FE5.9 - Home on the Rangelands: Where the Deer and the Antelope Play (Part 3) - Future Ecologies

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

Mendel Skulski (00:06):
Okay.

Adam Huggins (00:08):
Hey, everyone. This is Adam,

This is Mendel. And you're listening to the
final part of our trilogy onRangelands. So if you're only
just joining us, you may want togo back to parts one and two,
and chew on those for a bit.

Yeah, there's lots to ruminate about. Okay, so
Mendel, you know that classicfolk song that's been running
through these episodes?

Yeah. [Singing] Oh, give me home, where the
buffalo roam.

[Singing] Where the deer and the antelope play.
We all know this song... Ithink. It's kind of the, I don't
know, unofficial anthem of themythologized American West.
Would you agree?

I would.

But have you noticed that there's kind of
something peculiar about it?

Hmmm.... I think what you're getting at is the
fact that that song iscompletely absent any mention...
of cows,

Not a single cow. In every version of the lyrics
that I've reviewed, the singerwaxes on about buffalo, and
deer, and antelope and also thesky, and the streams, the stars
and the wildflowers. Virtuallyeverything under the sun, except
—

Except cows. The cowboy anthem has no cows!

Nope. And I find this kind of fascinating. I
know, there are lots of folkswho just love livestock, and
they are a quintessential partof the American West. But this
song kind of highlights, maybeaccidentally, that the character
of this place — what we love themost about it — goes way beyond

(01:52):
that.

Yeah.

And maybe, just maybe, we don't need cows to
have healthy, biodiverserangelands. In fact, some would
argue cows are the centralreason that we don't often have
healthy, biodiverse rangelands.Their arguments are also backed
up by a mountain of scientificevidence, and their vision is

(02:14):
nothing short of the rewildingof the West.
So let's get into it.
From Future Ecologies, this isHome on the Rangelands, part
three — Where the Deer and theAntelope Play.

Introduction Voiceover (02:32):
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.

Okay, so for starters, we're going to zoom
out from California for a minuteand take a look at the rest of
the West.

Finally!

And to do that, we're going to talk with Bob
Beschta.

Bob Beschta (03:50):
I'm Bob Beschta. I'm currently at Oregon State
University where I've been fornow 48 years.

Bob is a forest hydrologist.

And in that field, you very quickly find out that
on Western landscapes, thingsthat we do on the land such as
harvesting trees, buildingroads, grazing livestock, all of
these affect then thishydrologic cycle.

And Bob is probably most famous for his
work, alongside his colleague,William Ripple on the ecological
consequences of thereintroduction of gray wolves to
Yellowstone National Park.

Oh, okay. I haven't heard of Bob. But I've
definitely heard about thewolves in Yellowstone.

Yeah. At this point, I would say the
reintroduction of wolves toYellowstone is perhaps the
highest profile success story inthe world of conservation. And
Bob has been there from the verybeginning, documenting it.

My first entry into northern Yellowstone was 1996.
And I was on a field trip withsome folks and we came in to
Lamar Valley and I was justdumbstruck by the impacts I was
seeing — the river and the bankswere unraveling, I saw no
willows, I saw very fewcottonwoods growing. And when I
went there, I didn't realize itwas going to be a wolf story. I

(05:04):
just knew there was a herbivorystory going on. Lots of elk were
eating lots of cottonwood. And Ijust wanted to document that.

So this is textbook ecology at this point.
But long story short, theextirpation of wolves from
Yellowstone had allowed elk andother herbivore populations to
expand dramatically. And all ofthe woody vegetation along the
rivers was being consumed,resulting in lots of erosion,
and the loss of the riparianecosystem. And of course, this

(05:33):
also impacted other wildlife.

In other words, it's a classic trophic cascade,
just like we covered in our KelpWorlds series.

Yeah. And in this case, one of the keystone
species, you might say theengineers of the whole
ecosystem, were beavers. And theelk literally ate them out of
house and home.

Beaver essentially disappeared from Yellowstone.
There were probably literallythousands of beaver in the
northern range of Yellowstonewhen the park was established.
And by the 1950s they were gone,because they had nothing to eat.

And of course, without Beaver, there was
nothing to prevent furtherdegradation of the riparian
areas. When wolves werereintroduced in the mid 1990s.
This negative feedback loopslowly started to unwind.

With wolves back now, we are seeing the
beginnings of recovery of woodyspecies such as aspen, such as
cottonwood, willows,berry-producing shrubs, alder.

With more predation came reduced
herbivory, which allowed theriparian vegetation to recover,
the beavers to return, andcreeks to stabilize.

It was very slow, it was very localized, but
through time has become morewidespread.

It's a classic success story. One I think most
people are familiar with. Butwhat does it have to do with our
story, about rangelands?

Well, I mean, at a basic level, it launched Bob on
a career trajectory of studyingthe impacts of herbivory.

Herbivory has such a powerful factor, influence on
the landscape. The idea that,that an animal such as a deer or
elk takes one bite at a timedoesn't seem like it's a very
important deal. But over theyears, whether it's deer, elk,
or cattle or sheep, they couldhave really significant effects

(07:26):
on what's out there on thelandscape, major effects.

So there's that. But also, there's an aspect to
the Yellowstone story that Ithink will be new to most of our
listeners, and which justcompletely blindsided me in this
interview.

Uh... what is that?

When you think of Yellowstone, what is the other
major conservation success storythat comes to mind?

Are you talking about the big herd of bison?

I am talking about the big herd of bison. The
buffalo, which were almost wipedoff the face of the earth at the
turn of the last century, havemade a remarkable recovery in
Yellowstone National Park.

Another feel good story.

Yes. But with at least one massive wrinkle

In Yellowstone, interestingly enough, bison are
limiting recovery of what'sgoing on that ecosystem. If
bison were not present innorthern Yellowstone, I think
the recovery story that we haveseen would be fundamentally much
larger, more extensive and moredramatic. It would be the
ecological story of the century.

Wait, I thought Yellowstone was already the
ecological story of the century?

