by Dave Erley, Utah Forest Associate
Blind Canyon doesn’t come close to making the ranks of famed Utah landscapes like Zion Canyon or Arches National Park. It’s trampled and chomped, barren and brown—showing all the telltale signs of abuse from cattle overgrazing. It’s not easy to get to, and certainly, in its present condition, is no scenic wonder. However, it is part of the Manti-La Sal National Forest in south-central Utah, and being public land, it belongs to all Americans. And the Grand Canyon Trust is not blind to its degraded condition.
As the Trust’s Utah Forest Program Associate, I monitor all cattle allotments on the Manti-La Sal National Forest in southeastern Utah that are scheduled for permit renewal in the next few years. Lake Fork allotment, which includes Blind Canyon, at the north end of the Wasatch Plateau, is one such allotment. I first visited Blind Canyon in late September 2014. It had been heavily grazed, the stream banks were trampled, and the grasses and shrubs looked like they had just gotten a buzz cut. I filed an allotment report with the Sanpete Ranger District in 2014, hoping it would get the attention of both the Forest Service and the grazing permittee.
I returned a year later, on October 15, 2015, and saw what appeared to be the remnants of season-long grazing. Exotic species replaced native grasses and bare ground dominated the areas around springs. Lake Fork allotment is the only allotment I have come across that does not use calendar dates to dictate the movement of cattle from one pasture to the next. Instead, the system used here is to “move when proper use is met.”
On most uplands in the Manti-La Sal National Forest, “proper use” is heavy grazing. Land managers have determined that cattle should be allowed to eat 60 percent of the vegetation in the area, which translates to all but an inch and a half of stubble left behind. Scientific literature indicates that a standard closer to 30 percent would buffer drought years and allow for pasture improvement. But given the condition of the allotment when I visited this past October, I can say with certainty that the grazing in Blind Canyon amounted to more than 60 percent.
We can use Blind Canyon as a lesson in recognizing the signs of overgrazing, so that when you come across devastation like this when you’re out hiking, biking, or birdwatching, you can report the damage and do your part to defend the land instead of turning a blind eye.
When it comes to identifying overgrazed lands, deep trenches, like the one pictured below, serve as red flags. Rainfall hits these barren lands that have been denuded by cattle, and without vegetation to absorb the water, it cuts these narrow stream channels. And the cycle continues, since raw, un-vegetated banks cannot prevent further gouging during floods.
When bare ground has increased with heavy grazing, or deep-rooted vegetation has been grazed and replaced by the shallower, exotic Kentucky bluegrass, stormwater tears down streams, picking up topsoil, logs, and rocks in a thick slurry of fast-moving water. The debris piles these channels leave behind (pictured below) serve as another clue to overgrazing.
Invasive, exotic species such as bull thistle (Cirsium vulgare) increase when grazing is heavy. Blind Canyon has large patches of bull thistle, pictured below.
There are many locations within Blind Canyon where a combination of negative grazing impacts are obvious at once. Can you identify all the signs in the photo below (see answers below)?
ANSWERS: (1.) Bull Thistle (2.) browsed young aspen (3.) incised channel (4.) debris pile (5.) bare ground due to heavy grazing.
If you are not blind to these examples of public lands overgrazing, you might contact Manti-La Sal National Forest Supervisor Mark Pentecost (bpentecost@fs.fed.us), Sanpete District Ranger Kevin Draper (kdraper@fs.fed.us), and Sanpete District Range Specialist Karlton Moss (kmoss@fs.fed.us) and tell them that you see poor conditions in Blind Canyon. You may also ask them to let you know whether, when and how they plan to change livestock management in Blind Canyon to take better care of your public lands.
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