Cows were never meant to live in the desert - I mean, after all, it's the desert! Yeah, I know, pretty simplistic, but reading Susan Tweit's Barren, Wild and Worthless reminded me of something I saw a few years ago, which I will relate in a moment, but back to the book.
Barren was published in 1995. I have read it a few times. It's one of those books that you occasionally read again just because it's so interesting - plus her first chapter on wildlife is about Spadefoot Toads, and I have a toad story. Last month we had a lot of rain, at least, a lot for us. I have never seen the desert as green as it is now, and a lot of people ( well, at least my wife and her older brother) who grew up here agree. Now this water has to go somewhere, and there is a ponding area in a location where I remove plants as part of a cactus and native plant salvage that I do. I was there a week or so ago and brought three Spadefoot tadpoles home for the kids to watch and see how they develop and grow. I remembered Tweit's chapter and went out and bought a copy of this book, which I no longer had for some reason. I wanted to reread the section on the toads just to be sure that, yes, as I remembered, thunder is what brings them out, in addition to the moisture.
So the toad chapter is followed by a chapter on grizzlies, which were not uncommon out here in southern New Mexico prior to the introduction of the cow, which has pretty much destroyed our native habitats and their vegetation (Elephant Butte Irrigation District finished the job, but, again, that's another blog!) Now I don't consider myself a "tree hugger," but I do have an avid appreciation for native habitats, after all, my high school dream was to be a field botanist, much like Tweit herself, and I have learned over my decade plus of living here that the vegetation one sees out the window while blasting down the highway at 80 miles and hour is NOT what was originally here. Her chapter also describes the Jornada Mogollon people, a pre-historic group of folks who lived in southern New Mexico and who, much to the chagrin of the "noble savage" followers, actually destroyed a considerable part of their environment. Well, maybe destroyed is a bit harsh, but they used resources to the extent that they could no longer live where they had for generations and were forced to, once again, adopt a more nomadic hunter-gatherer lifestyle. Now what the hell does this have to do with cows? Well, I'll tell you.
Not only have cows destroyed the West's vegetation, but you can throw in mining as a culprit as well (and I love mining - I study its' history!). While we are at it, let's also add current water intensive agriculture like cotton and pecans, both of which are big money makers here. Other crops - onion, lettuce, green chili - have thrived on water diverted from the "river." Yep, quotation marks, as it is no longer a river. In the thirties the Rio Grande was channelized and became a canal. The Elephant Butte Irrigation District distributes every damn drop that is allowed to flow. We no longer have a river, with a riparian area of willows and cottonwoods, sturgeon, marshes and floods. We have a canal, with water in the summer only, since during the winter the river is turned off. Luckily there is a very vocal group here who want at least a bit of water to flow year round, but the farmers and the irrigation district are not too cool with this idea. "That water is for crops," they say, and of course, they win. So now back to cattle.
About ten years ago I had to drive back home during the winter. As I drove through the Hondo Valley, east of Ruidoso and in the heart of Billy the Kid country, a recent snowfall lay on the ground. As I drove along I watched the scenery ( as I do to this day, much to the dismay of my wife - white-knuckling it as I watch the scenery instead of the road!) and something caught my eye, forcing me to pull over and take a better look. Creeping down a hillside was a fence, nothing fancy, just your typical half-rusted American southwest barbed wire fence. But the fence told a story. On the western side of the fence, the grasses were long and lush, of course dried out at this time of year, but gallantly holding the snow in place, snow which would later melt and bring needed moisture to the soil. On the eastern side of the fence, cattle had eaten the grass down to nothing. How do I know it was cattle? Well, there was a fat black Angus looking at me over the fence! His side of the barrier had nothing to hold back the snow and the wind had swept it bare. Sure there were small traces of snow here and there, but not the inches waiting to melt into the soil as on the other side - nothing to hold the moisture, and the wind had blown it away.
I never really thought about the role of agriculture in destroying the vegetation, and subsequently the animal life, of the West until that moment. Standing next to the car, watching that Angus slowly chew as I shivered in the cold, I realized that cattle really do not belong out here. They have destroyed watersheds and forced what used to be grass several feet high to become opuntia, creosote, and scrub mesquite. I love this desert, and all of it's life. I appreciate the red at the base of a yellow Opuntia violaceae flower, the purple-blue of the commelina flower sprouting from the sand after a wet summer, the brilliant white in the morning show of a datura. I have spent much time looking for that beautiful Queen of the Night and have recovered many Coryphantha sheeri from suffering under the fate of a bulldozers blade.
I am also an avid rockhound and have dug amethyst from a hole east of Hatch, wulfenite from a mine near Las Cruces, and garnets from on old gold mine in Orogrande. I pick up what bits of petrified wood and jasper I find and have dug a few holes myself looking for treasures, but I will always wonder what the floor of the desert, the Jornada, the cienegas, were like a century ago. What have we lost so that we can run Herefords near Rincon, black Angus close to Lincoln? I have no answer, but the southwest's population keeps growing - it is getting worse rather than better, and more people arrive every day, people who expect a dairy, beef, whatever. Cows don't belong here - they never did, but they are exactly what opened up this area and led to what it is today, and I guess cattle will always be here. But it's nice to think about the lush grasses, the wild river, and the cottonwoods that were here a century ago.