That very well may be. But it's not nearly the
story that it could have been.According to Bob, while the wolf
reintroduction reduced the elkherds. The dramatic recovery of
the bison has partially offsetthose benefits.

Because bison have replaced elk. And wolves are not
efficient at taking down bison.

Sorry, I'm still not following. What are the
bison doing?

They are doing what bison do.

Bison, throughout much of the valley systems in
the northern range ofYellowstone, are just creating
absolutely severe impacts tostream channels, to riparian
vegetation, to soils, to thespread of exotic species. And
willow can't grow, aspen can'tgrow, cottonwoods can't grow,
native forbs can't grow, nativebunch grasses get heavily

(09:32):
foraged on, trampling is rampantthroughout there, soils are
compacted. It's literally like acattle allotment, if I could put
it that way, unfortunately. Theeffects look the same, except
it's being done by a nativelarge herbivore that is now in
excessive large numbers in thewrong location.

Oh, so he's basically saying that the bison
in Yellowstone are kind of likecattle on an overstocked
pasture.

Precisely.

But what does he mean by "in the wrong location"?

Well, if I were to ask you where bison historically
roamed, what would you say?

The... Great Plains?

Well, the Great Plains are now mostly corn and
canola and soybean fields.Yellowstone, on the other hand,
is up in the mountains, west ofthe Great Plains.

Bison were never present inside the park in any
significant numbers. Male bisonwill wander across landscapes,
they could have been in thepark, you know. But herds of
bison permanently staying insidethe park, we have no evidence of
that, up until the late, let'ssay 1800s. When the great bison
killing was taking place on theGreat Plains, just about at the
time, when bison numbers wereapproaching zero, some herds of

(10:46):
bison showed up in YellowstoneNational Park. And even there,
they weren't protected. And sothose numbers declined
considerably, until they gotdown to like a dozen bison. And
then finally the park protectedthem, and it's been a great
success story — the recovery. Sowe went from a dozen bison, now
to in the Northern Range, some4000, bison. And 4000 Bison is

(11:09):
way above the carrying capacityof that ecosystem.

So it's really an accident of history that there
are so many bison in theseecosystems.

Right, it's like we've decided where they can
live, but not where they wouldhave historically been in any
real numbers.

Exactly. And I got the distinct impression that Bob
feels like people just do nottake this issue seriously
enough. I mean, I didn't evenknow about it.

So what does he think should happen with all the
buffalo that we have now?

I mean, it's yet another big and complex issue.
But he told me, he thinks thePark Service should get as many
of them out of there aspossible, preferably by
distributing them to tribesacross the Great Plains.

Hmm. Sounds like a win win.

Sure, and also a story for another day. What's
certain is that Bob is reallyconcerned about what might
happen if the population isallowed to continue to increase.

I cannot imagine the impacts, I cannot imagine.
Do you think the American publicis ready to be culling two to
three thousand Bison out ofnorthern Yellowstone every year?

So, the takeaway is really that the wrong kind of
herbivore in the wrong place canjust have devastating
consequences for an ecosystem.And Bob has been studying this
for decades, not just inYellowstone, but also elsewhere
in the West — including his homestate of Oregon, where he sees
livestock causing all of thesame kinds of damage.

As I look across the landscape, the effects of
livestock are pervasive andmultifaceted. They occur in
various ways.

Right... all of the familiar consequences of
cattle moving and eating theirway across a landscape.

They affect plant and animal communities directly,
just by herbivory reducesplants, the composition or the
amount of plant matter that'sout there, which then affects
wildlife habitat.

Not to mention soil compaction, erosion, water
quality degradation, and impactsto streams and riparian zones.

The effects have been just major, and have been
well documented.

Plus, of course, all of the climate impacts that
we discussed in the lastepisode, not only the methane
that cattle produce directly...

But there's a lot of other effects that go on
related to climate, that is theloss of vegetation will allow a
site to become more desiccated,if you will. So the drying or
the increased aridity that'soccurring in the West now is
amplified by the loss ofvegetation.

Woah... so it's actually the local climate
that's changing as a result ofgrazing. Less vegetation means
fewer leaves, means less watertranspiration, means even higher
aridity.

And that's not all.

In the process of removing vegetation, we can't
store carbon. Removingvegetation, having no beavers
out there, just greatly reducesthe amount of carbon that we
could store on these publiclands in the American West.

What Bob is saying here is that not only are there
direct greenhouse gas emissionsfrom livestock themselves and
from the associated industry,there are also significant
indirect effects or opportunitycosts on water and carbon
storage. And these add up tomake rangeland ecosystems less

(14:37):
resilient to the climate crisis.

Yeah, not great.

And I will add that those impacts are sort of
permanent, and they get worseover time. Whereas many of the
benefits claimed in terms ofcarbon sequestration tend to be
smaller in scale and notnecessarily lasting.

Bummer!

And this isn't just speculation. These impacts
have been well documented in thescientific literature, by Bob
and others.

So I imagine just like with the bison, Bob's
solution would be to get thecows out of there.

Bingo. But it doesn't stop there. You might
have noticed he mentionedsomething besides excess grazers
suppressing landscape carbonstorage. And that is the absence
of beavers.

Beaver were prevalent everywhere, almost all
streams in American West at onetime. But during the great
trapping era, we were veryefficient at removing beaver —
just like we remove bison fromthe Great Plains, the same thing
has happened to beaver.

Right yeah, beaver, I guess kind of like the
bison are another keystonespecies and are super deeply
involved in the ecologicalhistory of of North America.
Right all those millennia ofbeaver dams trapping sediment is
why we have so many incrediblyvibrant riparian ecosystems.

Have or had... of course. Because, you know,
several 100 years ofcolonization later, we've
removed beavers, and their dams,from the majority of ecosystems
across the West. And that hasresulted in a tremendous loss in
water storage capacity,fertility, and of course in

(16:22):
carbon storage. I mean, bydraining all of the beaver
wetlands, we've alteredhydrology and the carbon cycle
on a continental scale. And Bobsays that his home state of
Oregon, which is literally knownas The Beaver State, should
actually be called thebeaverless state because of how
deficient in beaver it is today,like so much of the West.

