For the last six years, and since Tolowa Dunes was officially designated a Calif. State Park in 2001, illegal cattle trespass has been completely overlooked and ignored over an approximately 250 acre coastal meadow expanse on state park lands. The trespass has also been allowed, and purposely ignored by California Dept. of Fish and Game managers from whose lands the trespass cattle originated.
Finally, on December 20, 2007 and after EPIC and local conservationists had waged a two and a half month mini-campaign, citizen "park protectors" were told by the local State Park Superintendent that the unauthorized State Park grazing finally was to cease. Yet only three weeks later, the permittee again re-opened the offending gate, again allowing cattle to trespass on to Tolowa Dunes State Park lands.
Cattle had previously been allowed to graze in this area, since (and before) the area was first acquired by the State of California. Then, for many years "Tolowa Dunes State Park to-be" had been set aside in bureaucratic limbo--known then as the "Lake Earl Project Area". Yet, in 2001, when half of the former project area's 10,000 acres officially gained formal state park status, the prior grazing was "officially" no longer sanctioned. Under California State Park policy grazing is generally found "to be incompatible with park purposes, including natural resource protection and providing a meaningful outdoor recreational experience." Yet, here state park grazing was still "unofficially" to continue.
Local area ranchers continued to truck their cattle onto a 40 acre pasture located on the Lake Earl Wildlife Area, immediately south of Lake Tolowa. While cattle grazing was no longer permitted on the larger, adjoining State Park meadow, nobody wearing a state uniform seemed to want to get in the way of what had already been going on for so long. Thus, year after year local ranchers continually kept turning out their cows, and somehow always just sort of forgetting to "close the gate". In 2007, cattle were again turned out illegally on to the same state park lands. EPIC decided that enough was enough.
All these years, cattle grazing had been allowed to continue unchecked in the total absence of any local grazing management plans, and despite the fact that in 2001 this coastal meadow and adjoining area lands had been designated by the US Fish and Wildlife Service as part of a "Habitat Conservation Area" for the federally listed Oregon silverspot butterfly. This and other native pollinator's habitat needs have never been considered in the management in formulating any grazing prescriptions for either the Lake Earl Wildlife Area, or the adjoining State Park meadow.
Conservationists believe that specific wildflowers that provide critical nectar sources, that could contribute to the eventual recovery of sensitive butterfly species, should now be the driving force for restoration management in these still highly natural-in-character, state park meadows. As achieving some restoration objectives will require some future disturbances, specific, carefully laid out management plans must first be accomplished.
Because a key boundary gate was never closed, and an even more southerly pasture fences had been left un-maintained, this last Thanksgiving weekend around 100 dairy cattle, already out of their "unauthorized pasture" area on State Park land, escaped even beyond this older project area fence where they had previously always been contained. This resulted in still more vegetation disturbance over the following four days, leaving sensitive dune plants trampled in one area, and manure scattered along many of the area's hiking and bicycle trails.
Incredibly, once the additionally 100 or so cattle were finally round up, a second gate through which the cattle had "escaped" was wired shut, but the gate that allowed the initial trespass, still remained wide open.
Within both Tolowa Dunes State Park and the Lake Earl Wildlife Area, meadow vegetation has been grazed close to the ground, with bare dirt now exposed in many areas. Under the terms of the contract where the cattle are actually allowed, cattle are to be removed once the wildlife area's pasture is grazed down to a "height of three to four inches".
Although the specific Lake Earl Wildlife Area grazing lease specifically states the grazing lessee is to maintain area fences and inspect to see that they are in adequate repair prior to turning out the cattle, the State Park, still meeting resistance finally accepted the duty of herding the cattle of the State Park, and closed the gate and repaired about 50 feet of down fence a few days before Christmas.
While EPIC thanked Tolowa Dunes State Park managers for accepting their authority to resolve the issue, we also cautioned that unless they also gained a specific acknowledge from the adjacent wildlife area and livestock owner, there was no way this trespass would be permanently resolved. And sure enough, on January 11, 2008, we again observed that the offending gate had once again been opened with the dairy cattle again illegally distributed over State Park meadows and wetlands. This time the State Park responded more rapidly, and once again re-secured the gate.
EPIC thus remains a tad bit skeptical, that unless the wildlife area lessee assumes some responsibility, the state park superintendent should not be all that surprised when the lessee once again continues to forget to close the gate.
