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| A house in the Old Headquarters/Tejon Canyon area of Tejon Ranch, 1888. Note the relative barren vegetation in the foreground. Is this because it was a livestock pen, or would the ground condition have looked like that naturally? |
One of
the great things about working on Tejon Ranch is its incredible history. This applies to only the natural history of plants, animals, invertebrates, soils, and geology,
but also the rich human history that goes back millennia. Where these two
aspects of history meet is particularly intriguing. Human activity has always made an indelible mark
on the landscape across California. From indigenous burning and harvesting practices
to the introduction of Mediterranean grasses by European explorers and settlers,
the composition and function of natural systems have been intimately tied to
human activity in this landscape since time immemorial.
Today,
as an organization whose mission is to “protect, enhance, and restore native biodiversity and
ecosystem values,” Tejon Ranch
Conservancy is working to gain a better understanding of what it would mean to
actively return parts of this landscape to their historical condition. One of
the first and most profound questions that has to be asked during such an
effort is, “What is the baseline?” That is to say, what historical condition do we
want the landscape to return to? Should it look like it did 50 years ago? 250
years ago? 1,000 years ago? The answer to this question is typically limited by
what information is available and what landscape you are looking to restore. It
would probably be a Sisyphean task to eradicate non-native grasses such as wild
oats (Avena sp.) and ripgut (Bromus diandrus) from over 100,000 acres
of grassland on Tejon Ranch. Even if we were able to remove all of the
non-native grasses from say, the Antelope Valley portion of the ranch, there is
precious little information available about what that landscape would have looked like 50/250/1,000 years
ago from a vegetation perspective.
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| Tejon Ranch was heavily grazed by sheep in the late 1800s. How much change might they have affected on vegetation and soil communities on the ranch even before cattle were introduced? |
To
address some of the issues surrounding restoration on a place like Tejon Ranch,
the Conservancy has begun seeking out resources that might help us understand
what this landscape would have looked like (and how it functioned) at different
points in history. Fortunately, many travelers and naturalists have passed
through these mountains over the last three centuries and documented what they
saw (to varying degrees of accuracy). With the help of our volunteers, the
Conservancy has been working to identify and collect primary sources that
contain useful information about the vegetation, animals, and conditions of the
past.
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| John Xantus was a Hungarian-born naturalist stationed at Ft. Tejon from 1857-1859 |
We also
have the benefit of being able to reference 130 years’ worth of photographs. Starting
with Carleton Watkins in 1888, there is a rich history of photographers documenting
the landscapes of Tejon. While these images only give us a (relatively) recent
snapshot of these resources, the objectivity with which they report is hard to
beat. We’re now compiling as many historic photos as we can find with the hopes
of establishing long-term monitoring stations at the old photo points.
This
Tuesday, our Public Access Coordinator Scot Pipkin went out with Chuck Noble, one
of our volunteer docents to seek out some of these old photo points and retake
the photos in the southern San Joaquin Valley. It was surprisingly difficult to
line up many of the shots properly. Haze, altered fence lines, and road changes
made it even harder to line up foreground features with the background. Despite
these challenges, we were able to recapture a couple of photo points. We’ll try to
go out again in the spring when visibility will be better, but timing of these
photos will also be an important aspect of our monitoring effort. As anyone who
has spent an entire year in southern California knows, a hillside in March can look
vastly different from the same hillside in August. This is just one more factor to
consider when reconstructing historic landscapes. There will certainly be many
more that we learn about as we continue this project!
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| Image showing a dry wash just north of Tunis Creek, 1966 |
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| The same wash in 2015. Photo by Chuck Noble |
