rancho arroyo grande

Rancho Arroyo grande (RAG) is approximately 4,000 acres of land, about twelve miles inland from the coast and approximately eight miles northeast of the city of Arroyo Grande, in San Luis Obispo County, California, neighboring Lopez Lake and the Los Padres National Forest. The ranch is nestled in the beginnings of the southern hills of the Sierra Madre Mountains—Central California’s coastal mountain range. RAG is one among many “ranchos” throughout California named and controlled by early Spanish “rancheros” and missionaries who occupied the land the Chumash people lived and cared for dating back 10,000 years ago. The chumash of this region call themselves the Stishni and spoke a language very distinct to the region. After Mexico gained independence from Spain around 1821, California was secularized and the Chumash people became indentured. In 1841, the Mexican government granted RAG to a Mexican soldier, Zeferino Carlon, who sold it to his daughter and new son in law, Frances Branch in 1850. In spite of the cession of California to the United States following the U.S.-Mexico War, the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ensured that the earlier land grants would be honored. 

With almost three hundred acres of vineyards, RAG is purported to have grown the grapes that cultivated the first U.S.-branded wine in 1871. Over the last twenty-five years, RAG has undergone significant development by landowners who lived on the property and built housing, an equestrian center, horticulture center, and artist studio. Over 3000 acres remain undeveloped and currently home to bears, invasive feral pigs, bobcats, mountain lions, and deer.  RAG’s current owners had been open to exercising a native ecological model for restoring and stewarding the land after mass areas of vegetation and vineyards had been destroyed by the pigs, creating an opportunity for untune to aid in restoring the damaged land. 

despite the converted landscape, I believe that the land’s native roots (occupied by RAG) owes much of its ecological biodiversity to the Chumash people - the rightful caretakers whose connections to the land, water, and culture the current landowners continue to benefit from.

these junior feral pigs were caught in a pig brig trapping system that was developed by Dr Anthony DeNicola (meant to be the most effective and humane trapping system currently available). These trapped pigs were shot and taken by one of the employees to be eaten by his family (not wasted), but it was still heart drenching sad, even after witnessing the destruction they caused to the land. The only justification I could add is that these animals are symptoms of settler colonialism as their history indicates. According to the book: Invasive Wild Pigs in North America - Ecology, Impacts, and Management, Russian wild boar were introduced in Monterey County in the 1920s for sport hunting. Russian wild boar and domestic swine belong to the same species, Sus scrofa, and are able to interbreed without restriction. feral pigs in California today are descendants of both the released domestic pigs and the Russian wild boar. Introductions of the Sus scrofa were both intentional like the eurasian wild boar (released as a new pig game species) and accidental like escaped domestic pigs that went wild or feral (pg 7). at the very same time, how can we justify the killing of these animals, while not the colonizers who brought them? Could choosing superiority or allowance of one species to exist over another also be a reflection of white supremacy?  

In 2021, after critical habitat had been destroyed leaving bare soil around RAG’s building structures and further threatening the land impacted by the previous landowner’s neglect and by anthropogenic climate change (symptoms of settler colonialism), untune was asked to assess the degraded areas and come up with possible ways to aid in restoration that would be resilient to further pig damage and climate change (of course we know that one impacts the other).  

As untune had no prior experience with feral pigs—their behavior, ecological impacts, diet, or history (aside from being introduced by European settlers), nor any experience in land restoration in that area  (an area rich in biodiversity due to its unique microclimate position, but one surrounded by a prominent redneck culture that prized guns and self-sustainability)—much of the work was research, beginnings, and a very intimate learning experience that i am deeply grateful for. However, the culture did play a vital role to how much we were able to restore and steward and this remains thus far my biggest lesson on the prominence of colonial force. Still, this remained my greatest hands-on education for 3 years as I observed the soil becoming more enriched and nurtured from the native seeds I had sown and the abundant return of native animals enjoying the habitat. What I didn’t realize was how attached I had become to the plants, pollinators, frogs, and birds and the heartbreak that followed when the project came to an abrupt end. I have deep remorse for abandoning the small animals and land that I had taken on the responsibility to care for. This is my incomparable and minuscule window in which I began to understand trauma caused by loss of “home” that the indigenous people continue to endure.  

the first phase of the project is explained in the following images. I’m sharing quite a bit of details (including failures). untune is always open to feedback as this is a journey of unlearning and learning dedicated to the practice of building community with those interested in interweaving culture, dwelling, and native ecology.