To the editor: As a local Angeleno, I’ve explored nearly all 58 counties in California and that features many visits to Marin’s Level Reyes Nationwide Seashore (“Treasured California dairies to close. Point Reyes locals say it’s conservation gone mad,” March 21). I’ve hiked from the from historic Pierce Ranch to the place Tomales Bay meets the Pacific. I’ve delighted to see cows grazing in inexperienced fields laced with clover. I’ve relished the dairy merchandise from these Level Reyes cows; their ice cream high quality and taste surpasses any I’ve ever tasted, anyplace!
The expulsion of those quaint dairy farms that return 175 years, lengthy earlier than the re-introduction of tule elk within the Nineteen Seventies, is grievous. Specious arguments about environmental impression, together with “‘disagreeable odors’ from cows and their manure,” is farcical.
The drive from Level Reyes Station onto the peninsula is a wide ranging visible fantasy akin to leaving the Wawona Tunnel in Mariposa County and coming into Inspiration Level in Yosemite. The cows and dairy farms are half and parcel of this dream. Don’t destroy it.
Paul Milberg, Oak Park
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To the editor: On this article, phrases like “historic dairies” and “legacy households” are used. Additionally “greater than a century” and “greater than 150 years.” Nothing is claimed of the legacy or the historical past of the individuals who inhabited this land for hundreds of years, individuals just like the Coast Miwok and different teams of Native People. Think about this sentence: “A complete neighborhood, a lot of them low revenue and Latino, are poised to lose their jobs and houses in a single fell swoop.”
Think about for a second the “fell swoops” that befell the Indigenous individuals of California, first by the hands of the Spanish missionaries who basically conscripted the native individuals as slaves and tried to demolish their “heathen” tradition, after which by the hands of federal and state authorities troops and militias that set about exterminating the Indigenous inhabitants.
How can there be any dialogue of how this land is used that doesn’t heart on the land’s authentic inhabitants?
Catherine Criminal, Camarillo
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To the editor: Whereas I applaud the L.A. Occasions for protection of the environmental challenges of intensive dairy farming in Level Reyes, there may be one obvious omission within the article. There’s little point out in regards to the precise cows themselves, save for a fairy story reference to “quiet herds of Devons, Guernseys and Jerseys fortunately munching within the flowing grasses …”
That’s the one completely satisfied a part of their lives. A cow should be pregnant for people to take her milk that’s produced to develop a child cow. Females are artificially inseminated. Not nice for them. Level Reyes dairies have executed a superb job portray a candy image of their generational farms. Knowledge don’t lie in regards to the fecal runoff, to not point out the injury a herd does to the land. Whereas I’m sympathetic to the employees, it’s time to say goodbye to a merciless and harmful custom.
Tracy Keys, Laguna Seashore
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To the editor: We visited Level Reyes Nationwide Seashore just lately. The dairies are dilapidated, ugly, outdated blights on the in any other case stunning vistas. The tons of ensuing cow manure pollute the land and the encircling waters. The endangered elk are penned up in a small space. All of that is completely the other of the mission of the U.S. Park Service to guard the land and the wildlife.
The native residents with pursuits within the dairy trade clearly have loud voices. If one thing extra might be executed to placate them, a lot the higher. However the degradation of the park-going experiences of tons of of hundreds of tourists, and the survival of endangered wildlife, should absolutely information the Park Service. The legally binding settlement needs to be carried out instantly.
Noel Park, Rancho Palos Verdes
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