Park Opening Means Eviction and End of an Era for Malibu Cattle Raising : Zuma Rancher Faces the Last Roundup

“Cattle raising is a happy life.” --from “Happy Days in Southern California,” an 1898 book by Frederick H. Rindge, owner of Rancho Malibu

For a month now, Thom Slosson has been selling off the Herefords and the Brahma-Angus mixed-breeds from the family ranch in Zuma Canyon. Even “Little Bit,” more pet than breeder after 10 years at the ranch, was sent to market the week before Christmas.

The old brown polo pony has been offered to a camp for handicapped children. And Slosson and his father, James, have uprooted more than four dozen rose bushes to take away when they leave next week.

Thom Slosson is closing down his Sliding S Ranch, the last cattle-raising operation in Malibu. He is bound for a tract house in Simi Valley and he is not happy. “It throws a total wrench into my life system,” he said.

But his ranch must make way for a vast new park. Zuma Canyon, all 1,500 acres of it, has been sold to the state and federal governments by Slosson’s landlord, the Adamson Cos., a partnership of the heirs of Malibu pioneer Frederick H. Rindge, who acquired the property in 1890.

Permission to Graze Animals

The transaction was completed Monday, one day before a deadline imposed by Adamson. By next Monday, Slosson will be out, sealing the end of the cattle-raising era in the Malibu canyons.

Malibu’s cattle business began in 1802 when the Spanish commander of the Santa Barbara garrison gave permission to Jose Bartoleme Tapia to graze his animals there.

The death of cattle ranching was foreshadowed when the Adamsons, who once operated Adohr Farms dairy, moved the last of their herds out of Zuma Canyon in 1968.

Even then, the company was trying to decide what to do with its holdings. By the mid-1970s, the choices were familiar ones to landowners in the Santa

Monica Mountains: Try, despite environmental and bureaucratic restrictions, to develop the property, in this case as a hotel, golf course or housing; or sell the canyon for parkland.

When the National Park Service and the state Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy were able to come up with $8 million between them, the Adamson Cos. decided to sell.

The Slossons did not discount the possibility of eviction when they first leased the Zuma Canyon property in 1973.

They had firsthand knowledge of the process. The Slossons had raised cattle and horses for nine years at Trippett Ranch in Topanga. They moved their livestock to Zuma only because Trippett was sold to the state Department of Parks and Recreation and they were ordered to leave. James Slosson was not about to give up his full-time job as a geologist and he wasn’t about to move to Zuma from his San Fernando Valley home, either.

But the father and son worked to repair barbed-wire fences and replace stolen watering troughs. They built a barn and a corral.

Earned Degree

In 1980, after Thom Slosson got his geology degree from USC, he moved to a mobile home among the sycamores at the canyon’s base, at the northern end of Bonsall Drive.

He settled in with his wife, Lynn, their golden retriever, their Australian cow dog, the 4 cats, 7 horses and 30 to 40 cattle at any given time.

Now, at 31, he is used to the ranch life. He wears cowboy clothes: boots, faded jeans, a plaid flannel shirt, a wide-buckled belt, a straw hat.

He comes home from his job to a four-acre plot filled with geraniums, roses and oak trees. Avocado trees are evenly spaced on a nearby hillside; a wild mustang he is training stands tethered in the yard.

There are bad memories: the rainy season when the creek rose and trapped the Slossons in their house for a week, the 1978 fire caused by one spark that got in the barn just after 40 tons of hay had been delivered.

But to Slosson, those hazards, and the hard work of running the ranch, are outweighed by the pleasures of living in the canyon, with thousands of acres at his disposal, for just $1,000 a month.

When the rain comes, he knows to head for Coyote Casino, the name of a rise to the west of his house. “You can see the thunder and lightning coming in over the ocean,” he said.

On clear nights, he can pick out satellites in the dark sky, moving past masses of stars.

On clear days, he can climb a mesa to the north for a view of the Pacific that includes the Palos Verdes Peninsula, Santa Catalina Island, Point Dume and the Channel Islands.

Favorite Spots

And when he is riding a horse over the 30 miles of trails, he knows any number of creekside spots where he can dismount and relax.

“I know this place backwards and forwards as far as where every little trail goes, from chasing cattle down the canyon,” Slosson said.

He has become part of the community. He serves as a reserve deputy sheriff. And he belongs to a local riding club and the search-and-rescue team that helps stranded hikers and motorists.

But he has no place else in Malibu to go.

Any property with enough flat or rolling land for cattle to graze on has long since been built upon or purchased for parks. And the price of most Malibu homes is beyond his range.

Slosson is puzzled and angry, because he thinks his eviction unnecessary.

He and his father tried to buy four to six acres of the canyon, the flatlands around the mobile home. But they were turned down.

Then Slosson asked if he could be the caretaker for the park when it opens. Again, he was turned down.

The main reason, said Joe Edmiston, executive director of the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, is that Slosson already has a full-time job.

“We want a park ranger to move into that house, who will be there all the time, who might be rousted in the morning by visitors,” Edmiston said.

And the cattle operation “is really inconsistent with public use of the area,” he added. If there is a ranch, he said, there could be no park.

‘Certain Nostalgia’

“There’s a certain nostalgia we have about the last of the vaqueros,” Edmiston said. “The problem is the economic reality of nostalgia. . . . Are we going to have people saying the state and the federal government paid $8 million to continue cattle operations in Malibu?”

The Slossons’ neighbors, south of the Zuma Canyon entrance, say they have concerns, and their worries have little to do with nostalgia.

The community is home to longtime Malibu residents, and to actors, such as Michael Landon and Lou Gossett, who have moved there more recently.

At a recent meeting with state and federal officials, the neighbors said they would rather have a park in Zuma Canyon than a golf course or condo complex.

But they fear that the transition period between the time the Slossons leave and the time the new ranger arrives could cause problems.

When the Adamsons took their cattle out, the canyon “was really fair game,” said Mary Lou Walbergh, who has lived near Zuma Canyon since 1961.

When the Slossons arrived, they drove out motorcyclists and campers, the neighbors said. And their cattle ate the Scotch thistle, a fire-prone plant that had taken over the hillsides.

Edmiston said he does not know how long it will take to install a resident ranger. He added that “we’re not encouraging” public use of the park until a ranger moves in.

‘It’ll Hurt’

To Slosson, such discussion matters little. He doubts that he’ll visit the park. “It’ll hurt too much,” he said.

In his remaining days on the land he loves, he will continue to calculate his family’s financial loss: $4,000 to $5,000 because he had to sell his cattle quickly at low prices, $50,000 in improvements he cannot take with him.

The state’s $4,000 relocation fee won’t be much help, he said. A state appraiser visited the farm last week to discuss sale of the barn and other improvements.

Meanwhile, the pile of boxes inside the mobile home grows higher and higher.

And the cattle pens empty out.

“Now the coyotes are getting bolder,” Slosson said. “The cattle kept them somewhat at bay, but the past couple of nights they sounded like they were going to kill somebody.”