendel. What really got
under my skin was anenvironmental reporter, doing
all of these positive storiesabout cows.

What's wrong with cows? What did cows ever do
to you?

I don't like cows. I don't like them
professionally. I don't likethem personally. I think they
are gigantic, methane-emittingnon-native herbivores. And
they've played a prettysignificant role in transforming
most of the landscapes that Ihold, dear. So I generally see
them as a scourge upon the land.

A scourge! So I take it you... you don't like
ice cream?

Of course, I like ice cream.

Or cheese?

I like cheese.

Burgers?

They're okay, I guess.

Alright, I'm just giving you a hard time.
Right like, it'senvironmentalist orthodoxy at
this point that the cows are atleast a problem, right? Like
there are too many of them.They're causing deforestation,
they burp greenhouse gas, weshould all collectively eat less
beef, and so on.

Yeah, and all of those things, by the way, are
basically true. So we're noteven going to get into them
here. They're established fact.What really got to me was the
stories that Ashley was tellingabout cows being portrayed as
beneficial to the environment,and even providing benefits for
Conservation and Biodiversity.

If you're coming at this conversation from a
place of cows are bad, we needto get rid of them — that's kind
of a non starter for me. Becausefrankly, that's lazy thinking.
To me, it's about how do wethink more critically about
cows? What role do they have?Because the truth is, many
people in this country still eatbeef. So how do we make it our
beef that's raised better, moresustainably and not involving

(08:05):
chopping down rainforests inSouth America to bring us beef
from another country thatdoesn't employ Americans or keep
our way of life alive in ruralAmerica.

And then, Ashley neatly summarized the entire
reason that you and I make thisshow.

I think there is this perhaps outdated thinking
among many environmentaliststhat, you know, we just need to
box it up and keep it safe,right? We just need to protect
it from the cows and from thepeople. And the older I get, the
more I've come to peace with...we changed it, whether it's the
climate that we're changingthrough our emissions, or the on
the ground decisions we'remaking with frankly, poor cow

(08:42):
management, which I am the firstto acknowledge, because I've
seen it firsthand. We can't denythat we have changed the
ecosystems in which we live. Andso to me, stepping back and just
saying we can't make thembetter, or we shouldn't be
involved anymore, is not okay.It's almost a shirking of
responsibility. And so that'swhere when I look at the cow
question, it's not as simple asjust saying cows are bad, they

(09:07):
weren't ever here, we need toremove them and protect this
whole ecosystem from cows. WhatI would prefer to think about
is, how can we manage cows insuch a way that is not
detrimental to the ecosystem andperhaps, in fact, mimics the
original grazers, bison, deer,other animals that were coming
through and grazingintermittently, and not

(09:29):
extensively in the same places,ruining riparian areas, all of
these kinds of known offensesthat cattle commit, you know,
how do we think about them astools and a means to improve the
health of a landscape or atleast be part of a changed
landscape going forward?

So, in this three-part series, we're going
to have a wide ranging andsometimes contentious
conversation about the 50 to 70%of terrestrial Earth that is
referred to by some asRangelands. And to do that,
we're going to return to thepart of the world that I know
best. From Future Ecologies,this is Home on the Rangelands,

(10:13):
part one, Welcome toCowlifornia.

Moooo.

Introduction Voiceover (10:20):
Broadcasting from the unceded, shared and
asserted territories of theMusqueam, Squamish, and
Tsleil-Waututh, this is FutureEcologies – exploring the shape
of our world through ecology,design, and sound.

All right, here we go.

Okay, so we're headed back to California,
again.

Yep.

But before we get started, since we do have an
international audience, howrepresentative is California
really for the issues that we'regoing to be discussing?

That is a really good question. And it is one of
the questions I've been tryingto answer for myself with this
series. So as always, withFuture Ecologies, there are some
important ways that thisconversation should feel very
relevant for other parts of theworld. But there's also
something different happening inCalifornia.

Well, then, let's carry on.

Alright. So in my experience of growing up in
California, every afternoon,like clockwork, two items
emerged from the pantry — abottle of wine, and some cheese.

Of course, these are civilized people.

And as a kid, I didn't like either of those
things. I would eat thecrackers, no wine, no cheese for
me. But as I grew older, and abit more discerning, when I
looked around the Bay Area, Inoticed that anywhere that
hadn't been turned into suburbansprawl, it's either vineyards in
the valleys, or ranches up onthe ridges.

It's almost like you have this direct sense that
you're consuming the landscapeeach and every afternoon.

