Artwork for podcast Future Ecologies
FE5.9 - Home on the Rangelands: Where the Deer and the Antelope Play (Part 3)
Episode 929th April 2024 • Future Ecologies • Future Ecologies
00:00:00 01:05:59

Share Episode

Shownotes

In this conclusion to our trilogy, we're looking at a proposal to move beyond the concept of "rangelands" through the rewilding of the American west — meaning, the return of forgotten landscapes, species, and ecologies not commonly seen in generations (not to mention improved water and carbon storage). But at least one thing isn't compatible with this vision: grazing cattle on public lands.

Catch up with Part 1 and Part 2

And find citations, a transcript, and credits on our website

— — —

This ad-free podcast is supported by listeners just like you! Join our Patreon to get early episode releases, bonus content, merch, discord server access, and now toques! Head to futureecologies.net/join and choose whatever option works best for you.

Transcripts

Introduction Voiceover:

You are listening to Season Five of

Introduction Voiceover:

Future Ecologies.

Mendel Skulski:

Okay.

Adam Huggins:

Hey, everyone. This is Adam,

Mendel Skulski:

This is Mendel. And you're listening to the

Mendel Skulski:

final part of our trilogy on Rangelands. So if you're only

Mendel Skulski:

just joining us, you may want to go back to parts one and two,

Mendel Skulski:

and chew on those for a bit.

Adam Huggins:

Yeah, there's lots to ruminate about. Okay, so

Adam Huggins:

Mendel, you know that classic folk song that's been running

Adam Huggins:

through these episodes?

Mendel Skulski:

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

Mendel Skulski:

buffalo roam.

Adam Huggins:

[Singing] Where the deer and the antelope play.

Adam Huggins:

We all know this song... I think. It's kind of the, I don't

Adam Huggins:

know, unofficial anthem of the mythologized American West.

Adam Huggins:

Would you agree?

Mendel Skulski:

I would.

Adam Huggins:

But have you noticed that there's kind of

Adam Huggins:

something peculiar about it?

Mendel Skulski:

Hmmm.... I think what you're getting at is the

Mendel Skulski:

fact that that song is completely absent any mention...

Mendel Skulski:

of cows,

Adam Huggins:

Not a single cow. In every version of the lyrics

Adam Huggins:

that I've reviewed, the singer waxes on about buffalo, and

Adam Huggins:

deer, and antelope and also the sky, and the streams, the stars

Adam Huggins:

and the wildflowers. Virtually everything under the sun, except

Adam Huggins:

Mendel Skulski:

Except cows. The cowboy anthem has no cows!

Adam Huggins:

Nope. And I find this kind of fascinating. I

Adam Huggins:

know, there are lots of folks who just love livestock, and

Adam Huggins:

they are a quintessential part of the American West. But this

Adam Huggins:

song kind of highlights, maybe accidentally, that the character

Adam Huggins:

of this place — what we love the most about it — goes way beyond

Adam Huggins:

that.

Mendel Skulski:

Yeah.

Adam Huggins:

And maybe, just maybe, we don't need cows to

Adam Huggins:

have healthy, biodiverse rangelands. In fact, some would

Adam Huggins:

argue cows are the central reason that we don't often have

Adam Huggins:

healthy, biodiverse rangelands. Their arguments are also backed

Adam Huggins:

up by a mountain of scientific evidence, and their vision is

Adam Huggins:

nothing short of the rewilding of the West.

Adam Huggins:

So let's get into it.

Adam Huggins:

From Future Ecologies, this is Home on the Rangelands, part

Adam Huggins:

three — Where the Deer and the Antelope Play.

Introduction Voiceover:

Broadcasting from the unceded, shared and

Introduction Voiceover:

asserted territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and

Introduction Voiceover:

Tsleil-Waututh, this is Future Ecologies – exploring the shape

Introduction Voiceover:

of our world through ecology, design, and sound.

Adam Huggins:

Okay, so for starters, we're going to zoom

Adam Huggins:

out from California for a minute and take a look at the rest of

Adam Huggins:

the West.

Mendel Skulski:

Finally!

Adam Huggins:

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

Adam Huggins:

Beschta.

Bob Beschta:

I'm Bob Beschta. I'm currently at Oregon State

Bob Beschta:

University where I've been for now 48 years.

Adam Huggins:

Bob is a forest hydrologist.

Bob Beschta:

And in that field, you very quickly find out that

Bob Beschta:

on Western landscapes, things that we do on the land such as

Bob Beschta:

harvesting trees, building roads, grazing livestock, all of

Bob Beschta:

these affect then this hydrologic cycle.

Adam Huggins:

And Bob is probably most famous for his

Adam Huggins:

work, alongside his colleague, William Ripple on the ecological

Adam Huggins:

consequences of the reintroduction of gray wolves to

Adam Huggins:

Yellowstone National Park.

Mendel Skulski:

Oh, okay. I haven't heard of Bob. But I've

Mendel Skulski:

definitely heard about the wolves in Yellowstone.

Adam Huggins:

Yeah. At this point, I would say the

Adam Huggins:

reintroduction of wolves to Yellowstone is perhaps the

Adam Huggins:

highest profile success story in the world of conservation. And

Adam Huggins:

Bob has been there from the very beginning, documenting it.

Bob Beschta:

My first entry into northern Yellowstone was 1996.

Bob Beschta:

And I was on a field trip with some folks and we came in to

Bob Beschta:

Lamar Valley and I was just dumbstruck by the impacts I was

Bob Beschta:

seeing — the river and the banks were unraveling, I saw no

Bob Beschta:

willows, I saw very few cottonwoods growing. And when I

Bob Beschta:

went there, I didn't realize it was going to be a wolf story. I

Bob Beschta:

just knew there was a herbivory story going on. Lots of elk were

Bob Beschta:

eating lots of cottonwood. And I just wanted to document that.

Adam Huggins:

So this is textbook ecology at this point.

Adam Huggins:

But long story short, the extirpation of wolves from

Adam Huggins:

Yellowstone had allowed elk and other herbivore populations to

Adam Huggins:

expand dramatically. And all of the woody vegetation along the

Adam Huggins:

rivers was being consumed, resulting in lots of erosion,

Adam Huggins:

and the loss of the riparian ecosystem. And of course, this

Adam Huggins:

also impacted other wildlife.

Mendel Skulski:

In other words, it's a classic trophic cascade,

Mendel Skulski:

just like we covered in our Kelp Worlds series.

Adam Huggins:

Yeah. And in this case, one of the keystone

Adam Huggins:

species, you might say the engineers of the whole

Adam Huggins:

ecosystem, were beavers. And the elk literally ate them out of

Adam Huggins:

house and home.

Bob Beschta:

Beaver essentially disappeared from Yellowstone.

Bob Beschta:

There were probably literally thousands of beaver in the

Bob Beschta:

northern range of Yellowstone when the park was established.

Bob Beschta:

And by the 1950s they were gone, because they had nothing to eat.

Adam Huggins:

And of course, without Beaver, there was

Adam Huggins:

nothing to prevent further degradation of the riparian

Adam Huggins:

areas. When wolves were reintroduced in the mid 1990s.

Adam Huggins:

This negative feedback loop slowly started to unwind.

Bob Beschta:

With wolves back now, we are seeing the

Bob Beschta:

beginnings of recovery of woody species such as aspen, such as

Bob Beschta:

cottonwood, willows, berry-producing shrubs, alder.

Adam Huggins:

With more predation came reduced

Adam Huggins:

herbivory, which allowed the riparian vegetation to recover,

Adam Huggins:

the beavers to return, and creeks to stabilize.

Bob Beschta:

It was very slow, it was very localized, but

Bob Beschta:

through time has become more widespread.

Mendel Skulski:

It's a classic success story. One I think most

Mendel Skulski:

people are familiar with. But what does it have to do with our

Mendel Skulski:

story, about rangelands?

Adam Huggins:

Well, I mean, at a basic level, it launched Bob on

Adam Huggins:

a career trajectory of studying the impacts of herbivory.

Bob Beschta:

Herbivory has such a powerful factor, influence on

Bob Beschta:

the landscape. The idea that, that an animal such as a deer or

Bob Beschta:

elk takes one bite at a time doesn't seem like it's a very

Bob Beschta:

important deal. But over the years, whether it's deer, elk,

Bob Beschta:

or cattle or sheep, they could have really significant effects

Bob Beschta:

on what's out there on the landscape, major effects.

Adam Huggins:

So there's that. But also, there's an aspect to

Adam Huggins:

the Yellowstone story that I think will be new to most of our

Adam Huggins:

listeners, and which just completely blindsided me in this

Adam Huggins:

interview.

Mendel Skulski:

Uh... what is that?

Adam Huggins:

When you think of Yellowstone, what is the other

Adam Huggins:

major conservation success story that comes to mind?

Mendel Skulski:

Are you talking about the big herd of bison?

