Tag: point reyes national seashore

Cows

POINT REYES PLANNING PROCESS ON TV

Photo of two milk cows standing in a pond.

Cows in Pond, Point Reyes

I appeared on Marin TV a week ago with Laura Cunningham of Western Watersheds Project and Skyler Thomas of White Shark Videos. We were on a program called the People’s Environmental News with hosts Charlie Siler and Barbara McVeigh. The hour-long program was about Point Reyes National Seashore and the current planning process. If you’d like to watch it, it’s on YouTube at this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qPEZtl1CDM&feature=youtu.be

Here is a picture of a pond in Point Reyes National Seashore which is one of the many things we talked about on the program. The pond is entirely covered in weed growth. Why? Because cows stand in it and urinate and defecate. It also receives manure from lands above it as well as another pond above it whose waters percolate into it. Cow manure is basically fertilizer which causes any vegetation in the water to grow out of control. Of course, there is also the e coli problem, but that’s a story for another day.

This pond is part of the upper reaches of the South Fork of Kehoe Creek which is one of the most polluted creeks in California. Yes, a creek whose entire watercourse is in a national park is one of the most polluted watersheds in California. Way to go National Park Service! It’s responsible animal husbandry to fence a stock pond and to place a stock tank downgrade from the pond and then to run a pipe between them. But that’s not the way the ranchers at Point Reyes operate and the Park Service Superintendent is afraid to tell the ranchers to do anything for fear they will call Senator Feinstein and/or Rep. Huffman and that Superintendent will be out the door, like the last one. But I digress. Back to that pond.

The pond’s water percolates through its earthen dam and joins other Souith Fork waters until the South Fork joins the two North Forks of Kehoe Creek at a pool near the Kehoe Beach parking lot. From there, the manure-laden water flows to Kehoe Beach where the water sits in a pool until a large enough storm occurs that can breach the beach and deliver the manure to the Pacific Ocean.

Cows

The Big Lie — Point Reyes National Seashore and Ranching

Severe Cattle Trails at Point Reyes National Seashore Becoming Gullies

Cattle trails on hillsides in the Seashore cause severe erosion and manure pollution of the adjacent bays and ocean.

CONGRESS NEVER INTENDED THAT RANCHING WOULD GO ON FOREVER

Contrary to the claims of some, there is no basis for asserting that when Congress passed the Point Reyes legislation in 1962 it intended that ranching would go on forever after the ranch lands were acquired by the National Park Service (NPS).  The legislation didn’t address the issue at all.  Furthermore, there is no point in debating the issue now because Congress addressed the issue in 1978 by adding language to the legislation stating that ranching was discretionary, not mandatory.  That language provides as follows:

“Where appropriate in the discretion of the Secretary, he or she may lease federally owned land . . . which has been acquired . . . and which was agricultural land prior to its acquisition.  Such lease shall be subject to such restrictive covenants as may be necessary to carry out the purposes of sections 459c to 459c–7 of this title.”

92 Stat. 3487 (Nov. 10, 1978); 16 U.S.C. § 459c-5.  (Emphasis added.)

Clearly, Congress addressed the issue in 1978 and made ranching permissible in the Secretary’s discretionary, but not required.

Furthermore, the Secretary’s discretion is limited by other language requiring that Point Reyes be managed without impairment of its natural values.

“[T]he property . . . shall be administered . . . without impairment of its natural values, in a manner which provides for such recreational, educational, historic preservation, interpretation, and scientific research opportunities as are consistent with, based upon, and supportive of the maximum protection, restoration, and preservation of the natural environment . . . .”

16 U.S.C. § 459c-6.  (Emphasis added.)

Ranching is impairing the natural resources of Point Reyes as is obvious to anyone who goes out there and looks at the ranching area.  Consequently, NPS is violating its statutory duty under the Seashore statute.  It is also violating the 1916 NPS Organic Act which has similar non-impairment language and applies to all national parks, including Point Reyes.  The only way to stop impairing nature at Point Reyes is to stop ranching and manage Point Reyes like national parks are supposed to be managed with the overarching duty being the protection of natural resources, not the destruction of them.  It’s time for the Park Service to perform its statutory duty by removing the ranchers, not the elk the ranchers want removed because the elk, like their 6,000 cattle, eat grass.  The Seashore is a national park, not a private ranch.

Coyote

Blue-Eyed Coyote, Point Reyes National Seashore

This is a photo of a coyote that has blue eyes.

Blue-eyed Coyote, Point Reyes National Seashore

I saw that blue-eyes coyote again with the damaged left eye a week ago.  The last time I photographed him was about two months ago.  He seems to be doing well.  I’ve wondered if he is the only blue-eyed coyote at Point Reyes.

This is a photo of a blue-eyed coyote in Point Reyes National Seashore.

Blue-eyed Coyote, Point Reyes National Seashore

With his left eye the way it is, there’s no chance of thinking that he might be a second blue-eyed coyote there.

Coyote

Blue-eyed Coyote, Point Reyes National Seashore

There was a photo in the news several months ago about a blue-eyed coyote at Point Reyes. The photo was taken by my friend, Daniel Dietrich who runs Point Reyes Safaris, or one of his clients.  I look for it when I’m out there.

Just for the fun of it, a few days days ago I modified a photo of a coyote I photographed recently by giving it blue eyes.  See my post a few days ago.

I think I’ve seen “Blue Eyes” once or twice, but I never made a positive ID because I never got a close enough view of it.  As luck would have it, recently I did.  See the photos below.  The first image was taken at relatively close range.  The second photo is just a crop of the first image. It seems to have some damage to its left eye.

In the third photo the coyote was a bit farther away and it becomes harder at that distance to tell for sure if the eyes are blue.

Looking back at the blue-eyed coyote that I created in Photoshop a few days ago, I have to say that without having the real one as a reference, I came pretty close to the blue eyes of the real blue-eyed coyote.

There is some discussion of blue-eyed coyotes on the internet.

I hope you’ve read this far because this whole discussion of the coyote’s eyes made me realize something I never realized before. I think I’m right about this because I just went through all the bird and mammal eyes on my website and the human eye is totally different from the eyes of all those birds and animals. I didn’t find any bird or mammal with any part of the visible eye that was white. They were all either all black or they had black pupils inside irises that covered all of the rest of the visible portion of the eye. Our irises are tiny in comparison to theirs and most of the visible portion of our eyes are white. Why is that?  So, I googled it.  Here’s one explanation:  “Only humans obviously show the whites of their eyes, making it easier to communicate and deceive at a glance”.  For more click here.

This is a photo of the face of a blue-eyed coyote.

Blue-eyed Coyote, Point Reyes National Seashore

This photo is a close shot of a blue-eyed coyote.

Apparent Injury to Left Eye

This is a distance sot of a blue-eyed coyote, Point Reyes National Seashore.

It’s difficult to see blue eyes at normal viewing distance.