![]() ![]() They’re currently in quarantine, a standard procedure for any new animals to ensure they’re disease-free, then will join Farm Sanctuary’s 140 other rescued animals - among them, nine rescued steers and cows - for visitors to coo at and photograph. Jess Due, the nonprofit’s national care director, told me the public was already clamoring to meet the pair, now named June B. Grammy-winning songwriter Diane Warren and others donated money and time so that the two were spared a trip to the abattoir and instead went to animal advocacy group Farm Sanctuary, which runs a 40-acre rescue ranch in Acton, on the edge of the Antelope Valley. The second was found a week later trotting along the 60 Freeway on its way to La Puente. ![]() One was found roaming around Whittier Narrows Park in South El Monte two days after its escape. Rivers and streams flowed, and all was right again for a spell. Thousands of cattle perished, but the subsequent growth of spring grass convinced the Californios to double down on their pastoral way of life. Historic rainfall across California in early 1862 turned the Central Valley into an inland sea and Los Angeles County into a mud pit. Although Californio families in the northern part of the state lost their lands to squatting 49ers and lawsuits in the wake of the Mexican-American War, those in Southern California carried on as if the Yankees never won. Local society was dependent on the industry - meat and hides for commerce, beef for food, rodeos for leisure. Census counted over 1.2 million cattle in California, with 70,000 in Los Angeles County alone. It ended like a real-life biblical apocalypse, complete with floods, pestilence, locusts, and the worst drought in modern California history. We’re so far removed from those times that it’s almost like the sight of an honest-to-goodness stampede through suburbia tapped into Southern California’s collective unconscious and brought back warm memories few of us knew we had.īut there’s a reason why Southern California’s cattle era is rarely remembered, let alone discussed. ![]()
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