Yeah, wine and cheese. And focusing in on the
cheese, or on the ranches,according to the California
cattlemen Association, there areover 660,000 cows in California

That's a lot of cows!

Ranchers manage over a third of the landmass of
the state.

So we're not just talking about like, your
neighborhood, your neck of thewoods, this is everywhere in the
state,

Everywhere. California, and of course,
everywhere else west of theRockies. Really anywhere where
trees or pavement or farmsaren't the predominant land
cover.

Right. And that's rangelands? What does
that term actually mean?

Honestly, I have some issues with this term,
which we will get into later.But for now, I will give it to
you straight from one of theforemost experts on the subject.

Lynn Huntsinger (13:42):
My name is Lynn Huntsinger. I'm a professor of
Rangeland Ecology and Managementat the University of California,
Berkeley, and I find that mostpeople don't know what rangeland
is. So I'll say it's pretty muchall the vegetated areas that are
not commercial forest, and thatincludes grasslands and
woodlands and shrublands.

That's a pretty expansive definition.

It is. Rangelands folks — That's what I'm going to
be calling them. The range landspeople, the rangelands folks —
they consider their field toencompass grasslands, prairies,
savannas, woodlands, shrublands,tundra, and sometimes even
deserts.

... even deserts.

The World Wildlife Federation has mapped 14 global
biomes, and rangelands encompassseven of them. So, only half,
Mendel.

And so that's why they are 50 to 70% of the
Earth's surface.

Yeah. The Rangelands Atlas, just published
a few years ago, pins it at 55%.But I've seen estimates as low
as 30 and as high as 80%,depending on whether you include
desert or tundra, and also onwhether you include the
approximately 15% of land thatwas forested in the recent past
and has since been cleared foragriculture or livestock use.

So wait, it's a... is it an ecological
category? Like, is it stillrangeland, even when there
aren't cattle grazing on it?

Well, a lot of people think that it's a land
use, but it really isn't not.For us, it's really vegetation
types. So we have forestersmanaging the forest and we
handle the rest. The most commonuse of rangeland is for
livestock grazing and forwildlife. So there are land uses

(15:42):
mixed in there, but range peoplework on anything to do with the
ecosystem and the ecology of theplant communities on it. Or in
it.

Okay, so everything that isn't forest.

More or less, yeah. And talking to Lynn, I got
the distinct sense thatrangelands folks may sometimes
feel that rangelands just don'tget the attention that they
deserve. Especially in relationto their more popular cousins —
forests.

People have an unnatural love for trees. I like
them too, but a tree belongswhere a tree belongs. It's not
necessarily good. You know, insome places,

That's pretty hot take, for this show.

Us tree people might consider rangelands people
to have an unnatural love forgrass. But Lynn is unabashedly
all about grass. Or rather, sheis all about the rumen

The what?

The rumen. You know, the specialized stomach of
ruminants grazing animals, likecows.

Grass is very hard to digest. That's why
people haven't started eating ityet, despite wanting to eat
everything else. Grass is fullof glass particles and it's full
of fiber. And so it takes aruminant to really digest it and
you know, that is a gift tohumankind, the rumen. Despite
the fact that it emits methane,it has supported humans for

(17:04):
millions of years.

Okay, so rangelands management is applied
ecology with a healthy dose ofrumen.

Yes. And if you ask ranchers, they'll tell you

Clayton Koopmann (17:18):
I mean, there's so many different facets
the same.
to these rangelands — to thehabitat, to the management.
Whether it's the cattle, whetherit's the wildlife, whether it's
the fisheries, whether it's thepeople and the recreation. It's
really unique that everythingcan coexist all at the same
time. And we've done you know, alot of work to make that happen.

Hey, who's this?

Mendel, meet Clayton.

My name is Clayton Koopmann. I live in the
East Bay Area in California. I'ma fifth generation rancher. My
family's been here since thelate 1800s, and running cattle
up down the central coast here.

And I'm going to stop right here and say that
pretty much everything that wetalked about in this series is
hotly contested. In five seasonsof doing Future Ecologies with
you, I do not think we havecovered a single topic that has
been more polarized. Like Icannot tell you how many times
I've been confronted with expertperspectives and with research

(18:13):
that appears to completelycontradict other perspectives
and research. It's been veryhard to find common ground. And
claims of pro or anti cow biasare pretty constantly being
thrown around.

Well, maybe you've already blown it. You've
already copped to your anti cowbias. How are we going to
proceed with this controversy?