Adam Huggins:

I am talking about the big herd of bison. The

Adam Huggins:

buffalo, which were almost wiped off the face of the earth at the

Adam Huggins:

turn of the last century, have made a remarkable recovery in

Adam Huggins:

Yellowstone National Park.

Mendel Skulski:

Another feel good story.

Adam Huggins:

Yes. But with at least one massive wrinkle

Bob Beschta:

In Yellowstone, interestingly enough, bison are

Bob Beschta:

limiting recovery of what's going on that ecosystem. If

Bob Beschta:

bison were not present in northern Yellowstone, I think

Bob Beschta:

the recovery story that we have seen would be fundamentally much

Bob Beschta:

larger, more extensive and more dramatic. It would be the

Bob Beschta:

ecological story of the century.

Mendel Skulski:

Wait, I thought Yellowstone was already the

Mendel Skulski:

ecological story of the century?

Adam Huggins:

That very well may be. But it's not nearly the

Adam Huggins:

story that it could have been. According to Bob, while the wolf

Adam Huggins:

reintroduction reduced the elk herds. The dramatic recovery of

Adam Huggins:

the bison has partially offset those benefits.

Bob Beschta:

Because bison have replaced elk. And wolves are not

Bob Beschta:

efficient at taking down bison.

Mendel Skulski:

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

Mendel Skulski:

bison doing?

Adam Huggins:

They are doing what bison do.

Bob Beschta:

Bison, throughout much of the valley systems in

Bob Beschta:

the northern range of Yellowstone, are just creating

Bob Beschta:

absolutely severe impacts to stream channels, to riparian

Bob Beschta:

vegetation, to soils, to the spread of exotic species. And

Bob Beschta:

willow can't grow, aspen can't grow, cottonwoods can't grow,

Bob Beschta:

native forbs can't grow, native bunch grasses get heavily

Bob Beschta:

foraged on, trampling is rampant throughout there, soils are

Bob Beschta:

compacted. It's literally like a cattle allotment, if I could put

Bob Beschta:

it that way, unfortunately. The effects look the same, except

Bob Beschta:

it's being done by a native large herbivore that is now in

Bob Beschta:

excessive large numbers in the wrong location.

Mendel Skulski:

Oh, so he's basically saying that the bison

Mendel Skulski:

in Yellowstone are kind of like cattle on an overstocked

Mendel Skulski:

pasture.

Adam Huggins:

Precisely.

Mendel Skulski:

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

Adam Huggins:

Well, if I were to ask you where bison historically

Adam Huggins:

roamed, what would you say?

Mendel Skulski:

The... Great Plains?

Adam Huggins:

Well, the Great Plains are now mostly corn and

Adam Huggins:

canola and soybean fields. Yellowstone, on the other hand,

Adam Huggins:

is up in the mountains, west of the Great Plains.

Bob Beschta:

Bison were never present inside the park in any

Bob Beschta:

significant numbers. Male bison will wander across landscapes,

Bob Beschta:

they could have been in the park, you know. But herds of

Bob Beschta:

bison permanently staying inside the park, we have no evidence of

Bob Beschta:

that, up until the late, let's say 1800s. When the great bison

Bob Beschta:

killing was taking place on the Great Plains, just about at the

Bob Beschta:

time, when bison numbers were approaching zero, some herds of

Bob Beschta:

bison showed up in Yellowstone National Park. And even there,

Bob Beschta:

they weren't protected. And so those numbers declined

Bob Beschta:

considerably, until they got down to like a dozen bison. And

Bob Beschta:

then finally the park protected them, and it's been a great

Bob Beschta:

success story — the recovery. So we went from a dozen bison, now

Bob Beschta:

to in the Northern Range, some 4000, bison. And 4000 Bison is

Bob Beschta:

way above the carrying capacity of that ecosystem.

Adam Huggins:

So it's really an accident of history that there

Adam Huggins:

are so many bison in these ecosystems.

Mendel Skulski:

Right, it's like we've decided where they can

Mendel Skulski:

live, but not where they would have historically been in any

Mendel Skulski:

real numbers.

Adam Huggins:

Exactly. And I got the distinct impression that Bob

Adam Huggins:

feels like people just do not take this issue seriously

Adam Huggins:

enough. I mean, I didn't even know about it.

Mendel Skulski:

So what does he think should happen with all the

Mendel Skulski:

buffalo that we have now?

Adam Huggins:

I mean, it's yet another big and complex issue.

Adam Huggins:

But he told me, he thinks the Park Service should get as many

Adam Huggins:

of them out of there as possible, preferably by

Adam Huggins:

distributing them to tribes across the Great Plains.

Mendel Skulski:

Hmm. Sounds like a win win.

Adam Huggins:

Sure, and also a story for another day. What's

Adam Huggins:

certain is that Bob is really concerned about what might

Adam Huggins:

happen if the population is allowed to continue to increase.

Bob Beschta:

I cannot imagine the impacts, I cannot imagine.

Bob Beschta:

Do you think the American public is ready to be culling two to

Bob Beschta:

three thousand Bison out of northern Yellowstone every year?

Adam Huggins:

So, the takeaway is really that the wrong kind of

Adam Huggins:

herbivore in the wrong place can just have devastating

Adam Huggins:

consequences for an ecosystem. And Bob has been studying this

Adam Huggins:

for decades, not just in Yellowstone, but also elsewhere

Adam Huggins:

in the West — including his home state of Oregon, where he sees

Adam Huggins:

livestock causing all of the same kinds of damage.

Bob Beschta:

As I look across the landscape, the effects of

Bob Beschta:

livestock are pervasive and multifaceted. They occur in

Bob Beschta:

various ways.

Mendel Skulski:

Right... all of the familiar consequences of

Mendel Skulski:

cattle moving and eating their way across a landscape.

Bob Beschta:

They affect plant and animal communities directly,

Bob Beschta:

just by herbivory reduces plants, the composition or the

Bob Beschta:

amount of plant matter that's out there, which then affects

Bob Beschta:

wildlife habitat.

Mendel Skulski:

Not to mention soil compaction, erosion, water

Mendel Skulski:

quality degradation, and impacts to streams and riparian zones.

Bob Beschta:

The effects have been just major, and have been

Bob Beschta:

well documented.

Adam Huggins:

Plus, of course, all of the climate impacts that

Adam Huggins:

we discussed in the last episode, not only the methane

Adam Huggins:

that cattle produce directly...

Bob Beschta:

But there's a lot of other effects that go on

Bob Beschta:

related to climate, that is the loss of vegetation will allow a

Bob Beschta:

site to become more desiccated, if you will. So the drying or

Bob Beschta:

the increased aridity that's occurring in the West now is

Bob Beschta:

amplified by the loss of vegetation.

Mendel Skulski:

Woah... so it's actually the local climate

Mendel Skulski:

that's changing as a result of grazing. Less vegetation means

Mendel Skulski:

fewer leaves, means less water transpiration, means even higher

Mendel Skulski:

aridity.

Adam Huggins:

And that's not all.

Bob Beschta:

In the process of removing vegetation, we can't

Bob Beschta:

store carbon. Removing vegetation, having no beavers

Bob Beschta:

out there, just greatly reduces the amount of carbon that we

Bob Beschta:

could store on these public lands in the American West.

Adam Huggins:

What Bob is saying here is that not only are there

Adam Huggins:

direct greenhouse gas emissions from livestock themselves and

Adam Huggins:

from the associated industry, there are also significant

Adam Huggins:

indirect effects or opportunity costs on water and carbon

Adam Huggins:

storage. And these add up to make rangeland ecosystems less

Adam Huggins:

resilient to the climate crisis.

Mendel Skulski:

Yeah, not great.

Adam Huggins:

And I will add that those impacts are sort of

Adam Huggins:

permanent, and they get worse over time. Whereas many of the

Adam Huggins:

benefits claimed in terms of carbon sequestration tend to be

Adam Huggins:

smaller in scale and not necessarily lasting.

Mendel Skulski:

Bummer!

Adam Huggins:

And this isn't just speculation. These impacts

Adam Huggins:

have been well documented in the scientific literature, by Bob

Adam Huggins:

and others.

Mendel Skulski:

So I imagine just like with the bison, Bob's

Mendel Skulski:

solution would be to get the cows out of there.

Adam Huggins:

Bingo. But it doesn't stop there. You might

Adam Huggins:

have noticed he mentioned something besides excess grazers

Adam Huggins:

suppressing landscape carbon storage. And that is the absence

Adam Huggins:

of beavers.

Bob Beschta:

Beaver were prevalent everywhere, almost all

Bob Beschta:

streams in American West at one time. But during the great

Bob Beschta:

trapping era, we were very efficient at removing beaver —

Bob Beschta:

just like we remove bison from the Great Plains, the same thing

Bob Beschta:

has happened to beaver.

Mendel Skulski:

Right yeah, beaver, I guess kind of like the

Mendel Skulski:

bison are another keystone species and are super deeply

Mendel Skulski:

involved in the ecological history of of North America.

