"Cattle" served as pivotal instruments to Spanish and American colonialism since the 1700s. Since then, the ecological communities in California's San Joaquin Valley have undergone profound and irreversible transformations.
The diverse landscape of the Valley metamorphosed into a cowscape, initiated by the violent processes of displacing
both native human and nonhuman populations.
John Ryan Fischer identifies this
transformation as a result of the political and commercial forces associated with the cattle frontiers.
Ranching settlements and supporting croplands grew into an animal agriculture industry
of unprecedented historical scale, necessitating massive animal exploitation, land conversions, river diversions, lake drainages, and ecological erasure.
The San Joaquin Valley, once a humid region boasting diverse ecologies, has lost a staggering 95% of its original wetlands.
Elevated soil and groundwater salinity, aridity, temperatures, and nitrogen loading continuously challenge the resilience of plant species.
Selected plants (
Lotus corniculatus, Bidens laevis, Elymus glaucus, Atriplex polycarpa, Cephalanthus occidentalis var. californica, Prosopis pubescens)
each have unique histories and futures within the expansive cowscape of the San Joaquin Valley.
These plants possess distinct properties enabling them to endure or flourish amidst the onslaught of landscape changes since the era of "cattle colonialism."
Some are
displaced relatives (invasive species) transferred via commercial routes and have colonized disturbed sites.
Additionally, these plants engage in interspecies relationships with cows, particularly in through consumption and waste.
Taking these relationships seriously provides insights into the future cowscape of the Valley, where we may work alongside plants by interpreting their historical changes,
practicing interspecies relationality, and abandoning the perilous notion of control.
Background map: 1873 Map of the San Joaquin Valley, prepared by the Geological Survey of California under the direction of the Board of Commissioners on Irrigation.
Overlaid on the pre-existing ephemeral rivers and lakes of the Valley, the survey gridded the landscape and ushered in statewide water projects and land conversion into intensive agriculture.