Yeah, so I'm actually going to lean into
this.

Okay?

Mendel, I pledge right now that for the rest of
this episode, I will say nothingbad about cows.

I kind of don't believe you.

Well, I'm gonna try real hard, anyway. And
listeners, do not worry. We aregoing to get to the other side
of the conversation. But today,it's 100% cowabunga.

Okay, well, I guess I'll do what I do and just
ask questions then.

Great. Okay, I'm going to begin by actually
immediately breaking my pledge.But only because one thing
virtually everybody does agreeabout is that A) cows are not
native to North America.

Sure

And B) bringing them to California has, in
conjunction with other land usechanges, resulted in
extraordinary and potentiallyirreparable damage to
California's native ecosystems.So long story short, pre
colonial California was by allaccounts, a land of tremendous
ecological diversity, abundantwildlife and significant

(19:53):
populations of Indigenouspeoples.

Not unlike everywhere else in North
America.

Sure. The difference here is that there's
probably nowhere else in NorthAmerica where so many of the
lowland ecosystems have been sothoroughly transformed. The
mountainous regions ofCalifornia are international
conservation success stories,but the combined legacies of
state-sponsored genocide againstIndigenous people, damming and

(20:21):
water diversion for agriculture,urbanization, and ranching have
rendered large portions of thestate almost unrecognizable from
a historical standpoint. So muchso that we actually don't really
know what some of our rangelandsecosystems even looked like.

Like, at all?

Not in any detail. We know we had these enormous
prairies and woodlands andwetlands, all around the foot
hills and valleys that were somecombination of native perennial
bunch grasses and wildflowers,with herds of antelope and elk
wolves and grizzly bears.

Grizzly bears.

Yeah, there is one on our state flag,

Right, but they're not in your state.

No, they are gone, and so are the ecosystems I just
described. Only scatteredremnants are left.

Replaced by what?

Well in some places, towns or cities, or
farms. But throughout much ofthe state. These perennial
bunchgrass lands have beenreplaced by a small suite of
highly aggressive annual grassesfrom the Mediterranean — oats,
bromes, rye, and bentgrass.

California's grasslands have been basically
taken over by grasses, most ofwhich emerged in the Fertile
Crescent, and they're muchlarger in stature. They're
heavily competitive with ourlittle native species, they grow
faster, and the seed persists inthe soil for many years. Even if
you clear them, they are goingto be back one way or another.

And cows are to blame.

I mean, not solely. But certainly they
played and may still play apretty major role. These
introduced grasses evolved withlivestock in Eurasia, and are
adapted to that kind ofdisturbance, whereas the native
perennial bunchgrass communitiesjust aren't. So the famous
golden hills of California...scientific consensus is that is

(22:19):
a consequence of annual grassinvasion and dominance of those
ecosystems. And it represents apretty major historical
departure from what wereprobably much greener and longer
lived biomes. We're going totalk more about these past
ecosystems in a future episode,but I think this is the
background that you need rightnow. Because all of the

(22:40):
rangelands people told meessentially the same thing —
Those ecosystems, they are gone,probably forever. So we have to
move forward with what's left. Iheard this from Clayton.

I think it's a different ecosystem now. And I
think you're gonna have tomanage it that way. The annual
grasses we have like the ryegrass or the wild oats, they're
very competitive. And they tendto just really take over and
shade out the bunch grasses. SoI think you'd have a hard time
converting back to a purelyperennial bunchgrass landscape.

And Lynn told me the same thing. That in essence,
California's grasslands are now,in large part, novel ecosystems.

Yes, we do have to manage for what's there. And
not imagine that we're going toconvert most of these grasslands
back unless some new technologyis developed or something
amazing happens. The annualgrasses are there and they don't
go away.

I'm getting the feeling this is going to be a
pretty information-heavyepisode. Maybe I should try to
summarize the arguments comingfrom these rangelands, people?

By all means.

So argument number one, these are novel
ecosystems. You can't restorethem. You just have to manage
them. I'd guess not everyonefeels that way. Adam, do you
agree with that assessment?

Well, Mendel, I am with the cow people today,
remember? But honestly, mypersonal experience has been
that these novel grasslandecosystems are really stubborn.
And trying to imagine restoringthem at any kind of scale is
challenging. Plus, restore themto what, right?

Right. Okay then, so, game over.

No, actually, the rangelands, people say we might
have lost those ecosystems andsome of those species forever.
But there's still tons ofbiodiversity in California's
rangelands and we can manage forit... using cows!

So the problem becomes the solution.