Mendel Skulski:

Right all those millennia of beaver dams trapping sediment is

Mendel Skulski:

why we have so many incredibly vibrant riparian ecosystems.

Adam Huggins:

Have or had... of course. Because, you know,

Adam Huggins:

several 100 years of colonization later, we've

Adam Huggins:

removed beavers, and their dams, from the majority of ecosystems

Adam Huggins:

across the West. And that has resulted in a tremendous loss in

Adam Huggins:

water storage capacity, fertility, and of course in

Adam Huggins:

carbon storage. I mean, by draining all of the beaver

Adam Huggins:

wetlands, we've altered hydrology and the carbon cycle

Adam Huggins:

on a continental scale. And Bob says that his home state of

Adam Huggins:

Oregon, which is literally known as The Beaver State, should

Adam Huggins:

actually be called the beaverless state because of how

Adam Huggins:

deficient in beaver it is today, like so much of the West.

Bob Beschta:

Two decades ago, I don't think beaver were on the

Bob Beschta:

radar screen for most ecologists in the American West. Now, maybe

Bob Beschta:

some, probably some, but not generally. But the scientific

Bob Beschta:

literature in the last two decades has become just so

Bob Beschta:

strong on what beaver can do. If we think having wolves on the

Bob Beschta:

landscape is important with regard to biodiversity for

Bob Beschta:

streams, and uplands and all that — and it is, they're a big

Bob Beschta:

deal — the biodiversity kicker or pump, if you will, is getting

Bob Beschta:

beaver back on the landscape, because they change moisture

Bob Beschta:

relationships along stream systems in ways that we can't

Bob Beschta:

imagine. And we can't do normally.

Adam Huggins:

And it's not just Bob who thinks this way. In

Adam Huggins:

2022, he signed on to this watershed proposal with a list

Adam Huggins:

of co-authors that reads like a who's-who of large mammal

Adam Huggins:

ecologists. And that proposal is called Rewilding the American

Adam Huggins:

West.

Mendel Skulski:

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

Mendel Skulski:

proposing?

Adam Huggins:

It's actually pretty simple. They've

Adam Huggins:

identified an interconnected network of public lands across

Adam Huggins:

the intermountain west, for which they make three key

Adam Huggins:

recommendations.

Bob Beschta:

It's basically a three legged stool.

Adam Huggins:

First things first, retiring livestock

Adam Huggins:

grazing allotments on federal lands across this area,

Adam Huggins:

reestablishing and protecting apex predators, like gray

Adam Huggins:

wolves, and in some cases, cougar. And finally,

Adam Huggins:

reintroducing beaver into suitable habitats.

Bob Beschta:

We're not talking about everywhere, but we're

Bob Beschta:

talking about core areas. And these are areas that have

Bob Beschta:

sufficient native ungulates, deer or elk to support wolves.

Bob Beschta:

Let's reintroduce and protect beaver in these ecosystems. But

Bob Beschta:

in order to do that, we also then have to remove or greatly

Bob Beschta:

reduce the role that livestock has in those systems, because

Bob Beschta:

livestock and wolves do not get along generally. It's not

Bob Beschta:

everywhere that it's a conflict, but it's a significant deal. And

Bob Beschta:

livestock and beaver are incompatible. If you have heavy

Bob Beschta:

browsing or grazing of livestock in riparian areas, you can't

Bob Beschta:

have food for beaver. So the removal of livestock helps both

Bob Beschta:

the large predators and it helps the beaver.

Adam Huggins:

Bob says that cows and wolves can be compatible in

Adam Huggins:

certain contexts, if stocking densities are low, and ranchers

Adam Huggins:

practice inherding and other conflict avoidance strategies,

Adam Huggins:

but on the same landscape, cows and beaver are basically

Adam Huggins:

mutually exclusive.

Mendel Skulski:

Got it. So the recipe is to remove cows, add

Mendel Skulski:

wolves, and beaver. And what do you get?

Bob Beschta:

Well, our goal is to recover biodiversity. We

Bob Beschta:

believe and have knowledge that our western ecosystems were

Bob Beschta:

incredibly diverse in wildlife species and plant species, had

Bob Beschta:

stream systems that had high water quality, had flows that

Bob Beschta:

were regulated by beaver and soils in good condition. And so

Bob Beschta:

we would see an increase in productivity of native plant

Bob Beschta:

species, we'd see an increase in biodiversity we'd see improved

Bob Beschta:

wildlife habitat. And basically we'd begin to put these riparean

Bob Beschta:

as well as upland ecosystems back into a condition that would

Bob Beschta:

be helpful with regard to moving forward with climate change.

Bob Beschta:

Climate change is going to be the new stressor. The best way

Bob Beschta:

to be able to resist the impacts of climate change is to have

Bob Beschta:

very healthy and intact and functioning ecosystems. And to

Bob Beschta:

do that we need all the species present that we can get. And

Bob Beschta:

right now, we don't have that.

Mendel Skulski:

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

Adam Huggins:

I think so too.

Mendel Skulski:

But from everything we've heard earlier

Mendel Skulski:

in this series, this proposal feels like it's probably a

Mendel Skulski:

nonstarter for the people and the communities who have strong

Mendel Skulski:

ties to ranching, and all of the economic arguments they like to

Mendel Skulski:

make.

Adam Huggins:

Yes. And Bob will tell you that he and his fellow

Adam Huggins:

scientists are just proposing what they think these ecosystems

Adam Huggins:

need in the face of climate change, based on the best

Adam Huggins:

available science. He acknowledges that the plan would

Adam Huggins:

require buyouts of small ranchers in core areas, and

Adam Huggins:

other cultural and economic changes. But it's not all costs.

Adam Huggins:

Bob suggests that, besides saving us from some of the worst

Adam Huggins:

economic impacts of climate change, improved habitat also

Adam Huggins:

means improved recreation and tourism, of course. And from his

Adam Huggins:

perspective, despite being the status quo for land use in the

Adam Huggins:

West, the economic contribution of cattle ranching is actually

Adam Huggins:

pretty marginal.

Bob Beschta:

If you look at total livestock production on

Bob Beschta:

public lands in American West, it's a small, small percentage

Bob Beschta:

of the total. And so it's not necessary for meeting national

Bob Beschta:

production goals, if I can put it that way. But in the process,

Bob Beschta:

the ecological impacts, and the effects in regard to climate

Bob Beschta:

change are very important and very severe.

Mendel Skulski:

Just how marginal are we talking about

Mendel Skulski:

here?

Adam Huggins:

So in terms of the amount of forage that public

Adam Huggins:

lands in the West provide to the beef industry as a whole, in the

Adam Huggins:

United States, it's in the range of 2 to 3%.

Mendel Skulski:

Okay, so in other words, we use and damage a

Mendel Skulski:

lot of land to produce a tiny amount of the actual meat that

Mendel Skulski:

gets consumed.

Adam Huggins:

That is a fact. What is much more contentious is

Adam Huggins:

what a proposal like this would do to the economy and culture of

Adam Huggins:

small communities throughout this region.

Mendel Skulski:

Right, just like Ashley was saying in part one,

Mendel Skulski:

cattle are the glue that holds some of these communities

Mendel Skulski:

together.

Adam Huggins:

Yes, and just because their economic

Adam Huggins:

production is marginal on a national scale, doesn't mean it

Adam Huggins:

isn't significant locally.

Mendel Skulski:

Well, I can only imagine what the right wing

Mendel Skulski:

would do if the Biden administration actually embraced

Mendel Skulski:

this proposal. Like back when the Green New Deal was still

Mendel Skulski:

new, I remember that it was at most tepid when it came to

Mendel Skulski:

agricultural reform.

Adam Huggins:

Yeah.

Mendel Skulski:

Right. Like, was there even any mention of beef

Mendel Skulski:

or cattle?

Adam Huggins:

I don't think so.

Mendel Skulski:

No. And that didn't stop Republicans from

Mendel Skulski:

hollering about the war on hamburgers.

Sebastian Gorka:

They want to take away your hamburgers. This

Sebastian Gorka:

is what Stalin dreamt about, but never achieved.

Adam Huggins:

I mean, if you can find something that will stop

Adam Huggins:

conservatives from hollering about the war on hamburgers,

Adam Huggins:

just let me know, okay?

Mendel Skulski:

Sure.

Adam Huggins:

We might as well have one. I mean, it's clear

Adam Huggins:

that certain members of government are very happy to

Adam Huggins:

performatively eat fast food or collect campaign contributions

Adam Huggins:

from the US Cattlemen's Association, right?

Mendel Skulski:

Yeah, big ranch.

Adam Huggins:

On a more serious note, this whole series, we have

Adam Huggins:

been talking about ranching as if it is, you know, all small

Adam Huggins:

family-run businesses – the multi generational cowboy

Adam Huggins:

rancher operation.

Mendel Skulski:

Sure, like Clayton and his family.

