Ranchland in Recovery
Yepper. Forty years later, the ranchland is in recovery. Yepper. The ranchland is fixing to be entirely recovered. Selah! Hallelujah!
Well. Well. Well. The daily ran its annual Bamberger Ranch story today, front page and most of another page. Turns out, joy and water are just plumb bubbling up at the Bamberger Ranch. Yepper. The invasive “cedar” is nixed, the grass is seeded, the creeks are, uh, flowing maybe, the wells are cased, the berms are coming along. And, the joy and water are bubbling up everywhere.
Selah! The birds sing joyfully. Turns out, after forty years of recovery, bird species on the ranch have increased from a mere 48, 40 years ago, to 200 species today, in defiance of the national trend. Imagine, the joyful and bubbly song of 200 bird species all fired up at once. Hallelujah! Selah!
Well. Well. Well. The only sad tiding in this joyful and bubbly scenario is the stocking rate needed to be cut in half due to the “drought”. That dang old drought.
Well. Well. Well. Nowhere else in the miserable Hill Country can one get a glimpse of how nature once appeared, minus the herd of of scimitar-horned oryx, in these parts. Yepper. These days only the Bamberger Ranch looks like the whole of the Edwards Plateau once looked, oryx aside, when all nature appeared as a sea of grass with hardly a tree or shrub anywhere.
Well. Well. Well. Coincidentally with all the joy and bubbles, those of us who disbelieve most of the above, must concede defeat. Yes. We have been routed, utterly. How badly have we been routed? Well. Well. Well. An anecdote may suffice to indicate our utter discomfiture.
A common native shrub in these parts is Texas persimmon (Diospyros texana). Texas persimmons, the fruits, are consumed by most of the mammals that inhabit these parts. The flowers are an important nectary for native insects. Yet Texas persimmon may be in competition with “native grass” for water, nutrients, time and space.
So, for the first time ever, recently, I heard the common name Mexican persimmon applied to Diospyros texana. Rumor has it that Texas persimmon is really an invader from Mexico. Yepper. Texas persimmon, just like Ashe juniper is not native to these parts. Instead, that dang old Mexican persimmon has proliferated like crazy, absent the fires and roaming buffalos that once kept it out, and the sea of grass pristine.
Not only is Mexican persimmon a non-native invasive species, it is no good for “wildlife” either. Noper. The Mexican persimmon needs to be eradicated to improve wildlife habitat.
Yepper. Utterly routed, defeated. Everyone, except RGVECB, which nobody reads, publicly whoops up the Bamberger scenario. The Bamberger scenario is the model for habitat restoration in these parts, even on public land where ranching is never fixing to reoccur. And of course, brush eradication is always a necessary precursor to development. Yepper. But at least Bamberger is saving Selah Bamberger Ranch from development. I’ll give him that, maybe.
Well. Well. Well. The daily ran its annual Bamberger Ranch story today, front page and most of another page. Turns out, joy and water are just plumb bubbling up at the Bamberger Ranch. Yepper. The invasive “cedar” is nixed, the grass is seeded, the creeks are, uh, flowing maybe, the wells are cased, the berms are coming along. And, the joy and water are bubbling up everywhere.
Selah! The birds sing joyfully. Turns out, after forty years of recovery, bird species on the ranch have increased from a mere 48, 40 years ago, to 200 species today, in defiance of the national trend. Imagine, the joyful and bubbly song of 200 bird species all fired up at once. Hallelujah! Selah!
Well. Well. Well. The only sad tiding in this joyful and bubbly scenario is the stocking rate needed to be cut in half due to the “drought”. That dang old drought.
Well. Well. Well. Nowhere else in the miserable Hill Country can one get a glimpse of how nature once appeared, minus the herd of of scimitar-horned oryx, in these parts. Yepper. These days only the Bamberger Ranch looks like the whole of the Edwards Plateau once looked, oryx aside, when all nature appeared as a sea of grass with hardly a tree or shrub anywhere.
Well. Well. Well. Coincidentally with all the joy and bubbles, those of us who disbelieve most of the above, must concede defeat. Yes. We have been routed, utterly. How badly have we been routed? Well. Well. Well. An anecdote may suffice to indicate our utter discomfiture.
A common native shrub in these parts is Texas persimmon (Diospyros texana). Texas persimmons, the fruits, are consumed by most of the mammals that inhabit these parts. The flowers are an important nectary for native insects. Yet Texas persimmon may be in competition with “native grass” for water, nutrients, time and space.
So, for the first time ever, recently, I heard the common name Mexican persimmon applied to Diospyros texana. Rumor has it that Texas persimmon is really an invader from Mexico. Yepper. Texas persimmon, just like Ashe juniper is not native to these parts. Instead, that dang old Mexican persimmon has proliferated like crazy, absent the fires and roaming buffalos that once kept it out, and the sea of grass pristine.
Not only is Mexican persimmon a non-native invasive species, it is no good for “wildlife” either. Noper. The Mexican persimmon needs to be eradicated to improve wildlife habitat.
Yepper. Utterly routed, defeated. Everyone, except RGVECB, which nobody reads, publicly whoops up the Bamberger scenario. The Bamberger scenario is the model for habitat restoration in these parts, even on public land where ranching is never fixing to reoccur. And of course, brush eradication is always a necessary precursor to development. Yepper. But at least Bamberger is saving Selah Bamberger Ranch from development. I’ll give him that, maybe.
posted by ray pistrum at Sunday, June 07, 2009
2 Comments:
Actually, you do have one semi-avid reader.
Not only do the land destroyers believe in the evil of Ashe juniper, but the official, biology major land managers do also. They say “clear the land of juniper and the streams will run again, therefore juniper is bad.” But in August the grass is dormant or dead, the stream may be dry anyway, and down the road there are acres of green juniper trees. I think somewhere in your past blogs is the note that historically all land management in Texas is for cattle, but still one has to wonder what a trickle of water is supposed to prove.
TPLR
A little trickle of water proves that there is justification for removal of the woodland ecosystem of the Edwards Plateau. If, as the Hamburger, I mean Bamberger, scenario indicates, the Ashe juniper dominated plant community can be shown to use up more water than some other replacement bunch of plants, thereby freeing up that water for whatever?, then the expense of Ashe juniper removal is justified. Not to mention, the cows get to eat the grass, or more likely the developers get to develop, fretting not on endangered species.
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