Exactly. And this is kind of a recent development,
because for the longest time inCalifornia as elsewhere, the
consensus view was that cattlewere bad for wildlife and native
biodiversity. And then slowly, anew school of thought has
emerged. And that view hasstarted to change.

You know, during the 90s and early 2000s,
there was a ton of research donethat showed the benefits of
cattle grazing — the ecologicalbenefits. And as that
information was released, andthe scholarly articles were
released, I think you started tosee a transition in the thought
process of land managers and thepublic. And as we continue to

(25:29):
graze, you know, and demonstratethese positive benefits, you
tend to see more and more peoplebecome believers.

Lynn was one of the researchers driving this
paradigm shift. And she told methat it's sometimes pretty
challenging to overcome people'singrained assumptions about
livestock.

Livestock is guilty until proven innocent, in
every way, right. So somebodyhas to have done the research to
prove that wildlife benefitedfrom grazing before they're ever
going to put it in theirdocuments, right?

Specifically, any documents associated with listed
species under the US EndangeredSpecies Act. This includes the
original listing documents, aswell as recovery strategies and
periodic reviews. Theseresources often portray cattle
as a threat to endangeredspecies. But when Lynn and her
colleagues Sheila Barry did ananalysis of over 280 endangered

(26:25):
species in California, theyfound that...

About half of them have been proven to benefit
from livestock grazing in somecircumstances.

How so?

Well, I'd say there are two primary ways that
cattle benefit endangeredspecies in California. First,
all of those introduced grasses?Cows eat them.

Right.

Yeah, cows are like vacuum cleaners for grass.
And if you don't remove thoseannual grasses, then they take
up all of the availablesunlight, all the water and
nutrients. And eventually, whenthey dry out, their dead bodies
pile up at the end of theseason, and create this thick
thatch layer that just coversthe ground.

So by grazing, that also provides a benefit for
a number of wildlife species.California red legged frog,
California tiger salamander,kitfox, burrowing owl.
Particularly like the kitfox andthe burrowing owl, they prefer
really short grass. It allowsthem an opportunity to see prey
and to hunt. It also allows themto see predators coming and
avoid them.

Not to mention all of the native wildflowers, which
just can't compete with theseintroduce grasses. But can at
least persist if somethingremoves the thatch periodically.

The cattle really don't like flowers. It's
not just that they remove thatthatch, it's also that they
don't particularly like forbs.

Uh... forbs are?

Herbaceous plants, like wildflowers. They are less
preferred by cows. Clayton evensays that cattle can be used to
give native bunch grasses anedge against these introduced
species. Which is reallyinteresting because
historically, of course, cowsate native bunch grasses into
oblivion.

If you go out in these landscapes, and you
look, there's isolated pocketsand larger areas where you'll
see a high concentration ofperennial bunch grasses, native
bunch grasses, particularly likepurple needle grass. But I think
what we can do with grazing ismanage the bunch grasses that we
have, the native grasses that wehave, to get them to germinate
and to reproduce and spread.

And helping native grasses means helping insects,
ground nesting birds,wildflowers, and even
amphibians. You name it, if itlives in grasslands in
California, it probably doesn'twant to be choked out by
introduced grasses.

Right, who would? And cows preferentially
eat the grass. So that seemsfair enough. But there's another
way that they'r supposed tobenefit wildlife?

Yes. And this is a bit more indirect. But
essentially, in California, asin many other places, we've
destroyed most of the lowlandwetland habitat, and we've
basically extirpated beavers.

Right.

So the Central Valley, which is the
agricultural engine of theWestern United States, used to
be an extraordinary complex ofwetland and grassland
ecosystems. It's been likened toa North American Serengeti.

And now, mostly farms and cities.

And rangelands! So across the state, amphibians
have lost most of their besthabitat. But they have adapted
themselves, somehow, to live inwater features that have been
created in upland ecosystems...to support cattle.

Research has shown that the salamanders need
the stockpond water. If arancher or a park person gets
rid of the introduced fish andbullfrogs, they become excellent
habitat for these migratorysalamanders.

California tiger salamander, you know,
their legs are only an inchtall, so they've got a lot of
country to cover, you know, toget to their breeding habitat.
They used to call it estivationsites. And those salamanders,
they'll stay underground most ofthe year. And throughout the
drought, they may stayunderground for two or three
years and not breed. But whenthey do, when we get these heavy
rains, and they want to come outand get to the pond to breed,

(30:12):
you know, it's pretty tough ifyou had one inch tall legs to
get through grass that's threefeet tall. So by grazing the
grasses down short, you know,around the stock ponds, it
allows them an opportunity totravel a little bit easier, and
get to those locations.