Adam Huggins:

Yeah. And there are still lots of folks like

Adam Huggins:

Clayton around. But they are increasingly the exception in

Adam Huggins:

what is otherwise a mega-scale industry.

Bob Beschta:

The western mythology has just provided us

Bob Beschta:

with this concept that Western ranchers are doing wonderful

Bob Beschta:

things on the land, and we should just leave them alone.

Bob Beschta:

It's a mom and pop operation. When the reality today is most

Bob Beschta:

grazing is not mom and pop anymore.

Adam Huggins:

And that is not just the rewilding people

Adam Huggins:

talking. Ashley also pointed this out.

Ashley Ahearn:

I don't have a lot of sympathy for the mega

Ashley Ahearn:

businesses that are trashing public lands. Like, full stop,

Ashley Ahearn:

don't really give a shit about those ranchers and how they're

Ashley Ahearn:

doing their business is like frankly, upsetting to me on

Ashley Ahearn:

public lands. I will say that full on.

Adam Huggins:

And the consolidation within the

Adam Huggins:

meatpacking and ranching industries is not just a huge

Adam Huggins:

issue for the land, but also for the remaining mom and pop

Adam Huggins:

operations like those that Ashley featured in Women's Work.

Ashley Ahearn:

I would not presume to say that the ranchers

Ashley Ahearn:

that I featured in this series represent a giant shift that is

Ashley Ahearn:

happening. I think that the entrenched system is very, very

Ashley Ahearn:

strong. It is very, very wealthy. It is fighting attempts

Ashley Ahearn:

by the Biden administration to regulate it and to break it

Ashley Ahearn:

apart.

Mendel Skulski:

Okay, so a friendly reminder that

Mendel Skulski:

agribusiness is often big business, and maybe doesn't

Mendel Skulski:

deserve our sympathy when it's wrecking wildlands, reaping huge

Mendel Skulski:

profits, and then playing the victim.

Adam Huggins:

Yeah.

Mendel Skulski:

So I was counting arguments in the

Mendel Skulski:

pro-cow episode. Why don't we track them here too?

Adam Huggins:

Oh, sure. Go ahead.

Mendel Skulski:

Okay, so I would say argument number one would be

Mendel Skulski:

that the rewilding folks point out that ranching in the West is

Mendel Skulski:

often big business that represents a tiny amount of

Mendel Skulski:

overall national production.

Adam Huggins:

But uses a lot of land and water. And while the

Adam Huggins:

issue of smallholders is a concern for this rewilding

Adam Huggins:

proposal, it might not have to be a make or break because of

Adam Huggins:

this. There's no question that, even if implemented in small

Adam Huggins:

parts, in stages, this proposal has the potential to be

Adam Huggins:

transformative for Western wild lands facing down the climate

Adam Huggins:

crisis. And Bob says, ecologically, cows just don't

Adam Huggins:

have a place in it.

Bob Beschta:

From an ecological perspective, I would suggest

Bob Beschta:

there's probably no reason why we need to have livestock in our

Bob Beschta:

western ecosystems. Overall, these ecosystems thrived, did

Bob Beschta:

very well, without this large herbivore at large densities

Bob Beschta:

across the landscape every year. We have no analogue for that

Bob Beschta:

prior to the introduction of livestock.

Mendel Skulski:

But what about bison? Right, like aren't aren't

Mendel Skulski:

those an analogue for the livestock we have now?

Adam Huggins:

You could make an argument for that, again, in the

Adam Huggins:

Great Plains, and also perhaps in some parts of the

Adam Huggins:

intermountain west and even out east. But most of California,

Adam Huggins:

the coastal West, and other parts of the intermountain west,

Adam Huggins:

don't appear to have much of a history with bison, at least

Adam Huggins:

within the Holocene.

Mendel Skulski:

Okay, then what about all the benefits of

Mendel Skulski:

grazing in California? Like, everything we've been covering

Mendel Skulski:

in the last two episodes?

Adam Huggins:

You know, I asked Bob about that. Because it's

Adam Huggins:

been a central question of this series for me. The conservation

Adam Huggins:

community in California, for the most part, has embraced the cow.

Adam Huggins:

And so is that something that is happening elsewhere in the West?

Adam Huggins:

Or is it like so many things, a California thing?

Bob Beschta:

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

Bob Beschta:

California thing.

Adam Huggins:

I gotta say, that's been my general

Adam Huggins:

observation as well. There are lots of pro-cattle folks

Adam Huggins:

throughout the West. And they're, you know, are some

Adam Huggins:

notable circumstances where cows are being used for conservation.

Adam Huggins:

But outside of California, that's just not that common.

Mendel Skulski:

So what would a rewilding proposal like this

Mendel Skulski:

look like in the state of California?

Adam Huggins:

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

Adam Huggins:

the break.

Mendel Skulski:

Hey, it's me... again. I just wanted to say a

Mendel Skulski:

huge thank you to everyone who answered our call for support.

Mendel Skulski:

I'm overwhelmed with gratitude that so many of you care about

Mendel Skulski:

what we're doing here. And frankly, just how much of a

Mendel Skulski:

privilege it is that I get to crowdsource a job that I deeply

Mendel Skulski:

enjoy. And with your help, hopefully, jobs for others, too.

Mendel Skulski:

So we just passed the 400 patron milestone. And to celebrate, we

Mendel Skulski:

made some custom embroidered touques — or beanies, for you

Mendel Skulski:

Americans. They're black, comfy, stylish, and suitable for any

Mendel Skulski:

occasion. You could buy one off our website,

Mendel Skulski:

futureecologies.net/merch, but we think you might prefer to

Mendel Skulski:

wear it as a badge of honor — as one of our proudest supporting

Mendel Skulski:

listeners. It's one of the perks of supporting the show for $12 a

Mendel Skulski:

month, along with an embroidered patch, which you get at $6 a

Mendel Skulski:

month, a pair of weatherproof stickers at $3. And of course,

Mendel Skulski:

our community Discord server, bonus episodes, early releases

Mendel Skulski:

and your name on our website for just $1 each month. Or, if you

Mendel Skulski:

prefer, you can now subscribe directly within Apple podcasts.

Mendel Skulski:

Although then we can't mail you any goodies, or simply make a

Mendel Skulski:

one time donation on our website. So to help us do what

Mendel Skulski:

we do, and do it better every time, head to

Mendel Skulski:

futureecologies.net/join and choose whatever option works for

Mendel Skulski:

you. Okay, back to the show.

Adam Huggins:

We are back. I am Adam.

Mendel Skulski:

I am Mendel. This is Future Ecologies.

Adam Huggins:

And today we are all about rewilding, and maybe

Adam Huggins:

not so hot on cows. And we're coming back to California now to

Adam Huggins:

ask what's going on here. So, I've got two folks to introduce

Adam Huggins:

you to, Mendel.

Mendel Skulski:

Let's do it.

Adam Huggins:

The first is Jon Keeley.

Jon Keeley:

I'm a research scientist with the US Geological

Jon Keeley:

Survey, and an adjunct professor at UCLA. And in my research

Jon Keeley:

specialty is fire and the ecological impacts of fire and

Jon Keeley:

how climate impacts fires.

Adam Huggins:

John has been studying and writing about fire

Adam Huggins:

in California for decades. And I just want to read you a few of

Adam Huggins:

the titles of some of his many published papers.

Mendel Skulski:

Sure.

Adam Huggins:

Fire as global herbivore

Mendel Skulski:

Woah...

Adam Huggins:

Fire as an evolutionary pressure shaping

Adam Huggins:

plant traits.

Mendel Skulski:

Wow.

Adam Huggins:

Wildfires as an ecosystem service.

Mendel Skulski:

Mm.

Adam Huggins:

The role of fire in the history of life.

Mendel Skulski:

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

Adam Huggins:

It feels like our entire podcast is just one long

Adam Huggins:

running series on fire sometimes.

Mendel Skulski:

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

Adam Huggins:

Last but not least for this series, we have Laura

Adam Huggins:

Cunningham. She's an artist, naturalist, author, and

Adam Huggins:

California director for the Western Watersheds Project. And

Adam Huggins:

she is also, Mendel, the rare person that I encountered who

Adam Huggins:

has changed their mind about livestock.

Laura Cunningham:

Yeah, I actually was sort of a little

Laura Cunningham:

more pro livestock grazing. And now I'm a little bit less pro

Laura Cunningham:

livestock grazing. So I mean, I'll admit that my perspectives

Laura Cunningham:

have shifted over the decades, when I get new input and more

Laura Cunningham:

experience and maybe broader experience outside of the Bay

Laura Cunningham:

Area.

Adam Huggins:

Among other things, Laura wrote and

Adam Huggins:

illustrated a book called A State of Change - Forgotten

Adam Huggins:

Landscapes of California. And I haven't really seen anything

Adam Huggins:

else like it. It's this fascinating combination of

Adam Huggins:

paleo-ecological research, archival work, natural history

Adam Huggins:

studies, all culminating in these beautiful illustrations,

Adam Huggins:

imagining the landscapes of pre colonial California.

