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Last week, the remaining patches of ice melted on Fence Canyon Road, the main entrance to the ranch, enabling cattle trucks to get to the corrals at headquarters. Our neighbors helped us drive 180 steers seven miles to pasture, where they joined 500 others. The new steers would have trotted all the way if we'd let them, but for us, a successful cattle drive happens at a walk, with the animals strung out as close to single file as possible and riders positioned on both sides of the cattle, rather than having everyone ride in the drag. As our friend Kit explains, "you can't push a chain from behind." With a good lead animal in the front, cattle are happy to follow one another.
Keeping cattle calm and content doesn't just make them easier to handle, it boosts their reproductive performance and weight gain while reducing operational management expenses. One of us and a dog or two might gather and move 100 head or more, but if an animal has been on its own for a while, it can get flighty and nervous, or "spoiled." This past cold and sleeting Wednesday, Sam found a heifer outside of our lease. She ran off as soon as she saw him. He roped her—since she refused to drive home—and led her two miles back to the other heifers at a walk. It's hard to justify spending most of a day with one animal when we have hundreds more to look after.
In addition to creating well-adjusted cattle, daily management horseback seems a good way to prevent potential problems. We make sure fences are up and gates are closed. We can easily get to and monitor water sources and check the mineral supplement we place nearby. It's a good way to see what plants the cattle are grazing and browsing. Right now, we're making sure they aren't eating too much oak brush. Its tannins are toxic when ingested in large quantities. Every day is an opportunity to use our horsemanship and stockmanship skills and develop our eye for herd health and behavior, learning our cattle's individual personalities while connecting with the land we're working on.
Photographs by the author, of Sam Ryerson settling heifers, working on cattle pens, and the author checking fences horseback.
]]>The Department of Agriculture has been trying to revitalize a younger generation of farmers for many years, and earlier this month, Deputy Secretary Krysta Harden announced another $18.5 million that will go toward education and assistance under the Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development Program. The program was originally established in the 2008 Farm Bill, and was reauthorized under the massive 2014 Farm Bill. March 13 marks the deadline to apply for this year's grants. (USDA defines "new" as having worked the land for no more than 10 years, which accounts for less than a quarter of all American farmers).
The new round of USDA grants is part of the agency's attempt to help out new growers who don't necessarily have the institutional knowledge, community resources or access to land that previous generations inherited from parents and grandparents. It's a positive sign that the government is trying to address the problem, but bolstering educational opportunities may not be getting at the root. The main challenges for young farmers and ranchers are finding capital for startup costs and gaining access to land. (A 2011 survey found that 70 percent of farmers under 30 years old rented their land, as opposed to 37 percent of those over 30.) And part of the reason young farmers aren't inheriting is because many aren't kids of farmers—they're part of the local food movement, 21st century back-to-the-landers, or passionate about sustainable agriculture. Or if their parents are farmers, that older generation is getting out of agriculture because it's so difficult to make it as a small farm today.
And why is it so difficult? The same legislation that's authorizing the millions of dollars in grants also gives billions of dollars in subsidies to large-scale farms that produce a handful of commodity crops like cotton, corn and wheat. Those subsidies help make mega-farms even bigger, perpetuate our nation's reliance on large-scale food production, and push small farms out of the market.
Not to mention the fact that the current West-wide drought, which NASA scientists recently announced could develop into an event drier and longer in Southwestern states than any dry spell in the past 1,000 years, doesn't exactly create an inviting environment for new farmers.Some analysts have pointed out that the aging agriculture industry mirrors the overall general labor force, which also is getting slightly older (average age of 41). Farm policy professor Carl Zulauf at Ohio State University wrote in 2013 that, "Putting the age of farmers in perspective suggests the U.S. will likely have little problem replacing its aging farmer population. It takes time for someone to accumulate the capital necessary to compete, either through inheritance or savings or both. The 1970 period of farm prosperity (when the average age of farmers dropped from 51 to 50) suggests the current period of prosperity will lead to an influx of young farmers."
