“Let’s leave one island in Alaska for the cattle"

August 27, 2023 3:56 PM

On the surface, Alaska as a whole appears an odd choice for cattle: mountainous, snowy, far from lucrative markets. But we’re here in June, summer solstice 2022, at “peak green,” when the archipelago oozes a lushness I associate with coastal British Columbia and the Pacific Northwest. The islands rest closer to the gentle climate of those coasts than to the northern outposts they skirt. So, in the aspirational culture that Alaska has always embraced, why not cattle? from The Republic of Cows [Hakai]
posted by chavenet (13 comments total)

Very interesting. It is always tough in situations like this because absent active management a lot of the animals will suffer rather cruel deaths, even though people don’t want to cull the herd. Perhaps the meat could be auctioned off to raise money for conservation. Probably not great quality but the story might make it more flavorful.
posted by interogative mood at 7:51 PM on August 27, 2023 [1 favorite]

Cattle are a scourge on the land (and water) unless managed carefully. I rarely see pastures near me that are not eroding, barren, compacted, feces covered, and constantly sprayed with herbicides and pesticides. These pastures are usually in steep areas near water, and when it rains it is like a giant toilet flushing into the streams. The pastures are usually not producing enough grass for the cattle so hay is brought out for them. They are essentially outdoor feedlots. What is especially sad is many people think it is normal for pastures to be like this, when if managed properly healthy pasture land can support a lot of biodiversity and not degrade the soil and water, while producing a lot of food for cattle.
IMO the cattle on Chirikov island should culled or removed if no one is able to manage them in a way that is healthier for them and not impacting the islands soil and water and biodiversity as much. Same goes for other places where there are feral cattle.
posted by GiantSlug at 8:29 PM on August 27, 2023 [10 favorites]

Cattle care very beneficial for ecosystem when managed properly, especially in the American West because we got rid of the bison in most places. Overgrazing and other bad farming practices are terrible for the environment; but good practices tend to build strong ecosystems imo.
posted by interogative mood at 9:15 PM on August 27, 2023 [1 favorite]

Beautiful photography and interesting story, though at current rates I could see climate change forcing the need to turn Alaska into arable land within 50 years, and by extension making these cattle into food along the way. Curious to know if warming is already making the land able to sustain more grass and thus more cattle through more of the year.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 9:54 PM on August 27, 2023 [1 favorite]

Asking "why not cattle?" in 2023 is a bit like asking "Why not asbestos?" in 2023
posted by BinaryApe at 1:41 AM on August 28, 2023 [7 favorites]

I was just podcastin' about the Oostvaardersplassen re-wilding experiment in the Flevoland polders in NL. Ecologists thought it might be a good idea to carve off a chunk of land reclaimed from the Zuiderzee from {farming / roads / industry / housing} and let large mammals (and whatever else turned up) wander through it. It's about half the size of Chirikof. No top predators, so that was a lot of dead horses 45 mins NE of Amsterdam.

The landscape on the heathery hills above our home in the Irish midlands is an artificial creation managed by sheep (and The Heather Blazing until very recently). Our neighbours are currently under-grazing because there is no money in sheep, so you can see head-high saplings starting up through the heather and gorse near commercial Sitka spruce plantations - if we all took off the sheep, the 'dry heath' ecosystem will be replaced by forest well within a human lifetime. Elsewhere on our island overgrazing has resulted in soil loss and flooding. It's hard to strike a balance. Μηδὲν ἄγαν nothing in excess?
posted by BobTheScientist at 2:41 AM on August 28, 2023 [5 favorites]

Key foodstuffs by carbon emissions. Beef the clear leader.
posted by biffa at 3:07 AM on August 28, 2023 [3 favorites]

The article leans heavily, and appears to end strongly, with protecting seabirds, not cattle.

I would agree. The last thing humans need is more cattle and the last thing an island needs is feral cattle.
posted by tiny frying pan at 5:09 AM on August 28, 2023 [2 favorites]

biffa, I am torn. That chart is interesting, as I've usually only seen those charts with meat, not plant matter for comparison. On the other hand, it makes me question my interest in meaningful climate change, if reduction in cheese would be required. /s

Also, interesting article. I hadn't seen that magazine before, and I enjoyed the multimodal presentation. I did not enjoy having to think about what should be done with invasive megafauna, but, you know, dang ol' consciousness anyway.
posted by cupcakeninja at 6:08 AM on August 28, 2023 [2 favorites]

Don't expect it to turn up in your search engines. From the top of their July 14 newsletter:

quagmire n. 1 an awkward, complex, or hazardous situation. 2 the situation the Canadian government currently finds itself in.