Mendel Skulski:

Oh, that's so cool. And I bet there aren't any

Mendel Skulski:

cows in her illustrations.

Adam Huggins:

No cows in the cowboy song, and no cows in

Adam Huggins:

Laurens book. But there are birds, and bunchgrasses, and

Adam Huggins:

grizzly bears, and salmon.

Mendel Skulski:

Deer, antelope?

Adam Huggins:

Playing even. And of course, Indigenous people,

Adam Huggins:

and the ecosystems that they were stewarding using fire,

Adam Huggins:

among other things.

Mendel Skulski:

Of course.

Adam Huggins:

So when you ask someone like Laura, what a

Adam Huggins:

rangeland is, she has a very different answer from Lynn.

Laura Cunningham:

Yeah, I would call a rangeland, kind of an

Laura Cunningham:

extractive use of a grassland. And I would call a native

Laura Cunningham:

grassland, a grassland. So I'm a little bit thinking that range

Laura Cunningham:

land is like a artificial, managed system for production

Laura Cunningham:

of, you know, livestock and forage. So my, my idea of a

Laura Cunningham:

range land is it's post European contact.

Mendel Skulski:

Right. Okay, so rangeland is a utilitarian term

Mendel Skulski:

from her perspective.

Adam Huggins:

I mean, would you call a forest a timberland?

Mendel Skulski:

Only if I were a logging company.

Adam Huggins:

So no surprise, ranchers use the term

Adam Huggins:

rangelands.

Mendel Skulski:

I guess not.

Adam Huggins:

But I should add that Laura works with ranchers a

Adam Huggins:

lot. And so she has a healthy respect for what they do, and

Adam Huggins:

the problems that they face.

Laura Cunningham:

Not all ranchers are the same,

Laura Cunningham:

obviously. And I've seen really well-managed ranches. Then I've

Laura Cunningham:

seen ranchers who are struggling, and they try to

Laura Cunningham:

stuff as many cows onto that landscape as possible. And it

Laura Cunningham:

looks like crap. So there are some ranchers who you just can't

Laura Cunningham:

justify that they're doing a good job managing the land. To

Laura Cunningham:

be fair, I think that a lot of ranchers, and I talk with a lot

Laura Cunningham:

of them, do a better job. And it's a hard way to make a living

Laura Cunningham:

too. I don't think the goal is to, you know, we're just gonna

Laura Cunningham:

go out there and get rid of all the cattle immediately. A lot of

Laura Cunningham:

what I do is work with ranchers and land managers to make things

Laura Cunningham:

better on the land.

Adam Huggins:

But when it comes to the new science supporting

Adam Huggins:

cows for conservation in California, her view is actually

Adam Huggins:

pretty dim.

Laura Cunningham:

I mean, there's a lot of so-called

Laura Cunningham:

scientific papers coming out now that are claiming cattle and

Laura Cunningham:

ranching can benefit landscapes. But I kind of call them gray

Laura Cunningham:

literature, because I think they're taking the conclusion

Laura Cunningham:

that some groups want and coming up with that conclusion.

Adam Huggins:

And there are a few reasons for this. For one,

Adam Huggins:

all of the rangelands people will tell you that it was from

Adam Huggins:

witnessing the negative impacts of removing cattle from

Adam Huggins:

conservation areas that we started to learn about and

Adam Huggins:

finally study the benefits. It's a bit tough to generalize about

Adam Huggins:

all of this, obviously. But so many of the studies promoting

Adam Huggins:

the benefits of grazing compare grazed to ungrazed areas. And

Adam Huggins:

these studies generally share some common features. They are

Adam Huggins:

relatively short term, and the ungrazed areas don't usually

Adam Huggins:

have any other treatments applied. They're just left

Adam Huggins:

alone,

Laura Cunningham:

We've had a huge impact with cattle. You

Laura Cunningham:

take the cattle out, you're left with a heavily disturbed

Laura Cunningham:

impacted landscape. And so yes, if you just leave it, like

Laura Cunningham:

passive restoration, yeah, it may just take a trajectory that

Laura Cunningham:

you don't like. But I guess I'm looking at active restoration,

Laura Cunningham:

as opposed to that passive restoration. You have to maybe

Laura Cunningham:

actively go back in there and use things like cultural fire,

Laura Cunningham:

or native elk grazers, or hand pulling the weeds to get it back

Laura Cunningham:

into a trajectory where you're gonna get more natives.

Mendel Skulski:

That sounds like a lot more work, but it makes

Mendel Skulski:

sense. You have what everyone agrees is a highly altered,

Mendel Skulski:

highly invaded ecosystem. So if you compare some treatment —

Adam Huggins:

Any treatment...

Mendel Skulski:

Yeah, to no treatment, then it will probably

Mendel Skulski:

make the treatment look good. If your treatment is grazing,

Mendel Skulski:

grazing looks good.

Adam Huggins:

Exactly. And the other critique is all about

Adam Huggins:

time. Here's Bob, again,

Bob Beschta:

They'll talk about all the wonderful things they

Bob Beschta:

can do. And I'll say that's great. And I said, we should be

Bob Beschta:

doing some experiments, and they'll say, yeah. And my

Bob Beschta:

experiment always is "let's remove livestock temporarily".

Bob Beschta:

Initially, they might be agreeable to that kind of thing.

Bob Beschta:

But then I will indicate by temporarily, I mean at least two

Bob Beschta:

decades. We've been grazing Western landscapes with exotic

Bob Beschta:

large herbivores for over a century, okay — every year for

Bob Beschta:

over a century. So a period of rest is not a one year

Bob Beschta:

phenomenon or a two year phenomenon. These ecosystems

Bob Beschta:

need a significant period of rest. So my argument would be is

Bob Beschta:

we need to rest these systems for at least two decades, and

Bob Beschta:

then we get to assess whether or not we should be grazing these

Bob Beschta:

landscapes at all, or if so how much.

Adam Huggins:

He told me that it took years and years for an

Adam Huggins:

intervention as dramatic as reintroducing wolves to show

Adam Huggins:

positive impacts in Yellowstone.

Mendel Skulski:

Okay, so then, argument number two, the

Mendel Skulski:

evidence supporting grazing for biodiversity and associated

Mendel Skulski:

values is often based on short term studies that don't consider

Mendel Skulski:

other forms of active management.

Adam Huggins:

That's what the rewilding folks say. Plus, if

Adam Huggins:

ranchers are such great land managers, like they say they

Adam Huggins:

are, and good management can mitigate the negative impacts

Adam Huggins:

that we've been discussing, then why do we continue to see those

Adam Huggins:

negative impacts on rangelands everywhere?

Bob Beschta:

Well, I've heard those arguments — that we can

Bob Beschta:

avoid things, we can do a better job. And my comment is, well

Bob Beschta:

then do it. Show me.

Mendel Skulski:

So argument number three, good management is

Mendel Skulski:

better than bad management. But even well managed herds can have

Mendel Skulski:

obvious negative impacts.

Adam Huggins:

Yes, for the rewilding folks, not all that

Adam Huggins:

much has changed since the bad old days of the 60s 70s and 80s.

Mendel Skulski:

Let alone the gold rush.

Laura Cunningham:

There's a new trend in California called

Laura Cunningham:

Wait... I thought the native grasses were all but wiped out

Laura Cunningham:

"conservation grazing" or "conservation ranching", which I

Laura Cunningham:

disagree with. But there's an attempt to sort of cover up the

Laura Cunningham:

big impacts of grazing livestock on the land, and it involves

Laura Cunningham:

things like, you know, "Oh, we're going to reduce fuel.

Laura Cunningham:

We're going to provide a carbon sink. You know, the manure from

Laura Cunningham:

all these cows supposedly puts carbon back into the soil". But

Laura Cunningham:

when I go look at what I call my reference sites, these are

Laura Cunningham:

relict native bunchgrasslands or meadows of perennial meadow

Laura Cunningham:

grasses. I really see what we have lost.

Laura Cunningham:

by introduced species. What's Laura talking about here?

Adam Huggins:

What Laura is talking about are the small

Adam Huggins:

pockets — not many, but a few — where you can still see

Adam Huggins:

fragments of native California grassland, relict grasslands,

Adam Huggins:

just hanging in there. So when she thinks about what's possible

Adam Huggins:

for rangelands in California, she sees more than just this

Adam Huggins:

novel ecosystem that we have to accept and graze with cows.

Laura Cunningham:

People say "Oh, it's a changed California

Laura Cunningham:

annual grassland. Now it's permanent. You know, all you can

Laura Cunningham:

do is use cattle to graze it". I think that's wrong, because I

Laura Cunningham:

changed my perspective since the 1990s, where I've collected data

Laura Cunningham:

on all these relict reference sites, I call them, of ungrazed,

Laura Cunningham:

or lightly grazed lightly, disturbed native grasslands.