Sure, there's no doubt that, in the past decade, there's been a surge of interest in farming from organic-minded twenty-somethings. But apparently not quite enough to mitigate the trend of the aging industry. There's still a long way to go before the young farmer movement transitions into a sustainable, long-term option for a critical mass of people. The USDA has cited predictions of an 8 percent drop in the country's agricultural work force between 2008 and 2018—in part a result of fewer young farmers joining the force and older ones retiring. The $18.5 million in grants is a step toward mitigating what's now being called a 'grain drain,' but it's going to take a more comprehensive look at the Farm Bill (which is renegotiated every five years) to make real change.
Tay Wiles is the online editor of High Country News. Homepage image by the author, of Zephyros Farm in Paonia, Colorado. Follow @taywiles
]]>Our journey here was unconventional, but we're proud of it. We weren't ranch kids, or even from the West. Sam's from Cambridge, Massachusetts and I'm from outside Hinckley, Minnesota. Some people wonder if two people who studied architecture and English have what it takes to run a ranch, but that doesn't bother us. Like Sam says, everyone's family came from somewhere else originally.
I had horses growing up. Sam rode a bit back east and occasionally on his uncle's ranch in New Mexico. By the time we met near Roscoe, Montana, in 2005, he'd found himself a good gelding and was working as a ranch hand; I had spent two years as a dude wrangler. Neither of us intended to be cowboys or ranchers, but once we got started, we couldn't quit. We had a whole lot of try and some good, patient teachers. We wouldn't be where we are today without them.
In 2009, Sam began a ranch management apprenticeship at the San Juan Ranch in Colorado, sponsored by the Quivira Coalition, a nonprofit that works to build ecological resilience in Western working landscapes. As he finished the yearlong apprenticeship, he found a management job at Spur Lake Cattle Company, a big new outfit along the Arizona / New Mexico state line. I joined him the following May and we got married on the back porch of our house. A few weeks later, the largest wildfire in Arizona history started burning straight for us. We survived, and in spite of another record-breaking forest fire the following year, prolonged droughts and contagious bovine diseases, we were able to improve the Spur Lake herds' conception rate and weight gain every year.
By the fall of 2013, we decided it was time for us to try to put our own deal together. In April our friend and current partner, a long-time rancher from Springer, New Mexico, discovered an available pasture lease on the Mescalero Apache Indian Reservation. He introduced us to a few potential partners who have many years of experience in the cattle business, and after drafting a solid business plan, we decided to form an LLC together: Triangle P Cattle Company.
After five months of negotiating terms, we signed a one-year lease. We put our entire savings on the line and signed two big bank notes to purchase cattle and pay for operating expenses. The company purchased a 320 square-foot camper and we drove it out to the reservation. It's our home as long as we're here. Sam and I own a 20 percent stake in the company. We're the only co-owners on-site; he's paid a salary as the full-time manager and I help on a part-time basis.
Our camper is over an hour from Ruidoso on dirt roads, and about the same distance from our nearest neighbors at the Tribe's ranch headquarters, where they run a resident herd of cows. We can look out our west window at Pajarita Mountain and see our geldings and our Jersey milk cow and calf grazing the open pasture to the east. It's satisfying to ride through cattle branded "Triangle P" on the left rib and know they're ours.
It's exciting to build a permanent herd of cows, and given the volatile cattle market, it seems smart to diversify by running commercial yearling cattle as well. One of the biggest benefits to this lease is that the Tribe maintains the complex livestock water system, with dozens of troughs and miles of pipeline. Yet we're experiencing the challenges many other big, remote ranches face, too: accessibility, maintaining fences and covering a large land area. We work horseback as much as possible—in many cases, the terrain is too rough to navigate any other way—and we usually ride daily to keep our cattle located on the best feed while preventing overgrazing.
These days, we're getting ready to calve out 500 heifers, supplementing their diet of native grasses with protein blocks and a custom, free-choice loose mineral blend. Any day now, calves should be hitting the ground, but until then, it's the two of us, working toward our vision of productive, healthy rangelands, good cattle and good horses, trying to make a go of it.
