Several friends and I recently embarked on what we hoped would be a wilderness adventure in California’s high country. What we found was nothing like that.
When we picked up the wilderness permit for our hike in the Emigrant Wilderness in the Stanislaus National Forest, we envisioned the Sierra high country to be wonderful fish and wildlife habitat lined with huge, picturesque ponderosa pines and white granite cliffs. The otherwise helpful rangers made no mention of the ecosystem wreckage we were about to encounter.
Instead of the pristine trout creek we expected, the otherwise spectacular Kennedy Creek was lined with thousands of steaming piles of cow dung, swarms of black flies, cow-trampled banks and waterways and green algae-filled water. Instead of what should have been lush, wildflower-strewn meadows at Kennedy Lake, we sunk into a green quagmire of muck created by a steady stream of cows cooling themselves in the shallows.
As we scurried to get above the algae-clogged Kennedy Lake, we encountered several fly fishers, horse packers, photographers and hikers – all aghast and expressing the same sense of disappointment as we were. Why would the National Forest Service and the California legislative delegation continue the taxpayer-subsidized damage to some of the state’s best sub-alpine habitat, especially here, in this increasingly popular recreational area?
As we swatted flies and stepped over the excrement, we were struck by the notion that this hiker’s paradise should not be a taxpayer-subsidized feedlot. We understood that grazing allotments were grandfathered into many wilderness bills – obviously including the Emigrant Wilderness – when they were designated as such. We know that policy change is slower than molasses, especially when ranching culture and environmental issues are being discussed. But we could not understand how the U.S. Forest Service and California’s blue congressional delegation could let such taxpayer-subsidized harm continue to degrade one of our most preciously beautiful places, especially when species and habitat loss are also at stake.
Holding our noses from the stench of urine and feces, we asked ourselves, “Why is this occurring in our diminishing wilderness, some of the best fish and wildlife habitat left in the Sierra?”
... It is clear that the true cost of this archaic land mismanagement is also risking harm to the human communities below. The federal grazing program actually harms the local economy in favor of a few ranchers. Recreationists like us will NOT return to the Kennedy Lake drainage till the cows are removed. We’ll warn our friends and they’ll tell theirs. The depressed foothill towns of Sonora, Twain Harte and Columbia will receive far less revenue from hikers, horse packers and fishers if no effort is made to reclaim our public wilderness from the cows.
For a peak into the mind of those who are influencing our agencies, read the whole diatribe published in the Sacramento Bee.
1 comment:
I guess I'll have to take back some of my comments about the class and intelligence of people like this author. He seemed to understand that it is best not to step in anything that is soft, so he claims he stepped over at least one cow pie. Good for him.
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