Laura Cunningham:

They're not just on serpentine areas. They're not just on north

Laura Cunningham:

slopes. They're everywhere. And the key is they're protected

Laura Cunningham:

from heavy grazing, or disturbance of some kind.

Laura Cunningham:

They're not grazed, except maybe by an elk here and there. But

Laura Cunningham:

you get down on your hands and knees. And it's like, there's

Laura Cunningham:

this cloud forest of lichens and mosses under the bunchgrasses,

Laura Cunningham:

and you walk on this prairie and it's spongy. It feels like

Laura Cunningham:

you're walking on a sponge. There's no bare ground, no

Laura Cunningham:

erosion. When the rain falls onto this prairie, the water

Laura Cunningham:

soaks in. And then you go to a cow pasture on the other side of

Laura Cunningham:

the barbed wire fence, and it's completely different. It's bare

Laura Cunningham:

dirt, there's erosion, there's manure, that in our wintry

Laura Cunningham:

rainstorms gets washed into the creeks and starts polluting, you

Laura Cunningham:

know, salmon habitat. You have a lot of invasive European

Laura Cunningham:

annuals, thistles, poison hemlock, it's just a completely

Laura Cunningham:

different thing.

Adam Huggins:

And, you know, this tracks with my own personal

Adam Huggins:

experience, Mendel. For every spectacular success story like

Adam Huggins:

Tulare Hill, there are a dozen pretty barren hillsides that

Adam Huggins:

don't really look like they're benefiting from grazing. On the

Adam Huggins:

other hand, these relict grassland sites that Laura is

Adam Huggins:

talking about. They just don't seem to need cows to be

Adam Huggins:

beautiful and biodiverse. All on their own.

Laura Cunningham:

It's like I call it "old growth grassland".

Laura Cunningham:

That is actually what sequestering carbon — deep, six

Laura Cunningham:

feet down into the soil with the roots of these perennial,

Laura Cunningham:

long-lived bunchgrasses. And I try to take groups of people

Laura Cunningham:

like field trips to show them and some of them don't even

Laura Cunningham:

believe it. They see the actual native grassland. And they're

Laura Cunningham:

like, astonished. It's completely different than what

Laura Cunningham:

you see when you're driving around most of California.

Adam Huggins:

And interwoven with those deep, long lived

Adam Huggins:

perennial bunchgrass roots. You have something called biological

Adam Huggins:

soil crusts.

Mendel Skulski:

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

Laura Cunningham:

Yeah, biological soil crusts are

Laura Cunningham:

really interesting because they're a symbiotic network of

Laura Cunningham:

plants, and lichens, fungi, and blue-green algae that are doing

Laura Cunningham:

their work mostly in the soil. So you don't see it most of the

Laura Cunningham:

time. The mycelial networks, and blue green algae filaments of

Laura Cunningham:

the soil crust connect with the root tips of shrubs, trees and

Laura Cunningham:

grasses, and actually help deliver nutrients to these

Laura Cunningham:

plants. So there's a symbiosis going on under the soil, and we

Laura Cunningham:

just completely, mostly aren't aware of it. And when you

Laura Cunningham:

trample it, drive on it, over-graze it, or scrape it, you

Laura Cunningham:

lose that... you completely lose that. Those are very delicate,

Laura Cunningham:

old growth living systems. Finding an intact biological

Laura Cunningham:

soil crust has actually become rarer now, especially on

Laura Cunningham:

rangelands where they can't take the heavy hoof trampling and

Laura Cunningham:

constant grazing of cattle and sheep.

Adam Huggins:

Bob also mentioned these remarkable living soils.

Bob Beschta:

It's something we've almost forgotten about in

Bob Beschta:

the American West, but these were common everywhere. They

Bob Beschta:

protected soil surfaces from erosion. They provided micro

Bob Beschta:

habitats for plants. And in many cases that they're gone.

Adam Huggins:

In my own personal experience, I just haven't seen

Adam Huggins:

these on annual grasslands with livestock grazing.

Mendel Skulski:

So argument number four, maybe these

Mendel Skulski:

ecosystems don't have to be thought of as novel. Maybe

Mendel Skulski:

they're just really, really damaged by centuries of cattle

Mendel Skulski:

grazing, but there is still some potential that they could be

Mendel Skulski:

restored.

Adam Huggins:

Yeah, and Bob can point to sites where this has

Adam Huggins:

occurred in Oregon, like Hart Mountain.

Bob Beschta:

Hart Mountain National antelope refuge in

Bob Beschta:

Southern Oregon. We've now got 30 years of recovery. Every year

Bob Beschta:

it gets just more impressive. It takes time. Hart Mountain today,

Bob Beschta:

30 years after livestock removal, from an ecological

Bob Beschta:

standpoint is just an incredibly different place than it was 30

Bob Beschta:

years ago, after almost a century of livestock grazing.

Adam Huggins:

And then Laura pointed to all sorts of

Adam Huggins:

different initiatives in California, from Indigenous

Adam Huggins:

tribes like the Karuk Reclaiming cultural fire.

Mendel Skulski:

Which we covered in season one.

Adam Huggins:

To small projects in city parks, just using

Adam Huggins:

handtools. Restoring California native grasslands is hard, she

Adam Huggins:

says, but not impossible.

Laura Cunningham:

Using cattle to manage ecosystems, to me is

Laura Cunningham:

kind of the lazy way to do it. And in the last 10 years, I've

Laura Cunningham:

learned that you can restore native grasslands without

Laura Cunningham:

cattle. And maybe it takes a little bit more planning. I

Laura Cunningham:

think it's lazy to just say, "Okay, put cows on it. Now we

Laura Cunningham:

can justify the cattle and say that they're all these

Laura Cunningham:

conservation management tools", when there are other options.

Laura Cunningham:

And I have had personal experience looking at these

Laura Cunningham:

other options, and they're working.

Mendel Skulski:

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

Adam Huggins:

And elk, and beaver.

Mendel Skulski:

Okay, so it's also rewilding.

Adam Huggins:

Yes. Laura, and the folks at the Western

Adam Huggins:

watersheds project really love that proposal.

Laura Cunningham:

Oh, yeah. We've been talking about that

Laura Cunningham:

proposal a lot. Western Watersheds Project, I mean, our

Laura Cunningham:

focus is livestock grazing, but our mission is restoration. And

Laura Cunningham:

we definitely support rewilding with beavers and wolves. That

Laura Cunningham:

would be a paradise to me.

Adam Huggins:

So beavers were almost completely extirpated in

Adam Huggins:

California. So much so that many people just assumed that they

Adam Huggins:

were never even here in the first place. It's a kind of

Adam Huggins:

beaver erasure. But they are making a comeback. And the

Adam Huggins:

argument from the rewilding folks is, "Why should we rely on

Adam Huggins:

stock ponds for amphibian habitat, when we could just

Adam Huggins:

restore their actual historic habitats using beaver? And for

Adam Huggins:

that matter, why should we have cows grazing all of these

Adam Huggins:

grasslands when we have the native Tule elk, which are also

Adam Huggins:

making a comeback?" And so on, reintroducing wolves and

Adam Huggins:

traditional cultural management. With all of this, we could

Adam Huggins:

recover a richness of species and habitats not seen in

Adam Huggins:

generations. And you know, as dreamy as that would be,

Adam Huggins:

everyone I spoke to — both the rewilders and the rangelands

Adam Huggins:

folks — agree that it's simply not compatible with ecosystems

Adam Huggins:

that are managing cattle for meat production, and barbed wire

Adam Huggins:

fences.

Mendel Skulski:

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

Mendel Skulski:

right?

Adam Huggins:

My favorite day of the year.

Mendel Skulski:

So can we at least entertain the idea?

Adam Huggins:

Oh, yeah. I mean, what are we doing? Right? I will

Adam Huggins:

take elk and beaver and wolves over cows any day of the week,

Adam Huggins:

personally. I think that's clear. But while we're

Adam Huggins:

entertaining wild ideas, I have one more for you.

Mendel Skulski:

Is that so?

Adam Huggins:

Yes, as a matter of fact. So all of this time,

Adam Huggins:

I've been talking with rangelands folks. And as you'll

Adam Huggins:

remember from the first episode, they're really concerned about

Adam Huggins:

how many of California's grasslands are being invaded by

Adam Huggins:

shrubs.

Mendel Skulski:

Shrubs!

Adam Huggins:

Here's Lynn Huntsinger.

Lynn Huntsinger:

Now shrubland is interesting around here. We

Lynn Huntsinger:

have certain species that tend to be very invasive, they're

Lynn Huntsinger:

native. One of them is coyote brush.

Adam Huggins:

Coyote brush is an early succession native species,

Adam Huggins:

very common in California. But all of the rangelands folks

Adam Huggins:

refer to it as invasive, because they're concerned with keeping

Adam Huggins:

these grasslands open — for the grass for the cows, and for all

Adam Huggins:

of those rare grassland species.

Mendel Skulski:

Fair enough, I guess.