Photographs of cattle taken by Laura Jean Schneider at her ranch.
]]>But that hasn't happened. Grazing was grandfathered in, and more than 96 percent of the monument is still open to cattle, with 102 permittees on 82 allotments. The ranchers wield a lot of political power, which is one reason that the monument's top managers don't stick around long. (There have been six since 1996.) The BLM is only now devising its long-overdue grazing management plan. Even some monument staffers think that "the ranchers and county governments are running the monument," says Mary O'Brien of the nonprofit Grand Canyon Trust. "The BLM is frightened and paralyzed."
Environmental groups had hoped for large reductions in the number of cows roaming the monument's fragile desert soils and riparian areas, but have managed only a few small wins. In 1998, the Grand Canyon Trust began buying grazing permits from willing ranchers, eventually acquiring leases on about 344,000 acres of the monument. It relinquished some of the permits to the BLM, which closed some allotments to grazing, established some as grass banks, and reduced cattle numbers on others. Worth Brown, then-chairman of the Canyon County Ranchers Association, told a local newspaper in 2002, "The BLM is working with preservation groups to put us out of business."
However, a federal memorandum issued that same year has made it difficult for future buyouts, by forcing the BLM to first declare that lands within grazing districts are no longer "chiefly valuable for grazing" before allowing a permit to be retired.
And that's a declaration the BLM has been reluctant to make in the monument, even though studies in the early 2000s indicated that roughly 65 percent of its grazing allotments failed to meet "rangeland health standards." Another assessment in 2008 — which conservationists denounced as a surrender to ranchers — found that about 20 percent of the allotments did not meet the standards.
Last month, the agency finally released a draft environmental impact statement for its grazing plan. The analysis includes five proposals for varying levels and amounts of grazing. The Grand Canyon Trust is trying to get the BLM to include a "Sustainable Grazing Alternative" among the options. That alternative would establish a process for allowing relinquished allotments to become permanently cow-free, allow public participation in decisions about grazing, and set a goal that livestock will not harm wildlife habitat.
Meanwhile, in mid-January, two Republican Utah senators, Orrin Hatch and Mike Lee, announced their Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument Grazing Protection Act, which would "preserve the grazing rights that Utah families have used for generations," and prohibit the BLM from reducing grazing.
That protection might turn out to be a double-edged sword, though. "It's pretty ironic that, as climate change unfolds and these guys have no grass to graze," says Bill Hedden of the Grand Canyon Trust, which hasn't been able to buy out a Grand Staircase permit since 2002, "all we can say to desperate ranchers who approach us about a deal is, 'Good luck, guys, your political champions have protected you from the possibility of a voluntary buy-out.'"
]]>The shaggy beasts had been imported from Yellowstone National Park, a quixotic project co-sponsored by the state and a local rod and gun club. Seventy-four years later, those bison's descendants find themselves unwitting combatants in a range war, blamed by Utah cattlemen for eating cows out of house and home. A new study, however, suggests that ranchers' real beef should be with another mammal entirely — along with state predator control policies.
Upon their release in 1941, it didn't take long for the bison to flourish. By the 1960s, the shaggy beasts had forsaken the desert in favor of the Henry Mountains, between Capitol Reef and Canyonlands National Parks, where their numbers kept growing; today, the population hovers at 325. While nearly all of America's half-million bison contain cattle genes, the Henry Mountains herd has remained pure, its numbers carefully managed through the issue of wildly popular hunting tags. "We've worked hard to maintain a genetically viable population while increasing hunting and wildlife viewing," says Bill Bates, section chief at the Utah Division of Wildlife.
Bison tend to attract controversy wherever they roam, however, and the Henry Mountains are no different. Unlike in Yellowstone, the problem isn't that the bison harbor the bacterial disease brucellosis — the Henry herd has been certified clean since the 1960s — but rather that they compete with cows. Some 4,200 cattle share the bison's winter range, and the struggle for forage can be fierce. When, in 2007, the state decided to incrementally grow the herd by dispensing fewer hunting licenses, many cattlemen were incensed. "The atmosphere was really intense," says Utah State University ecologist Dustin Ranglack. "There was a lot of mistrust."