So that turns out to be a plus. Who knew,
right?

Huh. So stock ponds have basically become
substitute wetlands?
Yes. Okay, argument number one,these are novel ecosystems. And
then argument number two, cowscan manage these novel
ecosystems to make them betterfor the native wildlife that
remains.

Yeah, I would say it's actually more like cows are
the essential tool for managingthese ecosystems to benefit
native wildlife.

If you look around the state of California,
the vast majority of specialstatus, wildlife species are
found on privately owned grazedrange lands. And I think that's
just a testament to the benefitsof grazing and to the management
practices of cattle producersand ranchers in the state. And I
think throughout the WesternUnited States, that that

(31:22):
habitats there, that it's beenthere for several 100 years, and
it's there because of theirpractices and the way they
graze.

Uh... what are your thoughts on that?

Well, I have read a lot of literature now. And
there's a strong and growingbody of evidence to support this
point of view, especially inCalifornia. There are of course
critiques, and we will get tothose later. But I'd say that
this is now the dominant view inthe state of California among
land managers.

So what's next?

Well, next, of course, is fire. After the
break.

(32:37):
Okay, it is Adam.
And Mendel.
And this is Future Ecologies.Actually, this is part one of
our series on rangelands. Andtoday, cows can do no wrong.
They manage California's novelgrasslands for native
biodiversity. And they alsomanage fuels in a state that

(32:58):
occasionally catches fire.

Generally, if you look at properties that
aren't grazed, you'll have adense buildup of thatch and
grassy vegetation that producesan extremely high fire risk. And
when you're in an area such asthe Bay Area here, these
wildland interfaces are right upagainst neighborhoods. We've
seen what happens. I mean,there's just devastating
wildfire potential.

And, as we've discussed on this show many
times before, climate change isexacerbating that potential.

How do we take care of these lands with climate
change? That's a reallyimportant consideration today
for both foresters, and rangemanagers. They understand, many
of them, the value of removingthat grass and finding ways to
suppress it. Grazing is one ofour most valuable tools for that

The annual introduce grasses that we've
been talking about are the finefuels that carry a spark from a
power line, or an absent mindedhuman, or a gender reveal party,
and then generate massivewildfires in woody vegetation
that would otherwise be morefire resistant.

I think the best thing we can do landscape
wide is to continue to grazethese fine fuels and grasses and
keep them short. And that allowsour firefighters an opportunity
to suppress these fires beforethey can get out of hand.

But what about prescribed burns?

Interestingly, both Lynn and Clayton are real
proponents of prescribed fire.But it's just really hard to do
in much of California for allsorts of reasons.

Prescribed burning does too. But it's
hard... harder to do, andgrazing is you can do it right
up to a house. They're not goingto eat your house.

Unless of course you are one of three little
piggies, and you went and builtyour house out of straw.

That would be an unfortunate choice in
California. But I mean, even ina grass house like would you
rather have a cow or aprescribed burn for a neighbor?

I see your point.

So Lynn and Clayton are saying that grazing
can manage the fuel problemwherever prescribed burning
simply isn't possible, forwhatever reason.

Yeah, we have mechanical things we have
prescribed burning. Both ofthese are useful, both of them
should be used. But we're reallymissing the boat if we don't
also use grazing, where it'sappropriate — where it works.

I'm a proponent of controlled burns,
and I would like to see more ofthem on the landscape.
Combination of controlled burnsand grazing, I think you'd see
even even greater benefits thanwe see now.

I'm actually kind of surprised to hear that
they're in favor of prescribedburning. Wouldn't fire
effectively be like a competitorto cows in terms of consuming
grass?

You would think so. But on the contrary, Lynn
says that traditionally,ranchers and herders have always
used fire to help clear land andkeep it clear for livestock. Oh,
and by preventing wildfires,Lynn says cattle can more than
offset the emissions that wegenerally associate with them.

Fires are incredibly damaging. Do you know
that I think in 2020, if Iremember this correctly, 400
million metric tons of carbonwere released from California,
which was considered a hugeachievement. It was a reduction.
But what they don't report is100 million metric tons that
came from those wildfires in2020. They don't report them.

California's 2020 wildfires actually released
close to 127 million metric tonsof CO2. And by some estimates,
that is double all ofCalifornia's emission reductions
since the year 2003.