Adam Huggins:

Yeah. But at the same time, this discourse of

Adam Huggins:

"shrub invasion" has always kind of rubbed me the wrong way. You

Adam Huggins:

know, my own personal values are, I'd love to restore native

Adam Huggins:

cover. And meanwhile, these folks are intent on killing the

Adam Huggins:

one native plant trying to make a go of it on these invaded

Adam Huggins:

grasslands. And I kind of thought I was alone in thinking

Adam Huggins:

this... until I spoke with Jon Keeley.

Mendel Skulski:

Oh, right, fireman! I was wondering when

Mendel Skulski:

you're going to bring him back.

Adam Huggins:

Right now. When I talked to Jon, it was like a

Adam Huggins:

light bulb went off. He's like, "Well, of course, the coyote

Adam Huggins:

brush moves in. And so what you're looking at"

Jon Keeley:

Is what the natural successional processes are. And

Jon Keeley:

eventually the coyote brush will be invaded by other more

Jon Keeley:

permanent shrubs and produce a coastal scrub vegetation. And

Jon Keeley:

that's really the natural state. The problem is, is people don't

Jon Keeley:

necessarily like that natural state.

Mendel Skulski:

I actually don't get it. What does he mean by

Mendel Skulski:

"natural state"?

Adam Huggins:

I mean, what does anybody mean what that term?

Adam Huggins:

What he's referring to is succession.

Jon Keeley:

People talk about how shrublands are encroaching.

Jon Keeley:

The word encroachment is really a misnomer. Encroaching means

Jon Keeley:

you're moving into a system where it's not natural. When we

Jon Keeley:

see shrubs moving into grasslands, that's not

Jon Keeley:

encroachment, it's returning to the original state, due to the

Jon Keeley:

removal of human interference through frequent burning. Get

Jon Keeley:

over the idea that they should be grasslands. They're not

Jon Keeley:

grasslands.

Adam Huggins:

One of Jon's papers compares the Bay Area —

Adam Huggins:

so that's coastal California — with the Sierra Nevadas, in the

Adam Huggins:

interior. Up in the mountains, lightning strikes are super

Adam Huggins:

common, and so were wildfires historically. But in coastal

Adam Huggins:

California, lightning strikes are almost unheard of.

Jon Keeley:

The bottom line is historically, those landscapes

Jon Keeley:

which are dominated by grasslands, if you take

Jon Keeley:

livestock off and you don't do anything with the burning — you

Jon Keeley:

just allow a natural frequency to occur. They all return to

Jon Keeley:

shrublands. And it's because there is no natural frequent

Jon Keeley:

fire regime in the East Bay. If you look at lightning ignitions

Jon Keeley:

in the East Bay, I think counties like Alameda and Contra

Jon Keeley:

Costa maybe have two lightning fires every 100 years. They

Jon Keeley:

don't have a high fire frequency.

Adam Huggins:

So historically, if fire was keeping lands clear,

Adam Huggins:

and there's no lightning to light the fires...

Mendel Skulski:

Then Indigenous people were lighting fire, which

Mendel Skulski:

we know because they've been telling us.

Adam Huggins:

Yes, Indigenous people were lighting fires

Adam Huggins:

throughout coastal California, to create open ecosystems — to

Adam Huggins:

produce acorns, and wildflower seeds, and game, and other

Adam Huggins:

cultural values.

Adam Huggins:

I would call this familiar history. What's your point?

Jon Keeley:

The grasslands produced seed bearing plants

Jon Keeley:

that were a lot more valuable to them than the shrublands. So

Jon Keeley:

Native Americans started managing their landscape through

Jon Keeley:

burning. When the Europeans came on the scene, they basically

Jon Keeley:

exacerbated the situation by greatly increasing fire

Jon Keeley:

frequency, in large part because they wanted to get rid of woody

Jon Keeley:

vegetation and replace it with herbaceous vegetation because it

Jon Keeley:

was better for grazing. And in fact, this is a global pattern

Adam Huggins:

Well, my point is that, if many of these

Adam Huggins:

throughout the world. Wherever Europeans invaded a landscape,

Adam Huggins:

they eliminated the woody vegetation, and they replaced it

Adam Huggins:

with herbaceous vegetation. They also brought a lot of herbaceous

Adam Huggins:

species from Europe. Those species were very aggressive and

Adam Huggins:

non-native annual grasslands aren't really doing what

Adam Huggins:

have the ability to take over disturbed landscapes. A lot of

Adam Huggins:

what we see today, when you look in California at any herbaceous

Adam Huggins:

vegetation and coastal region, most all of it is non-native,

Adam Huggins:

Indigenous people created them to do, and at the same time they

Adam Huggins:

invasive species from Europe that are better adapted to that

Adam Huggins:

disturbance regime. And so we've lost a lot of our native

Adam Huggins:

shrubland vegetation. It's been replaced by non native grasslands.

Adam Huggins:

are creating fire danger, and require all of these inputs to

Adam Huggins:

maintain as mostly novel ecosystems, like what are we

Adam Huggins:

doing here? Why not just allow the native shrublands and native

Adam Huggins:

oak woodlands that are trying so hard to come back to do just

Adam Huggins:

that? They are super biodiverse and super important for native

Adam Huggins:

wildlife as well. They're more fire resistant, and they require

Adam Huggins:

much less work to maintain. We could use our, you know,

Adam Huggins:

admittedly limited resources to restore native grasslands

Adam Huggins:

wherever it seems practical or feasible. And then we could

Adam Huggins:

allow shrub lands and woodlands to return on other sites — where

Adam Huggins:

it's not so practical.

Mendel Skulski:

So you're saying that just because Indigenous

Mendel Skulski:

people, and then Europeans kept all of these ecosystems open

Mendel Skulski:

manually, it doesn't mean that we have to keep doing it. And

Mendel Skulski:

that it might not even be the best approach in the climate

Mendel Skulski:

crisis.

Adam Huggins:

Yes.

Mendel Skulski:

So is this Jon's proposal or yours?

Adam Huggins:

Oh, this is maybe my realization. And, you know, I

Adam Huggins:

guess it's blowing my mind because I grew up in these novel

Adam Huggins:

grasslands, breathing in all the pollen and sneezing like crazy,

Adam Huggins:

but I'm not alone.

Laura Cunningham:

I actually completely agree with you. You

Laura Cunningham:

know, my vision for parts of the Bay Area would be to have a

Laura Cunningham:

mosaic of coastal scrub, coyote brush, and then you know, a

Laura Cunningham:

patch of prairie here and an oak woodland there. And I actually

Laura Cunningham:

think that's how it used to be for hundreds of years. I think

Laura Cunningham:

it was a complex shifting patchwork of different habitats.

Laura Cunningham:

And so yeah, have one area full of coyote brush. It's a native

Laura Cunningham:

plant. It shouldn't be, you know, always eliminated. Rabbits

Laura Cunningham:

and white-crowned sparrows nest in coyote brush — you need that

Laura Cunningham:

too. You know this, either-or absolutism we get in our

Laura Cunningham:

restoration thinking land management? No, I think we

Laura Cunningham:

should have a complex mosaic, including the coyote brush.

Mendel Skulski:

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

Adam Huggins:

Well, Jon is a fire guy, remember? So while

Adam Huggins:

Lynn was expressing concern about the higher fuel loads that

Adam Huggins:

you find in shrublands, and woodlands and forests, in part

Adam Huggins:

one, Jon is actually much more worried about the places that

Adam Huggins:

tend to ignite more easily. Because no ignition, no fire.

Jon Keeley:

Most fires start in grasslands. And most of those

Jon Keeley:

grasslands are non-native annual grasses, because they're very

Jon Keeley:

flammable, they carry a fire very rapidly. So if your concern

Jon Keeley:

is to reduce fires in the landscape, then we probably want

Jon Keeley:

to convert those systems back into the native shrublands,

Jon Keeley:

which are less amenable to frequent fires.

Mendel Skulski:

This has been a lot to take in. But I guess I'd

Mendel Skulski:

have to say that argument number five goes something like these

Mendel Skulski:

novel grasslands could be allowed to develop into native

Mendel Skulski:

shrublands and woodlands. And that there are benefits to that.

Adam Huggins:

Yeah. And I mean, one thing that all of the folks

Adam Huggins:

that I talked to agreed about is that all of these questions are

Adam Huggins:

really a matter of what we value the most. Do we value beef

Adam Huggins:

production and small family ranches? Do we value the

Adam Huggins:

recovery of riparian ecosystems? Or the survival of grassland

Adam Huggins:

birds? Or super rare wildflowers? Or beavers? Do we

Adam Huggins:

value grasslands or shrublands?