With the state's support, Ranglack set out to quantify just how much forage was being scarfed down by bison. "When you drive around that area, the bison are pretty conspicuous — they've trampled down the dirt, they've got these big dust wallows," he says. "But when you step out of the truck, you start noticing the jackrabbit scat." Ranglack saw clusters of little spherical pellets everywhere. He began to wonder whether rabbits might be even more prolific grazers than bison.
To figure out who was eating what, Ranglack set up a simple experiment. At 20 sites throughout the Henry Mountains, he constructed two 8x8-foot squares of cattle-proof fencing — pens designed not to keep animals in, but to shut them out. To one exclosure at each site, he added an apron of chicken wire that deterred rabbits. In sum: 40 exclosures overall, 20 that barred cattle and bison but let rabbits in to browse, 20 that thwarted all grazers. To figure out which large herbivore was exerting more grazing pressure, he melded data from bison radio collars with ranchers' own reports about their cattle's activity.
A year later, Ranglack returned to his sites to see how much vegetation remained in each plot. According to his analysis, published Monday in the Journal of Applied Ecology, cows were the power mowers of the Henry Mountains, devouring around 52 percent of the available forage. Bison, by contrast, were eating just 13 percent. As for those tiny, innocuous jackrabbits and their lagomorph cousins? They gobbled 34 percent.
Clearly, then, the Henry Mountains are chock-full of bunnies. But why? Ranglack speculates that Utah's take-no-prisoners coyote management strategy is responsible for the rabbit explosion. The state spends $1.35 million on lethal coyote control annually, paying a $50 bounty for every kill; in the Henry Mountains, a trophy mule deer unit, at least 156 coyotes have been eliminated over the last five years.
Ranglack is quick to point out that the link between predator policies and lagomorph populations hasn't received scientific scrutiny. Still, it's conceivable that, at least in some places, the trophic cascade set off by coyote control is actually costing Utah money in the form of lost cattle forage. And the state is taking notice: Ranglack's study "is something we'll definitely have to take into account" in devising future management plans, says the Division of Wildlife's Bill Bates.
State managers aren't the only folks rethinking the Henry Mountains ecosystem. Over a year ago, Ranglack presented his then-unpublished data before a group of local ranchers. He'd tried to keep cattlemen in the loop during his experiments, but he knew his analysis ran counter to expectations. He feared the meeting would turn ugly.
Nonetheless, Ranglack launched into his presentation, quickly arriving at the slide that broke down which critters were consuming how much grass. As he explained what he'd found, a loud, challenging voice boomed from the audience.
"Wait a minute," the rancher interrupted. "You're trying to say that jackrabbits are eating twice as much as bison?"
"That's what I'm saying," Ranglack replied. He waited nervously for the outburst. A murmur passed through the crowd. Then the rancher spoke up again.
"Well then," he declared, "we need to stop shooting all these coyotes!"
Ben Goldfarb is a Seattle-based correspondent for High Country News.
]]>On January 12, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service listed the Mexican gray wolf, or Canis lupus baileyi, as an endangered subspecies under the Endangered Species Act. Before the new rule, Mexican grays were protected under the E.S.A. but lumped in with their larger, more northerly relative, the gray wolf, reintroduced to Yellowstone in 1995. Today more than 1,500 grays inhabit large swaths of the northwestern U.S.
In addition to being slighter in stature than grays, Mexican gray wolves, or lobos, are far smaller in numbers. Based on the USFWS's latest survey, completed at the end of 2013, there were only 83 wolves in 14 packs along the New Mexico-Arizona border. Since reintroductions began in the late 1990s, the effort has been marred by human conflict. According to USFWS data, between 1998 and 2011, 88 Mexican gray wolves died -- more than half of these deaths were attributable to illegal shootings and car collisions.