On June 22, the Canadian government passed Bill C-18, the Online News Act, with the intention of boosting journalism in the country. The act would require big tech companies that generate ad revenue while sharing links to stories from Canadian news outlets, including Hakai Magazine, to compensate those publications. Rather than pay, Google and Meta—the parent company behind Facebook, Instagram, and Threads—have pledged to block all Canadian news content. Essentially, the government’s effort has backfired.

How so? If Meta follows through on it’s threat, Hakai Magazine’s Facebook, Instagram, and Threads profiles will all be blank—and you won’t be able to share links to our stories on those platforms. Even more shocking to us, though, are the implications of a Google ban. If that transpires, you won’t be able to reach Hakai Magazine’s homepage through a Google search, see links to our articles in the news tab, or find our stories in the Google Discover app.

These changes would affect your ability to find our work and that of other Canadian news outlets, possibly even if you’re not based in Canada. Other countries, including the United States, are working on similar legislation, which could generate similar backlash.

Meta has already begun to block links to Canadian publishers for certain users, though the act won’t go into effect for another six months. Our friends at The Tyee, in Vancouver, British Columbia, have already seen their content erased on Instagram.

As far as we can tell, Hakai Magazine’s accounts have not yet been affected—and negotiations between the Canadian government and the tech giants may still prevent the worst outcomes—but our team is very concerned about the impacts of these potential bans on our ability to reach you, our readers.

Since January, roughly one-third of our traffic has come from Google. We’re now facing the threat of losing hundreds of thousands of new readers.

We’re a small, independent publication with nine staff, publishing just a handful of stories per week. We put tremendous effort into crafting the best possible journalism focused on the world’s coasts and oceans.

But due to the reactions of two large corporations to this legislation, our stories could be lost in the Bermuda Triangle of the internet. More fundamentally, it’s just not tenable for a major search engine to deny people access to news. Google’s move profoundly undermines everyone’s ability to stay informed about crucial local updates, evolving emergencies, and our very democracies.

We hope that the Canadian government and the tech platforms find a way through this quagmire. But whatever the outcome, we believe that people should make a habit of supporting local and independent news.

Here are some things you can do to keep reading Hakai Magazine and help new readers discover us:

1. Bookmark hakaimagazine.com in your browser so we’re easy to find.
2. Share this newsletter with your friends, family, and colleagues—anyone who you think would enjoy our stories—and encourage them to subscribe. (As you know, it’s free.)
3. Subscribe to our weekly podcast, Hakai Magazine’s Audio Edition.
4. Make a tax-deductible financial contribution to our work.

We’re watching our fellow Canadian news outlets for updates on this situation, and we’ll keep you informed as things change.

Thanks, as always, for your support. We appreciate each and every one of you.

Dave Garrison
Publisher

Anyway so I just posted a link to a bunch of Canadian news outlets.
posted by aniola at 10:02 AM on August 28, 2023 [4 favorites]

The Nature Conservancy has found that when grazing is managed correctly the emissions from cattle digestion more than offset by the increased productivity of grasslands and prairie ecosystems resulting in a net carbon sink. There has been a realization by ecologists in the last few decades that wild fires and grazing are critical to habitat maintenance and restoration.


If the ideal situation is to maximize ryegrass for bird nesting then it may be useful to integrate the cattle into the recovery plan. Controlled grazing is effective for reducing woody plants that compete with grass. It also breaks down the thatch from dead grass and their manure helps improve the fertility of the soil.
posted by interogative mood at 10:37 AM on August 28, 2023 [2 favorites]

I love Hakai magazine.

I also see absolutely no point to keeping the cattle on an island in the middle of nowhere, where they are not being managed, not being cared for and not helping the ecosystem - sorry, interogative mood, that theory is just not going to stand up on an arctic island with no history of large herbivores; there aren't any "woody plants that compete with grass." If nobody wants to shoot them (and the thought is pretty awful) then round them up and ship them out to somewhere they'll be appreciated and have a better life. The movie rights to that whole expedition alone could make some bank, to say nothing of the beef on the hoof, which apparently people will and do pay for.
posted by mygothlaundry at 1:30 PM on August 28, 2023 [1 favorite]

I agree that the status quo of an unmanaged population is the worst outcome. I also understand that removing the cattle would probably be best for a recovery plan. Under the current laws set by the US Congress the herd has to stay. I think the best alternative then is some kind of active management plan.

This is a subarctic climate, not arctic. It is also rapidly warming due to climate change. The cattle have been there since at least the late 1800s, and possibly as early as the 1790s. Many of the original native plants are long extinct. There is no putting it back to how it was. The are a number of invasive woody plant species in the Aleutian Islands and given the large bird populations it is likely that the cattle are currently blocking their spread to Chirikof Island.
posted by interogative mood at 6:03 AM on August 31, 2023