They don't report wildfire emissions
because they're part of anatural cycle where the plants
grow back. And when they growback, they absorb the methane
and carbon that's released bythese fires, right? Well,
consumption by livestock onrangelands is part of a natural
cycle. And it grows back in oneyear, instead of 100. Right. The
grass grows back in sequesterscarbon in one year. That's the

(36:59):
goal.

That's an interesting argument. I mean,
we've talked before about howgovernments don't tend to factor
in wildfire emissions into theirown carbon budget, which leads
to kind of funky calculationsabout the effect of prescribed
burning. But in the end, you'retalking about hypothetical
prevented emissions versusactual realized emissions. It

(37:23):
just seems really hard to prove.

Yeah, the counterfactual is challenging to
quantify in this case. But Ithink the key point here is that
something needs to manage all ofthose fine fuels preventatively.
And more often than not,livestock are the most practical
tool.

Okay, so then, argument number three is
livestock... or else!

Yes, or else wildfire. Moving on, argument
number four, we will spend alittle less time on but suffice
it to say that ranchers andrangeland managers see
themselves as holding the lineagainst more destructive forms
of development and land use.

We've destroyed a lot of our native ecosystems
for development and farming,which really, farming converts a
complex ecosystem to a verysimple one, right? That's
growing non native plants, thatoften requires water, that's
completely lost most of itsnatural characteristics. So
whereas ranching ecosystems aresemi natural. And as semi

(38:25):
natural ecosystems, they'repretty compatible with wildlife.
So that's why I like ranching.

Right... I'm familiar with this line of
thought. Environmentalists mightprefer tofu to beef. But putting
aside climate change, awell-managed rangeland is
ecologically a lot more healthyand biodiverse than a soybean
monoculture

Or a housing development.

Right. So like you said, argument number four,
ranchers hold the line againstmore destructive development,
which I can imagine ischallenging in California.

Yeah, I think any rancher in California will tell
you that development pressurecan be pretty intense. And, you
know, sometimes they can't holdout. But it's not just farms and
housing developments and solarinstallations that want to move
into these range lands. It'salso... shrubs.

Shrubs! Shrubs?

Yeah. When grasslands in the Bay Area are
left without grazing or fire,woody shrubs, and eventually
trees tend to move in. And ifthat happens, you lose all of
the open habitat for endangeredspecies. And you also create
more fuel and more risk ofburning down the grasslands in
the woodlands.

And the suburbs.

Those too. As far as I can tell, this is what
keeps Lynn up at night.

I can't tell you how urgent it is that we do
something if we want to conserveour oak woodlands and our
grasslands. We're losing themall over the world. But between
those two kinds of forces,either intensive agriculture or
abandonment and neglect, you'vegot a real fire problem
building.

What Lynn is alluding to here is something
that anyone who has ever built acampfire before will understand
intuitively. Woody things don'tburn as easily as grasses do.
But once they do get going, theyare a much more potent fuel. So
shrubs and trees moving intograsslands can actually be a

(40:30):
serious cause for concern.

I'm not so worried about our private
landowners. They've been doingthings, many of them have been
doing things for a long time.I'm worried about their economic
fate, a little worried aboutland tenure and the future of
ranching, given the costs ofreal estate in California. But
in terms of their stewardship, Ithink it's pretty good. And
they're interested, many of themare interested in doing really

(40:52):
great stuff.

Instead, she's worried about the public lands
where grazing is not alwayshappening. And there is a lot of
public land in California. Someof it quite remote, but much of
it pressed right up againstcities. And of course, in recent
years, a lot of it has burned.

So what's happening in places like those?

Well, to answer that question, let's talk a
little bit more about Claytonand his operation.

Yeah, so my family originally homesteaded in
the Dublin area in 1870s. Andthey moved down to Sunol, the
little town where we live now.In 1918, they bought the ranch
here. So we've been on thisranch for just over 100 years. I
grew up here born and raisedhere and there's a little school
down in the town of Sunol,there. And my grandfather went
there, my dad went there and Iwent there. And I've got two

(41:42):
little boys, they're four andtwo. And they're going to start
going there.

I happen to be pretty familiar with that area.
It's a little rural outpostswith a lot of rapid urbanization
all around it.

Yeah, we're kind of getting boxed in here.
The home ranch where we live isbordered by highway 680 on the
western boundary, and by highway84 on the southern boundary.

There's housing development, there's a golf
course.

And in the early 1960s, highway 680
actually split the ranch.

