Point Reyes Light - October 31, 2002
McIsaac Ranch dubbed fish-friendly
By Jim Salomone
USDA Natural Resource Conservation Service Earth Team Member
You may think that farming and fishing have nothing in common. This is not the case at the 2500-acre McIsaac Rancho Tocaloma ranch located 18 miles West of Petaluma in Marin County. The ranch borders Lagunitas Creek where 50 percent of all the North Coast Coho salmon spawn.
According to Bill Cox, Fisheries Biologist with the California Department of Fish and Game (CDFG), "the Lagunitas Creek is one of the major streams for Coho salmon, steelhead, and fresh water shrimp."
Fourth generation
Ted McIsaac, 52, is a fourth-generation operator of the ranch with his wife Rhea, son and two daughters. McIsaac is an Associate Director of the Marin Resource Conservation District and a founding member of the Pt. Reyes Seashore Ranchers Association. Over the last 10 years McIsaac has taken a very active approach to ranching that helps improve habitat for fish or as the industry calls it "fish friendly farming."
The ranch was originally homesteaded in 1860. Through the years the ranch moved into the dairy business. Back in those days, a dairy was located as close to the main water source as possible and usually that meant a stream or river. This always caused problems with drainage from the dairy, including manure reaching the creek. In the early 1970s the McIsaac Ranch quit the dairy business and focused on beef cattle.
Ted McIsaac learned about ranching from his father Don McIsaac, 85. The elder McIsaac became involved in land restoration on the ranch in the 1960s because heavy rain storms often caused erosion problems when hillsides were overgrazed and where ranch roads washed out.
To this day, Don’s conservation ethic has a profound influence on the direction of the Marin Resource Conservation District. According to the elder McIsaac, "Ranchers today don’t get a lot of credit for doing land improvements that they have done all along. I want to leave this place in better shape than when I got here for my son’s family and his children."
Grandchildren on the ranch
The McIsaac grandchildren are already looking forward to the day when they will be running things. Levi McIsaac, 22, works full time for the Marin County Roads Department. He would like to follow his father and grandfather in keeping the ranch a viable operation. Mandy McIsaac, 20, is a junior at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, majoring in Agriculture Business. She has an interest in organic farming and would like to see the ranch operate as a certified organic ranch. The youngest, Courtney McIsaac, 13, is active in 4-H, raising her own string of beef cows and is an aspiring horsewoman on the horse show circuit. It was her interest in horses that led McIsaac to diversify the ranching operation by providing boarding and riding facilities on the home ranch.
In 2000, a family hobby with horses slowly transformed into a viable business opportunity for the McIsaac Ranch. To run a successful ranch business these days often requires the ability to be adaptive and willing to diversity into different enterprises. For the McIsaacs, boarding horses was the logical choice to enhance the overall operation.
Ranch provided pasture
Initially, the ranch offered some locals a place where they can pasture their horses. Soon daughter Courtney McIsaac became interested in riding and started competing at various dressage events throughout the county. With the help of his daughter’s trainer, McIsaac quickly realized he had the basic tools in place for a first class horse operation.
The ranch is within the scenic Pt. Reyes National Seashore (PRNS) and the Golden Gate National Recreation Area (GGNRA), which is managed by the National Park Service. McIsaac applied for and was granted a use permit for 12 boarders on the ranch. To accommodate their new equine guests, half of the former hay barn was converted into separate paddocks with their own outside-loafing areas.
A sand-riding arena was installed where the former cattle feeder use to be and personal tack areas were constructed to house the new clients equipment. Best of all, the ranch provides trail riding and ranch roads with access to more than 15,000 acres with some of the best panoramic views of Pt. Reyes National Seashore, Tamalpais State Park and the surrounding coastal mountain range.
One rider coming in from a morning trail ride commented to McIsaac that she had never seen so many beautiful wildflowers blooming at once.