Anyway, just a few thoughts. Let me know what you think.
Barren was published in 1995. I have read it a few times. It's one of those books that you occasionally read again just because it's so interesting - plus her first chapter on wildlife is about Spadefoot Toads, and I have a toad story. Last month we had a lot of rain, at least, a lot for us. I have never seen the desert as green as it is now, and a lot of people ( well, at least my wife and her older brother) who grew up here agree. Now this water has to go somewhere, and there is a ponding area in a location where I remove plants as part of a cactus and native plant salvage that I do. I was there a week or so ago and brought three Spadefoot tadpoles home for the kids to watch and see how they develop and grow. I remembered Tweit's chapter and went out and bought a copy of this book, which I no longer had for some reason. I wanted to reread the section on the toads just to be sure that, yes, as I remembered, thunder is what brings them out, in addition to the moisture.
So the toad chapter is followed by a chapter on grizzlies, which were not uncommon out here in southern New Mexico prior to the introduction of the cow, which has pretty much destroyed our native habitats and their vegetation (Elephant Butte Irrigation District finished the job, but, again, that's another blog!) Now I don't consider myself a "tree hugger," but I do have an avid appreciation for native habitats, after all, my high school dream was to be a field botanist, much like Tweit herself, and I have learned over my decade plus of living here that the vegetation one sees out the window while blasting down the highway at 80 miles and hour is NOT what was originally here. Her chapter also describes the Jornada Mogollon people, a pre-historic group of folks who lived in southern New Mexico and who, much to the chagrin of the "noble savage" followers, actually destroyed a considerable part of their environment. Well, maybe destroyed is a bit harsh, but they used resources to the extent that they could no longer live where they had for generations and were forced to, once again, adopt a more nomadic hunter-gatherer lifestyle. Now what the hell does this have to do with cows? Well, I'll tell you.
Not only have cows destroyed the West's vegetation, but you can throw in mining as a culprit as well (and I love mining - I study its' history!). While we are at it, let's also add current water intensive agriculture like cotton and pecans, both of which are big money makers here. Other crops - onion, lettuce, green chili - have thrived on water diverted from the "river." Yep, quotation marks, as it is no longer a river. In the thirties the Rio Grande was channelized and became a canal. The Elephant Butte Irrigation District distributes every damn drop that is allowed to flow. We no longer have a river, with a riparian area of willows and cottonwoods, sturgeon, marshes and floods. We have a canal, with water in the summer only, since during the winter the river is turned off. Luckily there is a very vocal group here who want at least a bit of water to flow year round, but the farmers and the irrigation district are not too cool with this idea. "That water is for crops," they say, and of course, they win. So now back to cattle.
About ten years ago I had to drive back home during the winter. As I drove through the Hondo Valley, east of Ruidoso and in the heart of Billy the Kid country, a recent snowfall lay on the ground. As I drove along I watched the scenery ( as I do to this day, much to the dismay of my wife - white-knuckling it as I watch the scenery instead of the road!) and something caught my eye, forcing me to pull over and take a better look. Creeping down a hillside was a fence, nothing fancy, just your typical half-rusted American southwest barbed wire fence. But the fence told a story. On the western side of the fence, the grasses were long and lush, of course dried out at this time of year, but gallantly holding the snow in place, snow which would later melt and bring needed moisture to the soil. On the eastern side of the fence, cattle had eaten the grass down to nothing. How do I know it was cattle? Well, there was a fat black Angus looking at me over the fence! His side of the barrier had nothing to hold back the snow and the wind had swept it bare. Sure there were small traces of snow here and there, but not the inches waiting to melt into the soil as on the other side - nothing to hold the moisture, and the wind had blown it away.
I never really thought about the role of agriculture in destroying the vegetation, and subsequently the animal life, of the West until that moment. Standing next to the car, watching that Angus slowly chew as I shivered in the cold, I realized that cattle really do not belong out here. They have destroyed watersheds and forced what used to be grass several feet high to become opuntia, creosote, and scrub mesquite. I love this desert, and all of it's life. I appreciate the red at the base of a yellow Opuntia violaceae flower, the purple-blue of the commelina flower sprouting from the sand after a wet summer, the brilliant white in the morning show of a datura. I have spent much time looking for that beautiful Queen of the Night and have recovered many Coryphantha sheeri from suffering under the fate of a bulldozers blade.
I am also an avid rockhound and have dug amethyst from a hole east of Hatch, wulfenite from a mine near Las Cruces, and garnets from on old gold mine in Orogrande. I pick up what bits of petrified wood and jasper I find and have dug a few holes myself looking for treasures, but I will always wonder what the floor of the desert, the Jornada, the cienegas, were like a century ago. What have we lost so that we can run Herefords near Rincon, black Angus close to Lincoln? I have no answer, but the southwest's population keeps growing - it is getting worse rather than better, and more people arrive every day, people who expect a dairy, beef, whatever. Cows don't belong here - they never did, but they are exactly what opened up this area and led to what it is today, and I guess cattle will always be here. But it's nice to think about the lush grasses, the wild river, and the cottonwoods that were here a century ago.
Anyway, just a few thoughts. Let me know what you think.
posted by Unknown at 12:20 AM
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