Two decades ago, I don't think beaver were on the
radar screen for most ecologistsin the American West. Now, maybe
some, probably some, but notgenerally. But the scientific
literature in the last twodecades has become just so
strong on what beaver can do. Ifwe think having wolves on the

(17:06):
landscape is important withregard to biodiversity for
streams, and uplands and allthat — and it is, they're a big
deal — the biodiversity kickeror pump, if you will, is getting
beaver back on the landscape,because they change moisture
relationships along streamsystems in ways that we can't
imagine. And we can't donormally.

And it's not just Bob who thinks this way. In
2022, he signed on to thiswatershed proposal with a list
of co-authors that reads like awho's-who of large mammal
ecologists. And that proposal iscalled Rewilding the American
West.

Oooh! I like the sound of that. What are they
proposing?

It's actually pretty simple. They've
identified an interconnectednetwork of public lands across
the intermountain west, forwhich they make three key
recommendations.

It's basically a three legged stool.

First things first, retiring livestock
grazing allotments on federallands across this area,
reestablishing and protectingapex predators, like gray
wolves, and in some cases,cougar. And finally,
reintroducing beaver intosuitable habitats.

We're not talking about everywhere, but we're
talking about core areas. Andthese are areas that have
sufficient native ungulates,deer or elk to support wolves.
Let's reintroduce and protectbeaver in these ecosystems. But
in order to do that, we alsothen have to remove or greatly
reduce the role that livestockhas in those systems, because
livestock and wolves do not getalong generally. It's not

(18:43):
everywhere that it's a conflict,but it's a significant deal. And
livestock and beaver areincompatible. If you have heavy
browsing or grazing of livestockin riparian areas, you can't
have food for beaver. So theremoval of livestock helps both
the large predators and it helpsthe beaver.

Bob says that cows and wolves can be compatible in
certain contexts, if stockingdensities are low, and ranchers
practice inherding and otherconflict avoidance strategies,
but on the same landscape, cowsand beaver are basically
mutually exclusive.

Got it. So the recipe is to remove cows, add
wolves, and beaver. And what doyou get?

Well, our goal is to recover biodiversity. We
believe and have knowledge thatour western ecosystems were
incredibly diverse in wildlifespecies and plant species, had
stream systems that had highwater quality, had flows that
were regulated by beaver andsoils in good condition. And so

(19:48):
we would see an increase inproductivity of native plant
species, we'd see an increase inbiodiversity we'd see improved
wildlife habitat. And basicallywe'd begin to put these riparean
as well as upland ecosystemsback into a condition that would
be helpful with regard to movingforward with climate change.

(20:08):
Climate change is going to bethe new stressor. The best way
to be able to resist the impactsof climate change is to have
very healthy and intact andfunctioning ecosystems. And to
do that we need all the speciespresent that we can get. And
right now, we don't have that.

We don't have that. It'd be nice to have that.

I think so too.

But from everything we've heard earlier
in this series, this proposalfeels like it's probably a
nonstarter for the people andthe communities who have strong
ties to ranching, and all of theeconomic arguments they like to
make.

Yes. And Bob will tell you that he and his fellow
scientists are just proposingwhat they think these ecosystems
need in the face of climatechange, based on the best
available science. Heacknowledges that the plan would
require buyouts of smallranchers in core areas, and
other cultural and economicchanges. But it's not all costs.

(21:08):
Bob suggests that, besidessaving us from some of the worst
economic impacts of climatechange, improved habitat also
means improved recreation andtourism, of course. And from his
perspective, despite being thestatus quo for land use in the
West, the economic contributionof cattle ranching is actually
pretty marginal.

If you look at total livestock production on
public lands in American West,it's a small, small percentage
of the total. And so it's notnecessary for meeting national
production goals, if I can putit that way. But in the process,
the ecological impacts, and theeffects in regard to climate
change are very important andvery severe.

Just how marginal are we talking about
here?

So in terms of the amount of forage that public
lands in the West provide to thebeef industry as a whole, in the
United States, it's in the rangeof 2 to 3%.

Okay, so in other words, we use and damage a
lot of land to produce a tinyamount of the actual meat that
gets consumed.

That is a fact. What is much more contentious is
what a proposal like this woulddo to the economy and culture of
small communities throughoutthis region.

Right, just like Ashley was saying in part one,
cattle are the glue that holdssome of these communities
together.

Yes, and just because their economic
production is marginal on anational scale, doesn't mean it
isn't significant locally.

Well, I can only imagine what the right wing
would do if the Bidenadministration actually embraced
this proposal. Like back whenthe Green New Deal was still
new, I remember that it was atmost tepid when it came to
agricultural reform.

Yeah.

Right. Like, was there even any mention of beef
or cattle?

I don't think so.

No. And that didn't stop Republicans from
hollering about the war onhamburgers.

Sebastian Gorka (23:10):
They want to take away your hamburgers. This
is what Stalin dreamt about, butnever achieved.

I mean, if you can find something that will stop
conservatives from holleringabout the war on hamburgers,
just let me know, okay?

Sure.

We might as well have one. I mean, it's clear
that certain members ofgovernment are very happy to
performatively eat fast food orcollect campaign contributions
from the US Cattlemen'sAssociation, right?

Yeah, big ranch.

On a more serious note, this whole series, we have
been talking about ranching asif it is, you know, all small
family-run businesses – themulti generational cowboy
rancher operation.

Sure, like Clayton and his family.

Yeah. And there are still lots of folks like
Clayton around. But they areincreasingly the exception in
what is otherwise a mega-scaleindustry.

The western mythology has just provided us
with this concept that Westernranchers are doing wonderful
things on the land, and weshould just leave them alone.
It's a mom and pop operation.When the reality today is most
grazing is not mom and popanymore.

And that is not just the rewilding people
talking. Ashley also pointedthis out.

