Hooves on the Ground

Shortly after the Rim Fire near my hometown of Sonora was finally extinguished in 2013, I started seeing hats and bumper stickers with the slogan, "Log It, Graze It, or Watch it Burn." Reductions in logging and grazing on federal lands, according to the proponents of this catchphrase, were directly related to the explosive fire behavior we'd just experienced. In each subsequent year, fire behavior has seemed more extreme - this year, we've seen the Dixie and Caldor fires burn from the west slope of the Sierra to the east side. Logging and grazing, to some, are a black-and-white answer to a growing problem.

Real life, unfortunately, is rarely so black-and-white. Well managed grazing, like well managed logging, can reduce wildfire fuels; but drouthy conditions, windy weather, and low humidity can still result in extreme fire behavior (as we've seen in 2021). And poorly managed grazing and logging come with their own ecological consequences. Can logging and grazing prevent catastrophic wildfire? The answer, I'm afraid, is "it depends."

But while complicated problems like climate change require complex solutions, I wonder if there are some simple truths about our relationship with the land that we're missing. Last week, I spent a fair amount of time on the Truckee Ranger District of the Tahoe National Forest. While all of California's national forests are closed to the public due to extreme fire danger and a lack of firefighting resources, I had permission to be on the Tahoe to collect wildlife and sheep grazing data. And I helped my friends at Talbott Sheep Company ship their ewes off of the Tahoe and back home to Los Banos.

Talbott Sheep Company has grazed sheep between Kyburz Flat and Boca Reservoir from early July through September for more than three decades. This year, three bands of sheep (at approximately 1,200 head each) - each watched by a herder and 2 to 4 livestock guardian dogs, spent just under 3 months grazing the sagebrush steppe, mountain meadows, and east side conifer forests of the Truckee Ranger District. The sheep consumed grass and brush - reducing the fine fuels in the process.

But I've realized this year that part of the nuance to this issue is that the benefits of grazing are more than just hooves on the ground - more than simply the consumption of fire fuels and the modification of the fuel profile by grazing livestock. I'm beginning to understand that the at least part of the benefit of grazing - or logging, for that matter - is the fact that people have a reason to be on the landscape, day in and day out. The Talbott Sheep Company herders, camp tender, and managers saw a good portion of the 50,000-plus acres where their sheep grazed during the summer. This last week, with all of the national forests in California closed to the public, we were virtually the only people with permission to be on the forest. I'm not suggesting that any of this directly prevented any wildfires this summer; but having people on the land, paying attention to vegetation, weather, and water, can't hurt.

This phenomenon is not unique to public lands. I've noticed that ranches purchased by nonprofits and government agencies often fall into disrepair - not due to to negligence, but because without a rancher, the ranch isn't maintained. The day-to-day work of ranching requires attention to details - the maintenance of fences and roads, the germination of next year's grass crop, the clover years versus the grass years. Knowing a landscape in all of its moods and seasons, perhaps, requires a reason to be there every day. For ranchland, it requires boots - and hooves - on the ground.