Clayton didn't realize that he wanted to
continue the family businessuntil university. And by then he
was running some of his owncattle.

Just out of college, I went to work for
MidPeninsula Regional Open SpaceDistrict, and they own about
60,000 acres between Santa Claraand San Mateo County,

They manage tons of land on the San Francisco
peninsula.

You know, they started buying land in the 60s
and 70s.

Back in the day, the general consensus was the
cows are bad.

And they kept grazing off all the properties
they acquired, and tore out allthe infrastructure. And you
know, fast forward 20, 30 yearsand you start looking at the
science and the benefits thatwell-managed cattle grazing
provide to the habitat and tothe landscape.

After a couple of decades of seeing what happened
to the land that they removedcows from, they decided that
maybe they want to bring thosecows back.

So they hired me as a rangeland manager. And
over the course of about sevenor eight years, we were able to
develop grazing management plansand reintroduce cattle grazing
to about 12,000 acres.

So Clayton works on public lands. And he's
actually bringing grazing backto places where it had been
previously removed.

Yeah and he says that once you compare grazed to
ungrazed grasslands in the BayArea, that's when you really
start to see the positiveimpacts from grazing.

You know, I've seen that firsthand. One good
example is we're on a piece ofproperty that was privately
owned, it was grazed, thegrasses were on the shorter
side. And on the other side ofthe fence, there was an area
that was owned by an agency andI won't name them. You know,
there's about three feet of deadstanding grass and just dense
thatch there. You looked on theside of the fence we were on

(43:49):
that was grazed, and there's redtail hawks, there was golden
eagles, there's raptors, there'sa bunch of wildlife. And you
look on the other side of thefence, and there was none of
that.

And so after helping to return grazing to
public lands all over thepeninsula, he now works back
across the bay, where hestarted.

So that's save me the commute. I work for the
San Francisco Public UtilitiesCommission, and I manage their
Alameda watershed. So there'sabout 40,000 acres of land here.
There's two drinking waterreservoirs, Calaveras reservoir
and San Antonio reservoir. Ofthose 40,000 acresm I oversee or
manage the cattle grazing onabout 32,000 acres. Those

(44:28):
properties are leased out. Wehave about 12 Different grazing
tenents. So I oversee and managethe grazing program there. We
primarily use the grazing toreduce fine fuels for wildfire
protection and to enhancehabitat for a number of special
status wildlife species in thewatershed.

That... that's a lot of land and a lot of values
to be managing for. So ranchersare already grazing on lots of
public land in California.

In California and throughout the West. I mean,
it's super common, but it'sdefinitely not happening
everywhere yet. And some folksare only just coming around to
it. So Clayton has a bit ofadvice for any land managers who
are looking to work withlivestock operators.

The biggest thing for me is that your
grazing operator needs to havesimilar objectives and ideals in
mind when it comes to managingthe land. They need to
understand what the goals andobjectives are, and it needs to
be a partnership.

And a partnership means reciprocal understanding,

You need to work together you need to
understand, you know, the agencyor the landowner needs to
realize that you're running abusiness and it needs to be
economically viable. But on theother hand, you need to realize
that the cattle are there toprovide an ecological benefit to
the landscape.

Clayton told me that it's pretty important to
set up the terms of the lease sothat they incentivize the kind
of behaviors and managementapproaches that you would want
to see on the land. But once theland manager's interests are
aligned with the rancher'sinterests, there can be
significant benefits. Becauseargument number five — that all

(46:05):
the rangelands folks make — isthat ranchers are keen and
knowledgeable observers oflandscapes. And that as business
people, and people-people, theyhave incentives to manage those
landscapes sustainably. I heardthis from Ashley, actually, in
that very first conversation.She was telling me about a
rancher that she interviewed forher series.

You know, we're riding along and he's literally
from horseback, noticing howmany bites have been taken out
of each bunch grass plant thatwe're writing by. And that
wasn't something I'd associatedwith a cowboy, right? Like,
that's something I associatewith a scientist. And I was so
impressed with how attuned hewas to the health of his
landscape and how his cows wereaffecting the health of that

(46:49):
landscape. It wasn't a denial,it wasn't making lofty claims
that his cows are good for theecosystem. It was "wow, I
probably need to move the herdout of this area, because
there's one too many bites takenout of this bunchgrass". And I
think that for me was the momentwhere I kind of started to see
ranchers differently. And thensure enough, I come home in my
own community, and I'm ridingwith an old cowboy, and he's

(47:10):
doing the exact same thing. Andhe's noticing the exact same
thing, whether it's like erosionin a riparian area, he's like,
"gosh, we really got to get awayfrom this creek, or they're
gonna muddy it up, and thenwe're not even gonna have water
here anymore".