Ashley Ahearn (24:28):
I don't have a lot of sympathy for the mega
businesses that are trashingpublic lands. Like, full stop,
don't really give a shit aboutthose ranchers and how they're
doing their business is likefrankly, upsetting to me on
public lands. I will say thatfull on.

And the consolidation within the
meatpacking and ranchingindustries is not just a huge
issue for the land, but also forthe remaining mom and pop
operations like those thatAshley featured in Women's Work.

Ashley Ahearn (24:53):
I would not presume to say that the ranchers
that I featured in this seriesrepresent a giant shift that is
happening. I think that theentrenched system is very, very
strong. It is very, verywealthy. It is fighting attempts
by the Biden administration toregulate it and to break it
apart.

Okay, so a friendly reminder that
agribusiness is often bigbusiness, and maybe doesn't
deserve our sympathy when it'swrecking wildlands, reaping huge
profits, and then playing thevictim.

Yeah.

So I was counting arguments in the
pro-cow episode. Why don't wetrack them here too?

Oh, sure. Go ahead.

Okay, so I would say argument number one would be
that the rewilding folks pointout that ranching in the West is
often big business thatrepresents a tiny amount of
overall national production.

But uses a lot of land and water. And while the
issue of smallholders is aconcern for this rewilding
proposal, it might not have tobe a make or break because of
this. There's no question that,even if implemented in small
parts, in stages, this proposalhas the potential to be
transformative for Western wildlands facing down the climate

(26:12):
crisis. And Bob says,ecologically, cows just don't
have a place in it.

From an ecological perspective, I would suggest
there's probably no reason whywe need to have livestock in our
western ecosystems. Overall,these ecosystems thrived, did
very well, without this largeherbivore at large densities
across the landscape every year.We have no analogue for that

(26:40):
prior to the introduction oflivestock.

But what about bison? Right, like aren't aren't
those an analogue for thelivestock we have now?

You could make an argument for that, again, in the
Great Plains, and also perhapsin some parts of the
intermountain west and even outeast. But most of California,
the coastal West, and otherparts of the intermountain west,
don't appear to have much of ahistory with bison, at least
within the Holocene.

Okay, then what about all the benefits of
grazing in California? Like,everything we've been covering
in the last two episodes?

You know, I asked Bob about that. Because it's
been a central question of thisseries for me. The conservation
community in California, for themost part, has embraced the cow.
And so is that something that ishappening elsewhere in the West?
Or is it like so many things, aCalifornia thing?

Um, I guess I would almost have to say it's a
California thing.

I gotta say, that's been my general
observation as well. There arelots of pro-cattle folks
throughout the West. Andthey're, you know, are some
notable circumstances where cowsare being used for conservation.
But outside of California,that's just not that common.

So what would a rewilding proposal like this
look like in the state ofCalifornia?

That is what we are about to discuss... after
the break.

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you. Okay, back to the show.

We are back. I am Adam.

I am Mendel. This is Future Ecologies.

And today we are all about rewilding, and maybe
not so hot on cows. And we'recoming back to California now to
ask what's going on here. So,I've got two folks to introduce
you to, Mendel.

Let's do it.

The first is Jon Keeley.

Jon Keeley (30:39):
I'm a research scientist with the US Geological
Survey, and an adjunct professorat UCLA. And in my research
specialty is fire and theecological impacts of fire and
how climate impacts fires.

John has been studying and writing about fire
in California for decades. And Ijust want to read you a few of
the titles of some of his manypublished papers.

Sure.

Fire as global herbivore

Woah...

Fire as an evolutionary pressure shaping
plant traits.

Wow.

Wildfires as an ecosystem service.

Mm.

The role of fire in the history of life.

Fire... it's everywhere, and everything!

It feels like our entire podcast is just one long
running series on firesometimes.

Sure does. Okay, who else are we talking to?

Last but not least for this series, we have Laura
Cunningham. She's an artist,naturalist, author, and
California director for theWestern Watersheds Project. And
she is also, Mendel, the rareperson that I encountered who
has changed their mind aboutlivestock.

Laura Cunningham (31:46):
Yeah, I actually was sort of a little
more pro livestock grazing. Andnow I'm a little bit less pro
livestock grazing. So I mean,I'll admit that my perspectives
have shifted over the decades,when I get new input and more
experience and maybe broaderexperience outside of the Bay
Area.

Among other things, Laura wrote and
illustrated a book called AState of Change - Forgotten
Landscapes of California. And Ihaven't really seen anything
else like it. It's thisfascinating combination of
paleo-ecological research,archival work, natural history
studies, all culminating inthese beautiful illustrations,

(32:29):
imagining the landscapes of precolonial California.

Oh, that's so cool. And I bet there aren't any
cows in her illustrations.

No cows in the cowboy song, and no cows in
Laurens book. But there arebirds, and bunchgrasses, and
grizzly bears, and salmon.

Deer, antelope?

Playing even. And of course, Indigenous people,
and the ecosystems that theywere stewarding using fire,
among other things.

Of course.

So when you ask someone like Laura, what a
rangeland is, she has a verydifferent answer from Lynn.

Yeah, I would call a rangeland, kind of an
extractive use of a grassland.And I would call a native
grassland, a grassland. So I'm alittle bit thinking that range
land is like a artificial,managed system for production
of, you know, livestock andforage. So my, my idea of a

(33:29):
range land is it's post Europeancontact.

Right. Okay, so rangeland is a utilitarian term
from her perspective.

I mean, would you call a forest a timberland?

Only if I were a logging company.

So no surprise, ranchers use the term
rangelands.

I guess not.

But I should add that Laura works with ranchers a
lot. And so she has a healthyrespect for what they do, and
the problems that they face.

Not all ranchers are the same,
obviously. And I've seen reallywell-managed ranches. Then I've
seen ranchers who arestruggling, and they try to
stuff as many cows onto thatlandscape as possible. And it
looks like crap. So there aresome ranchers who you just can't

(34:21):
justify that they're doing agood job managing the land. To
be fair, I think that a lot ofranchers, and I talk with a lot
of them, do a better job. Andit's a hard way to make a living
too. I don't think the goal isto, you know, we're just gonna
go out there and get rid of allthe cattle immediately. A lot of
what I do is work with ranchersand land managers to make things

(34:46):
better on the land.

