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A new national monument finally opened to the public this weekend. The national monument in California is called Cotoni-Coast Dairies, rather. President Obama designed nearly 6,000 acres along California's central coast before leaving office. Its opening was delayed due to the pandemic, by neighbors' fears over traffic and by figuring out how to keep a herd of nearly 100 cows that graze there away from hikers and bikers. Turns out there is an app for that. Jerimiah Oetting reports.
JERIMIAH OETTING, BYLINE: Cotoni-Coast Dairies is an iconic slice of land on California's central coast. Rolling hills of coastal prairie face off against the glittering Pacific Ocean. There are redwood groves, oak trees and Native American archaeological sites of the Cotoni people whose history here dates back 10,000 years. It's a tranquil spot, which could be why the cows that graze here are so peaceful and so quiet.
(Imitating cow mooing).
That's me, by the way, trying to get the cows to moo back.
Anyone? Anyone? No comments?
Calm as these cows are, Cotoni-Coast Dairies is about to get a lot busier. Just 70 miles south of San Francisco, it's expected to attract a stampede of hikers and bikers to the new trails. And that put Zachary Ormsby with the Bureau of Land Management in a bit of a bind. Part of his mandate is to preserve the history of this place...
ZACHARY ORMSBY: Ranching being one of those things.
OETTING: ...But also to keep the cows off the trails and out of restoration areas without miles of ugly and expensive fencing. And that's why each cow is wearing a two-pound black collar with a small solar panel.
ORMSBY: And so this just seemed really the natural solution.
OETTING: These collars are the latest bovine smart device from a company called Halter. The collar system sends the cow's coordinates to a GPS satellite, which beams it back to an app on a phone in a rancher's pocket. The rancher draws boundaries around where they want the cows to go. When a cow goes the wrong way, the collar beeps.
(SOUNDBITE OF COLLAR BEEPING)
OETTING: If that doesn't work, it vibrates. And eventually, it will give a light shock.
(SOUNDBITE OF COLLAR BEEPING RAPIDLY)
OETTING: And that allows ranchers to cowboy from the couch.
Space cowboys.
ORMSBY: Space cowboys or remote-control cows.
OETTING: Wayne Pastorino is an Earth cowboy.
WAYNE PASTORINO: I had to see it to believe it, but, you know, that's just being old fashioned, I guess.
OETTING: Pastorino's family has ranched in coastal California for generations, and he and his daughter Paige Pastorino have leased grazing land at Cotoni-Coast Dairies for about a quarter century. Paige is the one who manages the app.
PAIGE PASTORINO: The first couple days, my screen time was so above average. I just found it so interesting to see where they were.
OETTING: They meaning each cow, which shows up as a little red dot on a map. Wayne says he's all for any solution to keep his cows and the visitors apart. But he loves the old screen time-free way of doing things at Cotoni-Coast Dairies.
W PASTORINO: I mean, you gather up there sometimes, and the whales are breaching, you know, going north. I mean, and you're pushing cows on your horse, and you see that? I mean, you're...
P PASTORINO: I mean, yeah. Yeah.
W PASTORINO: You know, you're the richest man in the world when you do that.
OETTING: Now those riches can be enjoyed by the public.
REESA FELDSHER: It's absolutely gorgeous.
JENNIFER CASS: Fabulous.
OETTING: Reesa Feldsher and Jennifer Cass are on their first hike at the national monument. Feldsher says mountain bikers like her have dreamed about having trails here.
FELDSHER: Oh, my gosh, I've been waiting for this for probably over 20 years, so it's extremely exciting.
OETTING: And of course, the big question...
Did you see cows on the trail?
CASS: We did not see cows (laughter).
FELDSHER: No. We didn't run into any cows.
OETTING: Zachary Ormsby with the Bureau of Land Management says many of the cows are pregnant, so their invisible fence is set to let them roam in the wide-open spaces here so they can find a perfect, secluded spot to calve. For NPR News, I'm Jeremiah Oetting at Cotoni-Coast Dairies National Monument.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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