Dave Daley stood recently on the edge of a barren ridge and bellowed out a guttural cry meant to call his cows home — if any remained alive after the North Complex wildfire decimated this national forest.
It was a long, mellifluous chant that sounded like “Come Boss,” taught to him by his own father and, he thinks, maybe originating with the genus of the species he hoped to find, Bos taurus, domesticated cattle.
When the sound finished bouncing off the far hills, miles across a plunging valley where the Feather River meandered into Lake Oroville, he waited in a silence so deep it can be made only by absence — of animals in underbrush, of leaves for wind to rustle, of life — hoping to hear the clanking of the bells each of his animals wears. But the silence held.
“You can replace a house,” he said, his voice hoarse and sorrow crinkling the sun-baked lines around his eyes, their color a pale green-brown that mirrored the scorched pine needles nearby. “You can’t replace this.”
Three weeks ago, a windy night turned the Bear fire into another California catastrophe, pulling embers off the ground and into the air, across the river, through treetops and down these mountains to the towns of Feather Falls and Berry Creek, where at least 15 people died. Here, in dense woods, Daley’s 400 head of cows, many with calves in tow, ranged free in summer, as they had done for the six generations his family has ranched on this land.
Dave Daley and his dog, Newt, stand in the North Complex West Fire burn area in the Tahoe National Forest in Butte County.
(Kent Nishimura/Los Angeles Times)
In about 1882, Daley’s family started running cows up into this high country, back before there was a National Forest system, and their brand has grandfathered access — though some environmentalists believe cattle have no place on public lands.
Now, only a bitter smell and ravens circling overhead could signal where many of their burned carcasses lay, blending into a dismal palette of ash and charcoaled timber. Though Daley and his family search every day for survivors, only about 130 have turned up alive — some so badly injured, with udders, hooves and even legs seared off, that they have to be put down. An additional 100 have been found dead.
Consumed by guilt that he couldn’t save them, and fear that some may still be suffering, he’s scouring what’s left of trails and tracks with names such as Lava Top and Bear Wallow that he probably knows better than any person alive, having roamed them since he was a boy. Friday was Day 22.
“The live ones are live and the dead ones are dead,” he said with cowboy pragmatism. “But the injured ones are missing.”
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Daley’s fury and frustration is growing as the full brunt of the loss sets in.
A firefighter puts out hot spots in the town of Berry Creek, which was devastated by the North Complex fire.
(Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)
This fire, he believes, and the dozens of others eating across the state could have been prevented — if it weren’t for the divisive politics that for decades have pitted agriculture against environmentalism, climate change against forest management, “enviros” against ranchers.
If nothing else comes of telling his story, he wants this: Compromise — a return to centrist politics lost in the current uproar.
“I am again angry at everyone and no one,” Daley wrote a few days after the fire, in a message his daughter Kate put on Facebook and which quickly went viral. “I am absolutely tired of politicians and politics, from both the left and the right. Shut up. You use tragedies to fuel agendas and raise money to feed egos. I am sick of it. And it plays out on social media and cable news with (distortion) and half-truths. ON BOTH SIDES. Washington, DC is 3000 miles away and is filled with lobbyists, consultants and regulators who wouldn’t know a sugar pine from a fir. Sacramento is 100 miles south and feels even more distant than DC.”
Though the majority of Californians agree that wildfires have worsened in recent years, they remain in political camps when it comes to why. Nine in 10 Democrats believe climate change is a major factor, according to a recent poll by the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies. Only 19% of Republicans believe the same, and 46% don’t think it plays any part.
In Daley’s world of ranchers, climate change is largely viewed as nonsense, he said, though he’s had enough of that position. When an email screed against climate science popped up on his phone, he refused to read it. But he also is exasperated by ranchers being demonized, as he sees it, and forests subject to litigation and inaction until they are dangerously overgrown.
“Just maybe it’s both — horrible forest management and climate change,” he said, driving his Ford F350 on closed roads where hot spots still sent smoke curling upward and logs occasionally had to be chain-sawed away. A dirty straw cowboy hat was pulled low on his forehead. “The fringe is leading the discussion, and we are unwilling to take it back from either side.”
A Republican who is contemplating switching to no party preference — he hopes he will be less marginalized in a state dominated by Democrats — Daley sees himself and others who make a living off livestock as part of the solution for managing wildlands, people with real-world experience. A professor emeritus of animal science at Cal State Chico, he has a doctorate to back it up but still feels under attack in a dark blue state.
He doesn’t like everything President Trump says, but he appreciates his bent toward farmers, he said. He isn’t fond of everything Gov. Gavin Newsom does, either, but he’s raised money for him in the past.
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Both, he said, can be “idiots.”
Dave Daley grabs a cow bell off of the carcass of a cow as he searches for cattle that were lost in the North Complex fire.
(Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times)
He’s made himself a political player, serving in leadership posts in the California Cattlemen’s Assn., the California Cattle Council and the National Cattlemen’s Beef Assn. Such positions take him, with his bushy horseshoe mustache and gruff courtesies, to the halls of the state Legislature, as well as Congress.