But when it comes to the new science supporting
cows for conservation inCalifornia, her view is actually
pretty dim.

I mean, there's a lot of so-called
scientific papers coming out nowthat are claiming cattle and
ranching can benefit landscapes.But I kind of call them gray
literature, because I thinkthey're taking the conclusion
that some groups want and comingup with that conclusion.

And there are a few reasons for this. For one,
all of the rangelands peoplewill tell you that it was from
witnessing the negative impactsof removing cattle from
conservation areas that westarted to learn about and
finally study the benefits. It'sa bit tough to generalize about
all of this, obviously. But somany of the studies promoting

(35:35):
the benefits of grazing comparegrazed to ungrazed areas. And
these studies generally sharesome common features. They are
relatively short term, and theungrazed areas don't usually
have any other treatmentsapplied. They're just left
alone,

We've had a huge impact with cattle. You
take the cattle out, you're leftwith a heavily disturbed
impacted landscape. And so yes,if you just leave it, like
passive restoration, yeah, itmay just take a trajectory that
you don't like. But I guess I'mlooking at active restoration,
as opposed to that passiverestoration. You have to maybe

(36:13):
actively go back in there anduse things like cultural fire,
or native elk grazers, or handpulling the weeds to get it back
into a trajectory where you'regonna get more natives.

That sounds like a lot more work, but it makes
sense. You have what everyoneagrees is a highly altered,
highly invaded ecosystem. So ifyou compare some treatment —

Any treatment...

Yeah, to no treatment, then it will probably
make the treatment look good. Ifyour treatment is grazing,
grazing looks good.

Exactly. And the other critique is all about
time. Here's Bob, again,

They'll talk about all the wonderful things they
can do. And I'll say that'sgreat. And I said, we should be
doing some experiments, andthey'll say, yeah. And my
experiment always is "let'sremove livestock temporarily".
Initially, they might beagreeable to that kind of thing.
But then I will indicate bytemporarily, I mean at least two
decades. We've been grazingWestern landscapes with exotic

(37:20):
large herbivores for over acentury, okay — every year for
over a century. So a period ofrest is not a one year
phenomenon or a two yearphenomenon. These ecosystems
need a significant period ofrest. So my argument would be is
we need to rest these systemsfor at least two decades, and
then we get to assess whether ornot we should be grazing these

(37:42):
landscapes at all, or if so howmuch.

He told me that it took years and years for an
intervention as dramatic asreintroducing wolves to show
positive impacts in Yellowstone.

Okay, so then, argument number two, the
evidence supporting grazing forbiodiversity and associated
values is often based on shortterm studies that don't consider
other forms of activemanagement.

That's what the rewilding folks say. Plus, if
ranchers are such great landmanagers, like they say they
are, and good management canmitigate the negative impacts
that we've been discussing, thenwhy do we continue to see those
negative impacts on rangelandseverywhere?

Well, I've heard those arguments — that we can
avoid things, we can do a betterjob. And my comment is, well
then do it. Show me.

So argument number three, good management is
better than bad management. Buteven well managed herds can have
obvious negative impacts.

Yes, for the rewilding folks, not all that
much has changed since the badold days of the 60s 70s and 80s.

Let alone the gold rush.

There's a new trend in California called
Wait... I thought the nativegrasses were all but wiped out
"conservation grazing" or"conservation ranching", which I
disagree with. But there's anattempt to sort of cover up the
big impacts of grazing livestockon the land, and it involves
things like, you know, "Oh,we're going to reduce fuel.

(39:21):
We're going to provide a carbonsink. You know, the manure from
all these cows supposedly putscarbon back into the soil". But
when I go look at what I call myreference sites, these are
relict native bunchgrasslands ormeadows of perennial meadow
grasses. I really see what wehave lost.

(39:49):
by introduced species. What'sLaura talking about here?

What Laura is talking about are the small
pockets — not many, but a few —where you can still see
fragments of native Californiagrassland, relict grasslands,
just hanging in there. So whenshe thinks about what's possible
for rangelands in California,she sees more than just this
novel ecosystem that we have toaccept and graze with cows.

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, because I
changed my perspective since the1990s, where I've collected data
on all these relict referencesites, I call them, of ungrazed,

(40:40):
or lightly grazed lightly,disturbed native grasslands.
They're not just on serpentineareas. They're not just on north
slopes. They're everywhere. Andthe key is they're protected
from heavy grazing, ordisturbance of some kind.
They're not grazed, except maybeby an elk here and there. But
you get down on your hands andknees. And it's like, there's

(41:02):
this cloud forest of lichens andmosses under the bunchgrasses,
and you walk on this prairie andit's spongy. It feels like
you're walking on a sponge.There's no bare ground, no
erosion. When the rain fallsonto this prairie, the water
soaks in. And then you go to acow pasture on the other side of

(41:25):
the barbed wire fence, and it'scompletely different. It's bare
dirt, there's erosion, there'smanure, that in our wintry
rainstorms gets washed into thecreeks and starts polluting, you
know, salmon habitat. You have alot of invasive European
annuals, thistles, poisonhemlock, it's just a completely

(41:47):
different thing.

And, you know, this tracks with my own personal
experience, Mendel. For everyspectacular success story like
Tulare Hill, there are a dozenpretty barren hillsides that
don't really look like they'rebenefiting from grazing. On the
other hand, these relictgrassland sites that Laura is
talking about. They just don'tseem to need cows to be

(42:12):
beautiful and biodiverse. All ontheir own.

It's like I call it "old growth grassland".
That is actually whatsequestering carbon — deep, six
feet down into the soil with theroots of these perennial,
long-lived bunchgrasses. And Itry to take groups of people
like field trips to show themand some of them don't even
believe it. They see the actualnative grassland. And they're

(42:38):
like, astonished. It'scompletely different than what
you see when you're drivingaround most of California.

