David Van Cleve has many ties to Anza-Borrego Desert State Park and Anza-Borrego Foundation. In the 1980s, he was an environmental scientist in the San Diego regional office, where he collaborated with park staff on many significant natural resource projects. In 1989, he was selected to serve as the superintendent of the state park. In 1994, his responsibilities were expanded to include management of six other state parks (Mt. San Jacinto, Cuyamaca Rancho, Palomar Mountain, Salton Sea, Picacho, and Indio Hills) in addition to Anza-Borrego. After retiring from state service, he worked for The Nature Conservancy as Ecoregional Director for the South Coast Ecoregion and added over 1,000 acres to the park. Currently Dave serves as the President of Anza-Borrego Foundation. Each month, Dave will fill in some important issues in the history Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, which often dove-tail with the history of ABF. We are grateful for his wealth of knowledge of the Park and willingness to share with us!

As far as we know, there are no longer any cattle in Anza-Borrego Desert State Park. 40 years ago, there were over 140. How did this happen, and why?

Cattle are an essential part of California’s economy and its history. Late in the 18th century, Juan Bautista de Anza famously made two journeys from northern Sonora, in Mexico, to California’s Bay Area. On the second expedition, he was accompanied by 240 colonists and 800 head of livestock. De Anza traversed what is now the state park, finally accessing the riparian area now known as Coyote Creek in the northwest corner of the Park. It is not known for sure, but likely, at least a few of the cattle accompanying Captain de Anza escaped. Shade, water, and food certainly were tempting reasons for a few cattle to remain behind.

In the 19th and 20th centuries, many cattle ranches were developed in areas bordering what is now state park property. Cattle ranchers are to be commended for keeping most of East County in San Diego County as open space for several generations. In the past few decades, cattle prices declined, water became scarcer due to drought and groundwater over drafting, and property taxes increased; these factors combined to make cattle ranching less lucrative. Anza-Borrego Foundation (ABF) patiently waited for several of these historic cattle ranches to become available, and it eventually added them to the state park. Of course, ABF only purchased from willing sellers and paid the appraised value for the new property.

The Lucky 5 Ranch, Mason Valley, San Felipe Valley, Sentenac Canyon, Tulloch Ranch, and Vallecito are all examples of cattle ranches that were added to the state park.

Several cattle on these ranches also likely escaped and took up residence in the Park. Over decades, feral cattle successfully bred, until in 1987, it was determined that there was a substantial and unacceptable number of cattle in the Park. Through scientific investigation, it also became clear that diseases such as parainfluenza III, blue tongue, episodic hemorrhagic disease, and RSV (a respiratory virus) that existed benignly in cattle were threatening the health of the Park’s endangered sheep populations. (Think of Europeans landing in the New World and the effect of diseases they carried to the native people.) There was not one big herd of cattle; there were small bands and a few individuals in the Park, usually close to water supplies also used by the bighorn.

As the health of the endangered bighorn declined, park staff determined, after consulting with Department of Fish and Wildlife biologists and university wildlife veterinarians, that removing cattle from the Park would be necessary.

Cattle ranchers have always maintained a powerful lobbying group and significant support in the legislature. Mark Jorgensen, as the park naturalist and bighorn sheep expert, knew he would have to develop a legal proposal – the specter of legal action is always in the air during the planning and execution of bodacious projects – and guarantee that it would accomplish its stated goal of zero cows at the end of the project.  The project would also have to be carried out humanely to maximize public acceptance.

Mark spoke with several experts and settled on a plan that met all these criteria. The plan was to have the cattle live-captured in a net shot out of a helicopter, which had never been accomplished with these cattle before.  Once the cow was ensnarled in the net, “cowboys” would jump out of the helicopter, hobble and blindfold the cow to decrease its stress, and transfer it to a net that would then be attached to the bottom of the helicopter.  The chopper would fly it back to a holding pen, where a veterinarian would tend to it, release it, and eventually truck it to Brawley.  One of the cowboys who transported the cattle to Brawley joked, “I have been working with cattle for 70 years, and this is the first time I have ever seen a cow fly – much less fly upside down!”

Mark now laughs, “Out of the estimated 80 cattle in the park, we only caught 142!”  Needless to say, the project went way over budget. But Mark, through the force of his conviction and passion, was able to raise additional private funds to keep the operation running until every cow had been removed from the Park. 

It sounds like a dangerous project – helicopters flying very low, people jumping out of them and running through the desert cactus and ocotillo to get to the cow, wrestling a scared and angry 800-pound animal into a net and attaching the net to the helo, and then releasing the cow at the holding pen from its hobbles, blindfold, and net. There was not one reported injury during the entire project, and no cattle have been sighted in the Park since 1987.