“I can disagree with both sides, but if I’m not in the room, who cares?” he said. “I’ve had to work really hard to learn to be not … inflammatory and not angry, and it’s a constant effort.”
After all these decades of bringing Daley cows to this forest, he is heavy-hearted that his 3-month-old granddaughter Juniper — Juni for short — will never see it as he did. He fears that her father, his son Kyle, is inheriting a family tragedy instead of a tradition. He is grieving that his daughter Kate, a veterinarian, had to euthanize an injured cow, only to see its calf kicking inside her, unable to cut it out in time to save it.
“This is a legacy and a history and really very personal,” he said.
Once, about 6,500 cattle roamed this area, before it was federal land, along with 5,000 sheep, all herded on horseback. “Was it overgrazed?” Probably, Daley said. “Were there mega-fires? No.”
Those family ranches, with a few hundred cows each, are gone now, except for his.
“We ended up with the whole range,” he said. His family holds a permit for 400 pairs of cows and calves that roam over 90,000 acres of the Plumas National Forest and private lands owned by a timber company.
Daley says he is not giving up. But it won’t be the same. The cows won’t know the range, won’t know to come when he calls and, for decades to come, won’t wander nearly impenetrable thickets and meadows canopied by conifers.
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Spring will bring grasses to graze — already ferns and shoots are pushing up, but winter rains may bring mudslides and Daley is uncertain if the fire will change his government permit. The herd wasn’t insured, and though there is a federal program that could pay for part of it, he doesn’t want handouts. But money is always an issue.
The sound of the two cowbells in the hand of Dave Daley ring out through the eerily quiet forest as the rancher searches for cattle that were lost in the North Complex fire.
(Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times)
Friday, Daley found more dead cows, a half dozen that had sought false safety near a creek. He collected their trapezoidal bells, as he has done each time he finds a carcass. Some of the bells go back generations, the biggest ones reserved for special “ladies,” as Daley calls them, the old-hand cows who knew their way around this range after years of wandering.
But he hasn’t found living cows in days, and the only sound in the forest was the hollow knock of metal on metal from the bells he held.
The time to end the search was nearing, the scope of the ruin settling in so that he sometimes wakes at night, mad at himself — for sticking with this unsparing endeavor, for passing it on to his kids. But in daylight, it’s clear this is the only place for the Daleys.
Here is where Dave’s grandmother taught in a one-room schoolhouse down the road. Here is where he bumped along in the back of his grandfather’s pickup on cold fall mornings, hot chocolate his reward for taking part in the roundup. Here is where his children played in spring-fed meadows, when the grass was an electric yellow-green and the calves still stood on wobbly legs.
“This is a hard country to know,” he said. “Thirty years from now, Juni will be riding down a trail and probably find a bell.”
Dave Daley searches for cattle that were lost in the North Complex fire in the Tahoe National Forest.
HALIFAX – Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston says it’s “disgraceful and demeaning” that a Halifax-area school would request that service members not wear military uniforms to its Remembrance Day ceremony.
Houston’s comments were part of a chorus of criticism levelled at the school — Sackville Heights Elementary — whose administration decided to back away from the plan after the outcry.
A November newsletter from the school in Middle Sackville, N.S., invited Armed Forces members to attend its ceremony but asked that all attendees arrive in civilian attire to “maintain a welcoming environment for all.”
Houston, who is currently running for re-election, accused the school’s leaders of “disgracing themselves while demeaning the people who protect our country” in a post on the social media platform X Thursday night.
“If the people behind this decision had a shred of the courage that our veterans have, this cowardly and insulting idea would have been rejected immediately,” Houston’s post read. There were also several calls for resignations within the school’s administration attached to Houston’s post.
In an email to families Thursday night, the school’s principal, Rachael Webster, apologized and welcomed military family members to attend “in the attire that makes them most comfortable.”
“I recognize this request has caused harm and I am deeply sorry,” Webster’s email read, adding later that the school has the “utmost respect for what the uniform represents.”
Webster said the initial request was out of concern for some students who come from countries experiencing conflict and who she said expressed discomfort with images of war, including military uniforms.
Her email said any students who have concerns about seeing Armed Forces members in uniform can be accommodated in a way that makes them feel safe, but she provided no further details in the message.
Webster did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
At a news conference Friday, Houston said he’s glad the initial request was reversed but said he is still concerned.
“I can’t actually fathom how a decision like that was made,” Houston told reporters Friday, adding that he grew up moving between military bases around the country while his father was in the Armed Forces.
“My story of growing up in a military family is not unique in our province. The tradition of service is something so many of us share,” he said.
“Saying ‘lest we forget’ is a solemn promise to the fallen. It’s our commitment to those that continue to serve and our commitment that we will pass on our respects to the next generation.”
Liberal Leader Zach Churchill also said he’s happy with the school’s decision to allow uniformed Armed Forces members to attend the ceremony, but he said he didn’t think it was fair to question the intentions of those behind the original decision.
“We need to have them (uniforms) on display at Remembrance Day,” he said. “Not only are we celebrating (veterans) … we’re also commemorating our dead who gave the greatest sacrifice for our country and for the freedoms we have.”