And with Clayton, I mean, it's clear that he's a
really astute observer andmanager of landscapes. His own
ranch has won awards for itsmanagement of conservation
values. And he's a sought aftermanager for public lands. But he
was also really clear about hispersonal values,

You know, I've got two little boys. And my goal
is when I'm grazing a piece ofproperty, I want to enhance that
ecological value, I want toimprove the infrastructure, I
want to leave that property inmuch better condition than when
I got there. And I want that forfor my kids for the next
generation. And for thegeneration after that, I want
them to have that experience. Iwant them to see the wildlife.
You know, we're not doing thisto get rich, it's a lifestyle.

(48:04):
It's because we love beingoutdoors. We love the cattle, we
love the horses, and we love thewildlife. You know, you're
horseback and you're riding outin the dark in the morning and
watch the sun come up, and see acoyote or see a mountain lion,
or take your kids out and watcha golden eagle or bald eagle fly
out of the tree. It's justsomething that most people in
this world don't get toexperience, and it's something I
like to share and and I don'ttake for granted.

So, just to summarize, range lands are
anything that isn't paved, orforested, or wet.

Yes, according to the rangelands people. I will
say some wetlands peopleconsider to be rangelands, but
let's just go right past that.

And rangelands proponents will argue that they
are, in California at least,novel ecosystems that can't
otherwise be restored, but canbe managed for native
biodiversity using cows. Thosecows can also be used to control
fuels and prevent wildfires. Andthat ranching as a practice

(49:07):
defends those ecosystems againstother harmful forms of
development, and promotes a kindof long term stewardship by
people who really know and carefor the land.

You nailed it. Oh, and one more thing. Probably the
most obvious thing actually.Rangelands generate useful
products that most of us enjoy.Sometimes daily, sometimes with
a bit of wine.

How do you optimally produce goods for
human consumption like meatproducts, leather, mushrooms,
charcoal, wildlife, and nowendangered species? How do you
do that sustainably for a coupleof 1000 years?

The question Lynn is asking is one that ranchers
like Clayton have a ready answerfor.

There's farmland that's easily
accessible with equipment, andpeople farm that. But there's
all these landscapes that youcan't farm, and what we're doing
by grazing, aside from theecological benefits, we provide
a protein source for the generalpublic consumption on land
that's of no value for foodproduction otherwise. So I think
there's a win win there.

Well, Adam, I am impressed. You kept your word.
You really managed to go thewhole episode without saying
anything negative about cows.Other than... other than all
that stuff at the top.

Yeah. Speaking personally, I will say that, you
know, working on these episodes,talking to these folks, and
reading a mountain of literatureon the subject, it's really
complicated the issue for me. Ithink Lynn is doing some really
important science, and I reallyrespect the work that Clayton is
doing out on the land. I stillmight not like cows, but I'm

(50:51):
starting to appreciate theirvalue.

You are capable of growth.

Hurray!

Would you say that all of these conversations
have... cattle-ized a shift inyour thinking?

Yes, and no. Because I have to say that there
are lots of folks who have aserious beef with this approach
to managing public lands.

Laura Cunningham (51:20):
People say "oh, it's a changed California
annual grassland. Now it'spermanent. You know, all you can
do is use cattle to graze it". Ithink that's wrong.

And we're going to dig into all of that in this
series. But not before we answerthe one question you've probably
been asking yourself this entireepisode. You know, "Hey, Adam,
what about the butterflies?"

Wait, what?

That's next time, on Part Two of Home on the
Rangelands.

This episode of Future Ecologies features the
voices of Ashley Ahearn, Dr.Lynn Huntsinger, and Clayton
Koopman, music by Thumbug,Aerialists, Saltwater Hank, C.
Diab, and Sunfish Moon Light,Cover art by Ale Silva, and was

(52:24):
produced by Adam Huggins, andme, Mendel Skulski.
Special thanks to TristanBrenner, Dr. James Bartolom,
Camilo Andrés Garzón Castaño,Brennen King, and Robert Alder.
And thanks most of all to all ofour patrons, without whom this

(52:45):
show would not be possible. Tokeep it going, and get access to
bonus episodes, early releases,our discord server, and more,
head to futureecologies.net/join
Until next time, adios.

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FE5.7 - Home on the Rangelands: Welcome to Cowlifornia (Part 1)

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