And interwoven with those deep, long lived
perennial bunchgrass roots. Youhave something called biological
soil crusts.

They're so cool. They deserve their own episode.

Yeah, biological soil crusts are
really interesting becausethey're a symbiotic network of
plants, and lichens, fungi, andblue-green algae that are doing
their work mostly in the soil.So you don't see it most of the
time. The mycelial networks, andblue green algae filaments of

(43:18):
the soil crust connect with theroot tips of shrubs, trees and
grasses, and actually helpdeliver nutrients to these
plants. So there's a symbiosisgoing on under the soil, and we
just completely, mostly aren'taware of it. And when you
trample it, drive on it,over-graze it, or scrape it, you

(43:42):
lose that... you completely losethat. Those are very delicate,
old growth living systems.Finding an intact biological
soil crust has actually becomerarer now, especially on
rangelands where they can't takethe heavy hoof trampling and
constant grazing of cattle andsheep.

Bob also mentioned these remarkable living soils.

It's something we've almost forgotten about in
the American West, but thesewere common everywhere. They
protected soil surfaces fromerosion. They provided micro
habitats for plants. And in manycases that they're gone.

In my own personal experience, I just haven't seen
these on annual grasslands withlivestock grazing.

So argument number four, maybe these
ecosystems don't have to bethought of as novel. Maybe
they're just really, reallydamaged by centuries of cattle
grazing, but there is still somepotential that they could be
restored.

Yeah, and Bob can point to sites where this has
occurred in Oregon, like HartMountain.

Hart Mountain National antelope refuge in
Southern Oregon. We've now got30 years of recovery. Every year
it gets just more impressive. Ittakes time. Hart Mountain today,
30 years after livestockremoval, from an ecological
standpoint is just an incrediblydifferent place than it was 30
years ago, after almost acentury of livestock grazing.

And then Laura pointed to all sorts of
different initiatives inCalifornia, from Indigenous
tribes like the Karuk Reclaimingcultural fire.

Which we covered in season one.

To small projects in city parks, just using
handtools. Restoring Californianative grasslands is hard, she
says, but not impossible.

Using cattle to manage ecosystems, to me is
kind of the lazy way to do it.And in the last 10 years, I've
learned that you can restorenative grasslands without
cattle. And maybe it takes alittle bit more planning. I
think it's lazy to just say,"Okay, put cows on it. Now we
can justify the cattle and saythat they're all these

(45:56):
conservation management tools",when there are other options.
And I have had personalexperience looking at these
other options, and they'reworking.

So instead of cows, it's fire and mowing.

And elk, and beaver.

Okay, so it's also rewilding.

Yes. Laura, and the folks at the Western
watersheds project really lovethat proposal.

Oh, yeah. We've been talking about that
proposal a lot. WesternWatersheds Project, I mean, our
focus is livestock grazing, butour mission is restoration. And
we definitely support rewildingwith beavers and wolves. That
would be a paradise to me.

So beavers were almost completely extirpated in
California. So much so that manypeople just assumed that they
were never even here in thefirst place. It's a kind of
beaver erasure. But they aremaking a comeback. And the

(46:56):
argument from the rewildingfolks is, "Why should we rely on
stock ponds for amphibianhabitat, when we could just
restore their actual historichabitats using beaver? And for
that matter, why should we havecows grazing all of these
grasslands when we have thenative Tule elk, which are also
making a comeback?" And so on,reintroducing wolves and

(47:19):
traditional cultural management.With all of this, we could
recover a richness of speciesand habitats not seen in
generations. And you know, asdreamy as that would be,
everyone I spoke to — both therewilders and the rangelands
folks — agree that it's simplynot compatible with ecosystems

(47:41):
that are managing cattle formeat production, and barbed wire
fences.

Okay, but we're calling today "Rewilding Day",
right?

My favorite day of the year.

So can we at least entertain the idea?

Oh, yeah. I mean, what are we doing? Right? I will
take elk and beaver and wolvesover cows any day of the week,
personally. I think that'sclear. But while we're
entertaining wild ideas, I haveone more for you.

Is that so?

Yes, as a matter of fact. So all of this time,
I've been talking withrangelands folks. And as you'll
remember from the first episode,they're really concerned about
how many of California'sgrasslands are being invaded by
shrubs.

Shrubs!

Here's Lynn Huntsinger.

Lynn Huntsinger (48:29):
Now shrubland is interesting around here. We
have certain species that tendto be very invasive, they're
native. One of them is coyotebrush.

Coyote brush is an early succession native species,
very common in California. Butall of the rangelands folks
refer to it as invasive, becausethey're concerned with keeping
these grasslands open — for thegrass for the cows, and for all
of those rare grassland species.

Fair enough, I guess.

Yeah. But at the same time, this discourse of
"shrub invasion" has always kindof rubbed me the wrong way. You
know, my own personal valuesare, I'd love to restore native
cover. And meanwhile, thesefolks are intent on killing the
one native plant trying to makea go of it on these invaded
grasslands. And I kind ofthought I was alone in thinking

(49:21):
this... until I spoke with JonKeeley.

Oh, right, fireman! I was wondering when
you're going to bring him back.

Right now. When I talked to Jon, it was like a
light bulb went off. He's like,"Well, of course, the coyote
brush moves in. And so whatyou're looking at"

Jon Keeley (49:40):
Is what the natural successional processes are. And
eventually the coyote brush willbe invaded by other more
permanent shrubs and produce acoastal scrub vegetation. And
that's really the natural state.The problem is, is people don't
necessarily like that naturalstate.

I actually don't get it. What does he mean by
"natural state"?

I mean, what does anybody mean what that term?
What he's referring to issuccession.

Jon Keeley (50:08):
People talk about how shrublands are encroaching.
The word encroachment is reallya misnomer. Encroaching means
you're moving into a systemwhere it's not natural. When we
see shrubs moving intograsslands, that's not
encroachment, it's returning tothe original state, due to the
removal of human interferencethrough frequent burning. Get

(50:32):
over the idea that they shouldbe grasslands. They're not
grasslands.