NDP Leader Claudia Chender said that while Remembrance Day is an important occasion to honour veterans and current service members’ sacrifices, she said she hopes Houston wasn’t taking advantage of the decision to “play politics with this solemn occasion for his own political gain.”
“I hope Tim Houston reached out to the principal of the school before making a public statement,” she said in a statement.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 8, 2024.
REGINA – Saskatchewan Opposition NDP Leader Carla Beck says she wants to prove to residents her party is the government in waiting as she heads into the incoming legislative session.
Beck held her first caucus meeting with 27 members, nearly double than what she had before the Oct. 28 election but short of the 31 required to form a majority in the 61-seat legislature.
She says her priorities will be health care and cost-of-living issues.
Beck says people need affordability help right now and will press Premier Scott Moe’s Saskatchewan Party government to cut the gas tax and the provincial sales tax on children’s clothing and some grocery items.
Beck’s NDP is Saskatchewan’s largest Opposition in nearly two decades after sweeping Regina and winning all but one seat in Saskatoon.
The Saskatchewan Party won 34 seats, retaining its hold on all of the rural ridings and smaller cities.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 8, 2024.
HALIFAX – Nova Scotia‘s growing population was the subject of debate on Day 12 of the provincial election campaign, with Liberal Leader Zach Churchill arguing immigration levels must be reduced until the province can provide enough housing and health-care services.
Churchill said Thursday a plan by the incumbent Progressive Conservatives to double the province’s population to two million people by the year 2060 is unrealistic and unsustainable.
“That’s a big leap and it’s making life harder for people who live here, (including ) young people looking for a place to live and seniors looking to downsize,” he told a news conference at his campaign headquarters in Halifax.
Anticipating that his call for less immigration might provoke protests from the immigrant community, Churchill was careful to note that he is among the third generation of a family that moved to Nova Scotia from Lebanon.
“I know the value of immigration, the importance of it to our province. We have been built on the backs of an immigrant population. But we just need to do it in a responsible way.”
The Liberal leader said Tim Houston’s Tories, who are seeking a second term in office, have made a mistake by exceeding immigration targets set by the province’s Department of Labour and Immigration. Churchill said a Liberal government would abide by the department’s targets.
In the most recent fiscal year, the government welcomed almost 12,000 immigrants through its nominee program, exceeding the department’s limit by more than 4,000, he said. The numbers aren’t huge, but the increase won’t help ease the province’s shortages in housing and doctors, and the increased strain on its infrastructure, including roads, schools and cellphone networks, Churchill said.
“(The Immigration Department) has done the hard work on this,” he said. “They know where the labour gaps are, and they know what growth is sustainable.”
In response, Houston said his commitment to double the population was a “stretch goal.” And he said the province had long struggled with a declining population before that trend was recently reversed.
“The only immigration that can come into this province at this time is if they are a skilled trade worker or a health-care worker,” Houston said. “The population has grown by two per cent a year, actually quite similar growth to what we experienced under the Liberal government before us.”
Still, Houston said he’s heard Nova Scotians’ concerns about population growth, and he then pivoted to criticize Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for trying to send 6,000 asylum seekers to Nova Scotia, an assertion the federal government has denied.
Churchill said Houston’s claim about asylum seekers was shameful.
“It’s smoke and mirrors,” the Liberal leader said. “He is overshooting his own department’s numbers for sustainable population growth and yet he is trying to blame this on asylum seekers … who aren’t even here.”
In September, federal Immigration Minister Marc Miller said there is no plan to send any asylum seekers to the province without compensation or the consent of the premier. He said the 6,000 number was an “aspirational” figure based on models that reflect each province’s population.
In Halifax, NDP Leader Claudia Chender said it’s clear Nova Scotia needs more doctors, nurses and skilled trades people.
“Immigration has been and always will be a part of the Nova Scotia story, but we need to build as we grow,” Chender said. “This is why we have been pushing the Houston government to build more affordable housing.”
Chender was in a Halifax cafe on Thursday when she promised her party would remove the province’s portion of the harmonized sales tax from all grocery, cellphone and internet bills if elected to govern on Nov. 26. The tax would also be removed from the sale and installation of heat pumps.
“Our focus is on helping people to afford their lives,” Chender told reporters. “We know there are certain things that you can’t live without: food, internet and a phone …. So we know this will have the single biggest impact.”
The party estimates the measure would save the average Nova Scotia family about $1,300 a year.
“That’s a lot more than a one or two per cent HST cut,” Chender said, referring to the Progressive Conservative pledge to reduce the tax by one percentage point and the Liberal promise to trim it by two percentage points.
Elsewhere on the campaign trail, Houston announced that a Progressive Conservative government would make parking free at all Nova Scotia hospitals and health-care centres. The promise was also made by the Liberals in their election platform released Monday.
“Free parking may not seem like a big deal to some, but … the parking, especially for people working at the facilities, can add up to hundreds of dollars,” the premier told a news conference at his campaign headquarters in Halifax.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 7, 2024.