Jon Keeley:

That's really the heart of the problem — coming up

Jon Keeley:

with what your goal is. There's no question that, for a lot of

Jon Keeley:

reasons, people prefer open grasslands. If you want just a

Jon Keeley:

pleasant scene with lots of grasslands, we're probably there

Jon Keeley:

for a lot of people. If your concern is natives versus

Jon Keeley:

non-natives and the conservation value, we're not there for a lot

Jon Keeley:

of our landscapes. If your concern is erosion control,

Jon Keeley:

we're not there for a lot of our landscapes, because the

Jon Keeley:

grasslands don't hold it. If your concern is the length of

Jon Keeley:

the fire season, right now we're seeing fires that have increased

Jon Keeley:

in the duration of the fire season, lasting much longer. A

Jon Keeley:

lot of that is due to the invasion on grasses which carry

Jon Keeley:

fire for a much longer period in the year than the native

Jon Keeley:

shrublands. So you really have to decide what you want.

Adam Huggins:

And on the other side of the fence, Lynn said

Adam Huggins:

very much the same thing.

Lynn Huntsinger:

That's the problem with all these things.

Lynn Huntsinger:

It's an opinion, a policy decision, a human decision, a

Lynn Huntsinger:

value judgment. What's good or bad is up for grabs. It's a

Lynn Huntsinger:

definition by people. Shrubs, grass, forests — it's a human

Lynn Huntsinger:

decision, to a certain extent. There's natural limitations, of

Lynn Huntsinger:

course. But what we're experiencing with climate change

Lynn Huntsinger:

means that we have to come to terms with that, because we're

Lynn Huntsinger:

heading into a new climate.

Mendel Skulski:

So here we are.

Adam Huggins:

Here we are, heading into a brand new climate

Adam Huggins:

at the end of our final episode, with more questions than

Adam Huggins:

answers, as usual.

Mendel Skulski:

Yeah, maybe that was to be expected.

Adam Huggins:

Yeah. I mean, it's difficult for us. I have done my

Adam Huggins:

best to present these arguments clearly. But I do think it's

Adam Huggins:

really important to reiterate that there are just some

Adam Huggins:

fundamental disagreements here, both in terms of values and also

Adam Huggins:

basic facts. For example, here's Jon, reflecting some of my own

Adam Huggins:

frustrations in reporting this series.

Jon Keeley:

I've heard at least four different accounts from

Jon Keeley:

different proponents of grazing. And they only talk about the

Jon Keeley:

positive things, and they don't talk about the negative. And,

Jon Keeley:

for example, I travel a lot across the coastal ranges of

Jon Keeley:

California, and those landscapes are grazed and they've been

Jon Keeley:

grazed for a long time. That's the most horrible looking

Jon Keeley:

landscape I can imagine. It's nothing but cow tracks all

Jon Keeley:

across the landscape. They try and suggest that "Well, grazing

Jon Keeley:

has value as increasing biodiversity", and they refer to

Jon Keeley:

the fact that "Well, grazing reduces the thatch of non native

Jon Keeley:

grasses and that opens habitat". I haven't seen it. I've seen a

Jon Keeley:

lot of grazed areas, and I've never seen grazed areas that

Jon Keeley:

have higher biodiversity, just never seen it.

Adam Huggins:

And then on the other hand, from folks like Stu

Adam Huggins:

Weiss, you hear things like this.

Stu Weiss:

What I often find is that the kind of hardcore

Stu Weiss:

anti-grazing people always pick what have to be the high impact

Stu Weiss:

areas, like around watering troughs, and places that are

Stu Weiss:

very heavily used. And then they they don't go, you know, a

Stu Weiss:

couple 100 meters away and see that, "oh, look, there's lots of

Stu Weiss:

room for the wildflowers here, as opposed to the ungrazed areas

Stu Weiss:

that are just, you know, a build up of thatch"

Adam Huggins:

And if you speak to ranchers and rangeland

Adam Huggins:

managers like Clayton, you might hear something like this,

Clayton Koopmann:

You still have your your hardcore doubters or

Clayton Koopmann:

anti-grazers. I don't think you're ever gonna change their

Clayton Koopmann:

opinion no matter what you show them, which is unfortunate. But

Clayton Koopmann:

that's going to be the way it is with I think any subject —

Clayton Koopmann:

you're just gonna have your far left and your far right and

Clayton Koopmann:

probably won't change their opinion.

Mendel Skulski:

Well, Adam, I'd say we've heard more than a few

Mendel Skulski:

discouraging words.

Adam Huggins:

More than seldom. And I know it's easy to feel

Adam Huggins:

grazed and confused. But even with all of the disagreements, I

Adam Huggins:

think everyone that I spoke to cares a lot, and knows a lot

Adam Huggins:

about the land. And they are all working in different ways to

Adam Huggins:

promote biodiversity, to address the climate crisis, and to

Adam Huggins:

support human values as well. And since it does all come down

Adam Huggins:

to what we value, I want to leave listeners with a few final

Adam Huggins:

thoughts about the lands where the sky isn't cloudy all day.

Mendel Skulski:

So definitely not here.

Adam Huggins:

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

Adam Huggins:

rangelands.

Lynn Huntsinger:

Grazing is not a black box. It's not a yes or

Lynn Huntsinger:

no thing. It's a when, where, how many, why thing, right? It's

Lynn Huntsinger:

complicated. You can have three cows, you can have 10, you can

Lynn Huntsinger:

have 100 sheep. There's a lot of decisions. They can be there in

Lynn Huntsinger:

the spring, fall, they can be there for two weeks, they can be

Lynn Huntsinger:

there for a year. You make that decision based on what you know

Lynn Huntsinger:

about the impacts of what they do. It's not just grazing.

Ashley Ahearn:

It's the fabric that stitches the community

Ashley Ahearn:

together. And that, to me is something that I'm not okay with

Ashley Ahearn:

just giving up on or just throwing out because we've

Ashley Ahearn:

decided beef is bad. What I want is a way to see those values.

Ashley Ahearn:

And that way of life is something that is worth

Ashley Ahearn:

preserving. But does need to be changed a little bit, does need

Ashley Ahearn:

to be made more sustainable, does need to be brought into the

Ashley Ahearn:

21st century in terms of how we care for the land and how we use

Ashley Ahearn:

cows as a tool.

Adam Huggins:

And finally, let's hear it for rewilding.

Laura Cunningham:

I mean, I'm definitely for more wildlife and

Laura Cunningham:

more native grasslands. And I think it would be nice to have

Laura Cunningham:

less cattle. Cattle are so abundant. Even Point Reyes

Laura Cunningham:

National Seashore is full of cattle, in a lot of it — and

Laura Cunningham:

takes away from the elk. If we could have some parts and

Laura Cunningham:

preserves that are truly rewilded — that are managed,

Laura Cunningham:

maybe with prescribed fire, and native elk grazers, and less

Laura Cunningham:

cattle on the landscape. Where maybe wolves could be able to

Laura Cunningham:

travel through the state more like they're trying to do. Big

Laura Cunningham:

networks of rewilded parks and preserves that are connected by

Laura Cunningham:

wildlife corridors, where wildlife can safely move without

Laura Cunningham:

traffic impacts or hunting. It seems like a gigantic ask to me,

Laura Cunningham:

but I think we really should consider it.

Bob Beschta:

This is based on our best science as we know

Bob Beschta:

today, what we think these ecosystems need. And so this is

Bob Beschta:

why we put forth this proposal. But in order for it to move

Bob Beschta:

forward now it really has to be grabbed by others, particularly

Bob Beschta:

those with political component. See if we can get changes in how

Bob Beschta:

we manage public lands in the American West so that agencies

Bob Beschta:

change what they do. So, it's like recovery of an ecosystem.

Bob Beschta:

You may start slowly at first, but after we begin to see the

Bob Beschta:

benefits, we think that this would increase the pressure to

Bob Beschta:

do more and more and more on public lands.

Mendel Skulski:

This episode of Future Ecologies features the

Mendel Skulski:

voices of Bob Beschta, Ashley Ahearn, Jon Keely, Laura

Mendel Skulski:

Cunningham, Lynn Huntsinger, Stuart Weiss, and Clayton

Mendel Skulski:

Koopman. Music by Thumbug, C. Diab, Meg Iredale, Saltwater

Mendel Skulski:

Hank, and Sunfish Moon Light, cover art by Ale Silva, and was

Mendel Skulski:

produced by Adam Huggins and me, Mendel Skulski — with sound

Mendel Skulski:

design help from our intern, Brennen King, and with special

Mendel Skulski:

thanks to Saxon Richardson.

Mendel Skulski:

You can find the proposal to rewild the American West, along

Mendel Skulski:

with all of our other citations, a transcript of this episode,

Mendel Skulski:

and lots more on our website - futureecologies.net

Mendel Skulski:

This podcast exists because of support from listeners just like

Mendel Skulski:

you, and those supporters get access to exclusive bonus

Mendel Skulski:

episodes, early releases, stickers, patches, our Discord

Mendel Skulski:

server, and now toques! Head to futureecologies.net/join and

Mendel Skulski:

choose the option that works best for you. Or just leave us a

Mendel Skulski:

review and tell a friend about the show.

Mendel Skulski:

As always, thanks for listening. Talk to you soon.

Chapters

Video

More from YouTube