According to McIsaac, "the horse facility was a great way to go. The horses are fed supplemental hay and grain and do not impact the range land. It’s easy on the environment and natural resources. Plus the clientele are really good people."
As part of running the business, McIsaac has implemented an ongoing natural resources improvement program that reduces sediment and undesirable runoff that may reach the creek and Tomales Bay. According to Greg Andrews, Fisheries Biologist with the Marin Municipal Water District (MMWD), "fine sediment is the problem fish are sight feeders so they need clear water to locate a food source, the fine sediment can damage small fish gills and smother fish eggs even before they hatch."
Fish eggs generally incubate for 60 days and the juvenile fish will live in the stream for one to three years depending on the species.
Restored the land
McIsaac has participated in a popular USDA program called EQIP (Environmental Quality Incentives Program), which is administered locally by the USDA, Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS) located in Petaluma. Through EQIP, ranchers are assisted financially and technically by agricultural engineers and conservationists to help make the changes to improve conditions on the ranch.
Since the ranch is within the GGNRA and the PRNS, the McIsaacs also work closely with the National Park Service who provides oversight and guidance to all ranchers in the park to assure natural resources are preserved.
Ted is working with Park Hydrologist Brannon Ketcham and Range Management Specialist Mark Homrighausen to assure that the fisheries are protected from potential drainage problems. According to Ketcham, "Both the Park Service and the ranchers are held responsible for maintaining and improving the condition of the watershed. It is important that we work together to make this happen."
Every year the McIsaac Ranch and other ranches located in the Point Reyes National Seashore area are subject to Residual Dry Matter Testing (RDM) of grasslands used for grazing livestock.
The purpose of the monitoring is to compare native vs. non-native grasses and to measure the amount of available grasses left after the grazing season. This test will help determine if areas on the property have adequate cover to protect against erosion or are being overgrazed. According to McIsaac, "rainfall also affects the amount of grass produced, if we have heavy rains in the late Spring our RDM will be way up. If the rains come in hard early in the season and little at the end of the season, that’s not so good."
Reseeded pastures
To help keep residual levels high, ranchers reseed pastures, provide supplemental feeding to livestock and carefully monitor the number of cattle on the land (rotational grazing). This effort has paid off by providing considerable more grass cover than expected. The RDM monitoring has been conducted for more than 10 years with the support and cooperation of the park’s ranchers.
According to McIsaac, the ranch was made more fish friendly through extensive fencing that keeps livestock out of the creek areas. Rotational grazing that moves cattle away from riparian areas during critical fish spawning and rearing periods together with fencing to exclude cattle from especially sensitive areas have greatly reduced impacts of cattle on fish habitat.
Rock and grass waterways and re-contouring 3,000 feet of various waterways on the ranch to filter drainage water was installed to stop gullies from eroding and to reduce sediment in the creek. This investment provides a natural filter on the ranch that prevents sediment from reaching waterways.
Ted McIsaac’s most rewarding effort involved working with the NRCS to redesign a streambed and eliminate a culvert crossing. Miraculously, after the project’s first year, fish were found in the upper reaches of the creek!
The culverts on the ranch were removed because they were originally designed in such a way that blocked migrating fish from reaching upper Cheda Creek that feeds into Lagunitas Creek.
"Over the last few years the MMWD, CDFG and the Park Service have monitored fish counts on the Lagunitas, 2001 was the best year yet in terms of number of fish and what we found," said Andrews. "We’re not only seeing Coho, but we’re also seeing Chinook and chum salmon."
Establishing fisheries
Today, part of the success in re-establishing the fisheries is due to the combination of changes made by MMWD, the Park Service and CDFG, but also the improvements farmers and ranchers like the McIsaacs have undertaken on the front line to prevent soil and sediment from reaching the riparian habitat where fish thrive and reproduce.
Long-term watershed management must include the ranchers as part of the equation to achieve protection and restoration for all fisheries.