One of Jon's papers compares the Bay Area —
so that's coastal California —with the Sierra Nevadas, in the
interior. Up in the mountains,lightning strikes are super
common, and so were wildfireshistorically. But in coastal
California, lightning strikesare almost unheard of.

Jon Keeley (50:53):
The bottom line is historically, those landscapes
which are dominated bygrasslands, if you take
livestock off and you don't doanything with the burning — you
just allow a natural frequencyto occur. They all return to
shrublands. And it's becausethere is no natural frequent
fire regime in the East Bay. Ifyou look at lightning ignitions

(51:15):
in the East Bay, I thinkcounties like Alameda and Contra
Costa maybe have two lightningfires every 100 years. They
don't have a high firefrequency.

So historically, if fire was keeping lands clear,
and there's no lightning tolight the fires...

Then Indigenous people were lighting fire, which
we know because they've beentelling us.

Yes, Indigenous people were lighting fires
throughout coastal California,to create open ecosystems — to
produce acorns, and wildflowerseeds, and game, and other
cultural values.
I would call this familiarhistory. What's your point?

Jon Keeley (51:51):
The grasslands produced seed bearing plants
that were a lot more valuable tothem than the shrublands. So
Native Americans startedmanaging their landscape through
burning. When the Europeans cameon the scene, they basically
exacerbated the situation bygreatly increasing fire
frequency, in large part becausethey wanted to get rid of woody

(52:14):
vegetation and replace it withherbaceous vegetation because it
was better for grazing. And infact, this is a global pattern

Well, my point is that, if many of these
throughout the world. WhereverEuropeans invaded a landscape,
they eliminated the woodyvegetation, and they replaced it
with herbaceous vegetation. Theyalso brought a lot of herbaceous
species from Europe. Thosespecies were very aggressive and
non-native annual grasslandsaren't really doing what
have the ability to take overdisturbed landscapes. A lot of

(52:43):
what we see today, when you lookin California at any herbaceous
vegetation and coastal region,most all of it is non-native,
Indigenous people created themto do, and at the same time they
invasive species from Europethat are better adapted to that
disturbance regime. And so we'velost a lot of our native
shrubland vegetation. It's beenreplaced by non native grasslands.

(53:20):
are creating fire danger, andrequire all of these inputs to
maintain as mostly novelecosystems, like what are we
doing here? Why not just allowthe native shrublands and native
oak woodlands that are trying sohard to come back to do just
that? They are super biodiverseand super important for native
wildlife as well. They're morefire resistant, and they require

(53:44):
much less work to maintain. Wecould use our, you know,
admittedly limited resources torestore native grasslands
wherever it seems practical orfeasible. And then we could
allow shrub lands and woodlandsto return on other sites — where
it's not so practical.

So you're saying that just because Indigenous
people, and then Europeans keptall of these ecosystems open
manually, it doesn't mean thatwe have to keep doing it. And
that it might not even be thebest approach in the climate
crisis.

Yes.

So is this Jon's proposal or yours?

Oh, this is maybe my realization. And, you know, I
guess it's blowing my mindbecause I grew up in these novel
grasslands, breathing in all thepollen and sneezing like crazy,
but I'm not alone.

I actually completely agree with you. You
know, my vision for parts of theBay Area would be to have a
mosaic of coastal scrub, coyotebrush, and then you know, a
patch of prairie here and an oakwoodland there. And I actually
think that's how it used to befor hundreds of years. I think
it was a complex shiftingpatchwork of different habitats.

(54:59):
And so yeah, have one area fullof coyote brush. It's a native
plant. It shouldn't be, youknow, always eliminated. Rabbits
and white-crowned sparrows nestin coyote brush — you need that
too. You know this, either-orabsolutism we get in our
restoration thinking landmanagement? No, I think we

(55:20):
should have a complex mosaic,including the coyote brush.

Well, that makes two of you. What about Jon?

Well, Jon is a fire guy, remember? So while
Lynn was expressing concernabout the higher fuel loads that
you find in shrublands, andwoodlands and forests, in part
one, Jon is actually much moreworried about the places that
tend to ignite more easily.Because no ignition, no fire.

Jon Keeley (55:50):
Most fires start in grasslands. And most of those
grasslands are non-native annualgrasses, because they're very
flammable, they carry a firevery rapidly. So if your concern
is to reduce fires in thelandscape, then we probably want
to convert those systems backinto the native shrublands,

(56:10):
which are less amenable tofrequent fires.

This has been a lot to take in. But I guess I'd
have to say that argument numberfive goes something like these
novel grasslands could beallowed to develop into native
shrublands and woodlands. Andthat there are benefits to that.

Yeah. And I mean, one thing that all of the folks
that I talked to agreed about isthat all of these questions are
really a matter of what we valuethe most. Do we value beef
production and small familyranches? Do we value the
recovery of riparian ecosystems?Or the survival of grassland
birds? Or super rarewildflowers? Or beavers? Do we

(56:53):
value grasslands or shrublands?

Jon Keeley (56:56):
That's really the heart of the problem — coming up
with what your goal is. There'sno question that, for a lot of
reasons, people prefer opengrasslands. If you want just a
pleasant scene with lots ofgrasslands, we're probably there
for a lot of people. If yourconcern is natives versus
non-natives and the conservationvalue, we're not there for a lot

(57:20):
of our landscapes. If yourconcern is erosion control,
we're not there for a lot of ourlandscapes, because the
grasslands don't hold it. Ifyour concern is the length of
the fire season, right now we'reseeing fires that have increased
in the duration of the fireseason, lasting much longer. A
lot of that is due to theinvasion on grasses which carry

(57:43):
fire for a much longer period inthe year than the native
shrublands. So you really haveto decide what you want.

And on the other side of the fence, Lynn said
very much the same thing.

Lynn Huntsinger (57:57):
That's the problem with all these things.
It's an opinion, a policydecision, a human decision, a
value judgment. What's good orbad is up for grabs. It's a
definition by people. Shrubs,grass, forests — it's a human
decision, to a certain extent.There's natural limitations, of
course. But what we'reexperiencing with climate change

(58:18):
means that we have to come toterms with that, because we're
heading into a new climate.