As HCN contributor John Dougherty reported in 2007, ranchers in the Gila tried to gain the upper hand by exploiting a "three strikes" law that allows federal officials to remove or kill animals deemed habitual livestock killers. Recent efforts reported on by HCN have sought creative means to alleviate the tension between wolves and ranchers, including grazing buyouts, which pay farmers to remove cattle from key wolf habitat.
Lack of genetic diversity has also proven a serious obstacle to reintroduction efforts. All of the remaining animals are descended from a group of five lobos captured in 1973 (coincidentally, the year the Endangered Species Act was passed) after the species was almost driven to extinction. Federal wildlife managers hope to increase genetic variation through selective breeding and strategic release of animals into the wild.
Under the new rule, the USFWS will seek to establish an experimental population of between 300 and 325 Mexican grays. The rules also significantly expand the boundaries of the wolves' protected range and areas where animals can be released. The former territory comprised portions of the Gila and Apache National Forests but the new rule pushes the southern boundary for the experimental population from Interstate 10 all the way to the U.S.-Mexico border. (However, the northern boundary ends at Interstate 40, so wolves that travel to the Grand Canyon and into potential habitat beyond would not be managed under the new guidelines. USFWS intends to capture and return wolves that disperse north of I-40.) "This revision of the experimental population rule provides Mexican wolves the space they need to establish a larger and more genetically diverse population – a population that can meaningfully contribute to the subspecies' recovery," said Benjamin Tuggle, the Service's Southwest Regional Director.
According to Tuggle, the rule is also accompanied by "clearer and more flexible rules to support the interests of local stakeholders" – namely, a provision that allows individuals to get permits allowing them to kill wolves that attack livestock or domestic dogs.
This "take" provision is one of several aspects of the law that has drawn criticism from environmental groups, such as the Center for Biological Diversity and Defenders of Wildlife. The same groups have also pointed out that the law is unusual in that it defines a maximum rather than minimum population threshold. "Allowing Mexican gray wolves to disperse over a broader area is a positive, but that positive is negated by an unfounded population cap and increased authorized killing," said Eva Sargent, a spokeswoman for Defenders of Wildlife in a press release.
The new protections for Mexican grays come amid uncertain times for gray wolves. In 2013, the USFWS recommended delisting the northern gray wolf entirely while adding the Mexican gray wolf as an endangered subspecies, a proposal that was met with fierce outcry from the public.
Four years ago, several states in the Great Lakes region delisted gray wolves and implemented hunting seasons, during which over 1,500 animals were killed. But last year, a federal judge overturned that decision, banning hunting and trapping and restoring the northern gray's endangered status in Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin. In a similar move, last September a federal judge reinstated endangered status for grays in Wyoming, leaving Montana and Idaho the only western states without protections for wolves.
]]>The long-standing conflict between Robbins and the BLM has flared up again recently, and this time it could have dire consequences for one of the lower 48's largest bighorn sheep populations.
After Robbins' protest in 2000, he took his grievances to Washington, D.C. and accepted a settlement that forgave him for nine years of alleged grazing violations. In return, he agreed to allow BLM employees to access public land through his property.
But Robbins' acrimony towards the agency continued, and his cow-calf operation and dude ranch garnered many complaints over the years. As High Country News reported in 2003, that included "cattle trespassing on the private property of neighbors and on the neighbors' BLM grazing allotments; grazing too early, too late, and putting too many cattle on his allotments; blocking a neighbor's use of a cattle-drive trail; claiming his cattle were on private pasture when they were on BLM pastures; refusing to obtain recreation permits for his dude ranch trail drives over BLM lands; and refusing to modify his grazing practices during drought."
So the BLM pulled all of Robbins' 14 cattle grazing leases again in the mid-2000s, and he had to shrink his herd to what his 75,000 acre ranch would support. The BLM did offer to return some of the cattle leases to Robbins, but he refused the deal.
Instead, a few years ago he started running domestic sheep on his ranch. The problem is that Robbins' ranch is smack dab in the middle of prime habitat for 600 to 800 bighorns, and those sheep intermingle with even more herds. It's well established that bighorn sheep can catch pneumonia from domestic sheep — often with fatal consequences for adults and newborns.
