Cattle in the Sierra Nevada

High Sierra meadows are pretty places, filled with all sorts of green plants, wildflowers, with soils that are fragile, mushy, and easily damaged. Grazing of meadows means damage to the meadows, and sadly, many meadows in the Sierra Nevada, especially on National Forests have been damaged severely from overgrazing by sheep and cattle. Nowadays, the sheep are gone, but cattle are still driven into the higher elevations during summertime, and meadows continue to be grazed.

Hike through a National Park and you won't find cattle in the meadows, although you may find some trail horses here and there. Cattle grazing is allowed on USFS lands, and allotments given for many of the meadows in the Sierra. Getting the animals into the meadows means driving them from low elevation lands up into the green pastures in late spring and early summer (once the snow melts and the meadows green up).

Nowadays, grazing on public lands is limited so as to protect the meadows. This was not the case a number of years ago where indiscriminate grazing happened and meadows were razed by too many head of cattle and sheep. Some meadows were so damaged that the water table dropped and the meadows dried up due to changes in how the water flowed beneath the soil. Imagine being a cattle or sheep grower, with free or almost free grass in the mountains, and driving your stock up into the cool, beautiful high country where they can fatten up for months.

Cattle are still driven into the mountains, the old-fashioned way by cowhands on horseback. In early June, I encountered such a drive while we were traveling along a mountain road. I held my camera out the window of our vehicle and filmed a bit. The herd was scattered along the highway for a mile or so. We drove slowly down the middle of the road with cows bawling and mooing and very unhappy, all around us.