So here we are.

Here we are, heading into a brand new climate
at the end of our final episode,with more questions than
answers, as usual.

Yeah, maybe that was to be expected.

Yeah. I mean, it's difficult for us. I have done my
best to present these argumentsclearly. But I do think it's
really important to reiteratethat there are just some
fundamental disagreements here,both in terms of values and also
basic facts. For example, here'sJon, reflecting some of my own
frustrations in reporting thisseries.

Jon Keeley (59:02):
I've heard at least four different accounts from
different proponents of grazing.And they only talk about the
positive things, and they don'ttalk about the negative. And,
for example, I travel a lotacross the coastal ranges of
California, and those landscapesare grazed and they've been
grazed for a long time. That'sthe most horrible looking

(59:24):
landscape I can imagine. It'snothing but cow tracks all
across the landscape. They tryand suggest that "Well, grazing
has value as increasingbiodiversity", and they refer to
the fact that "Well, grazingreduces the thatch of non native
grasses and that opens habitat".I haven't seen it. I've seen a

(59:46):
lot of grazed areas, and I'venever seen grazed areas that
have higher biodiversity, justnever seen it.

And then on the other hand, from folks like Stu
Weiss, you hear things likethis.

Stu Weiss (59:57):
What I often find is that the kind of hardcore
anti-grazing people always pickwhat have to be the high impact
areas, like around wateringtroughs, and places that are
very heavily used. And then theythey don't go, you know, a
couple 100 meters away and seethat, "oh, look, there's lots of

(01:00:19):
room for the wildflowers here,as opposed to the ungrazed areas
that are just, you know, a buildup of thatch"

Adam Huggins (01:00:27):
And if you speak to ranchers and rangeland
managers like Clayton, you mighthear something like this,

Clayton Koopmann (01:00:33):
You still have your your hardcore doubters or
anti-grazers. I don't thinkyou're ever gonna change their
opinion no matter what you showthem, which is unfortunate. But
that's going to be the way it iswith I think any subject —
you're just gonna have your farleft and your far right and
probably won't change theiropinion.

Mendel Skulski (01:00:50):
Well, Adam, I'd say we've heard more than a few
discouraging words.

More than seldom. And I know it's easy to feel
grazed and confused. But evenwith all of the disagreements, I
think everyone that I spoke tocares a lot, and knows a lot
about the land. And they are allworking in different ways to
promote biodiversity, to addressthe climate crisis, and to

(01:01:16):
support human values as well.And since it does all come down
to what we value, I want toleave listeners with a few final
thoughts about the lands wherethe sky isn't cloudy all day.

So definitely not here.

That's right. So one last time, let's hear it for
rangelands.

Lynn Huntsinger (01:01:37):
Grazing is not a black box. It's not a yes or
no thing. It's a when, where,how many, why thing, right? It's
complicated. You can have threecows, you can have 10, you can
have 100 sheep. There's a lot ofdecisions. They can be there in
the spring, fall, they can bethere for two weeks, they can be
there for a year. You make thatdecision based on what you know

(01:01:57):
about the impacts of what theydo. It's not just grazing.

Ashley Ahearn (01:02:02):
It's the fabric that stitches the community
together. And that, to me issomething that I'm not okay with
just giving up on or justthrowing out because we've
decided beef is bad. What I wantis a way to see those values.
And that way of life issomething that is worth
preserving. But does need to bechanged a little bit, does need
to be made more sustainable,does need to be brought into the

(01:02:24):
21st century in terms of how wecare for the land and how we use
cows as a tool.

And finally, let's hear it for rewilding.

Laura Cunningham (01:02:33):
I mean, I'm definitely for more wildlife and
more native grasslands. And Ithink it would be nice to have
less cattle. Cattle are soabundant. Even Point Reyes
National Seashore is full ofcattle, in a lot of it — and
takes away from the elk. If wecould have some parts and

(01:02:53):
preserves that are trulyrewilded — that are managed,
maybe with prescribed fire, andnative elk grazers, and less
cattle on the landscape. Wheremaybe wolves could be able to
travel through the state morelike they're trying to do. Big
networks of rewilded parks andpreserves that are connected by

(01:03:15):
wildlife corridors, wherewildlife can safely move without
traffic impacts or hunting. Itseems like a gigantic ask to me,
but I think we really shouldconsider it.

Bob Beschta (01:03:26):
This is based on our best science as we know
today, what we think theseecosystems need. And so this is
why we put forth this proposal.But in order for it to move
forward now it really has to begrabbed by others, particularly
those with political component.See if we can get changes in how
we manage public lands in theAmerican West so that agencies

(01:03:47):
change what they do. So, it'slike recovery of an ecosystem.
You may start slowly at first,but after we begin to see the
benefits, we think that thiswould increase the pressure to
do more and more and more onpublic lands.

This episode of Future Ecologies features the
voices of Bob Beschta, AshleyAhearn, Jon Keely, Laura
Cunningham, Lynn Huntsinger,Stuart Weiss, and Clayton
Koopman. Music by Thumbug, C.Diab, Meg Iredale, Saltwater

(01:04:28):
Hank, and Sunfish Moon Light,cover art by Ale Silva, and was
produced by Adam Huggins and me,Mendel Skulski — with sound
design help from our intern,Brennen King, and with special
thanks to Saxon Richardson.

(01:04:48):
You can find the proposal torewild the American West, along
with all of our other citations,a transcript of this episode,
and lots more on our website -futureecologies.net
This podcast exists because ofsupport from listeners just like
you, and those supporters getaccess to exclusive bonus

(01:05:09):
episodes, early releases,stickers, patches, our Discord
server, and now toques! Head tofutureecologies.net/join and
choose the option that worksbest for you. Or just leave us a
review and tell a friend aboutthe show.
As always, thanks for listening.Talk to you soon.

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FE5.9 - Home on the Rangelands: Where the Deer and the Antelope Play (Part 3)

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