Robbins recently told the Casper Star-Tribune that the sheep were an economic necessity after the agency rescinded his public-land grazing permit, since sheep require less land than cattle. But it also looks like the decision was a form of protest against the agency. The Star-Tribune reported that he sent the BLM a letter in April 2012 stating, "Since you decided not to return the permit in whole we have decided to go forward with sheep."
"If and when a bighorn die-off occurs I want you to know that we feel we have done everything that we have been ask (sic) and been patient for years and you will have to answer for what happens," Robbins wrote.
In the worst cases pneumonia from domestic sheep can obliterate bighorn herds, erasing years of work on the part of biologists, agencies and cooperative landowners. For example, in 2008, after some public land squatters brought domestic sheep and goats into Montana's Elkhorn Mountains, a bighorn herd that biologists had been nursing along for over a decade crashed by 90 percent.
Thanks to reintroductions, habitat protection and restricted hunting, bighorn sheep have been making a comeback since they reached a low point of several thousand in the lower 48 around 1900. But there are still many populations that are perilously small, and many places that once harbored bighorns that no longer do.
Along with habitat loss, pneumonia is one of the biggest challenges for continued bighorn conservation. The main microbe responsible for the disease wasn't identified until recently and scientists still have many questions, like why some herds are more susceptible than others. Researchers are learning that even when adult sheep survive and become immune, some populations struggle to recover, likely because the lambs continue to die from pneumonia before they are weaned. But since lamb carcasses don't last long, that's a very difficult phenomenon for biologists to observe. Efforts to develop a vaccine have been unsuccessful so far.
In short, pneumonia is insidious, dooming many of the West's burliest mountain-dwellers to a mucous-y death. And wildlife biologists are at their wits' end over it. The most obvious solution is to keep domestic and wild sheep separated.
That's why wildlife conservation groups like the Wyoming Wild Sheep Foundation and the Wyoming Wildlife Federation are so worried about Robbins' domestic sheep. It's also why they, and many others from the ag and wildlife community, spent almost five years working on a plan for domestic and wild sheep to coexist in Wyoming. Now that work is at risk of unraveling. "We think the best thing for all of us is to have a good, viable domestic sheep industry in the state and a viable bighorn population," says Steve Kilpatrick, executive director of the Wyoming Wildlife Federation. "This just flies in the face of that."
Furthermore, Wyoming Game and Fish has documented Robbins' sheep trespassing on federal land, the Star-Tribune reported — a violation that could result in fines and even livestock impoundment. But the BLM says its staffers need to document the trespassing themselves for it to count against Robbins. The BLM even suspended one of its biologists for insubordination after he asked a state biologist to check on Robbins' leases for trespass during an aerial survey of grizzly bears, the Star-Tribune reported.
Now, the BLM is looking at restoring some of Robbins' cattle grazing leases. Bighorn conservationists are asking the agency to move through that decision-making process quickly, and address the ongoing trespassing issue. If Robbins is permitted to run cattle again, they hope he will stop running sheep on the intermingled BLM and private lands near the top of the watershed -- that's where bighorns are more likely to interact with domestic sheep. That could take years to play out, though."We're not willing to sit and fold our hands on the domestic sheep issue," says Kilpatrick. "The bighorn sheep simply can't afford continuous years of trespass and potential commingling (with domestic sheep)."
The sheep versus sheep struggle, while still a reality throughout the West isn't always a completely intractable feud. Similar to Wyoming, the woolgrower's association in Montana has participated in bighorn conservation planning. Montana wildlife officials would like to reintroduce more bighorns to mountains throughout the state, but they've still struggled to find locations sufficiently far from domestic sheep. After fits and starts, they took a big step forward earlier this month, by releasing 52 bighorns to start a new herd in Southwest Montana's Madison range.
Sarah Jane Keller is a High Country News contributor based in Bozeman, Mont. Follow her @sjanekeller.
]]>The nonprofit Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility recently released an online interactive map of Bureau of Land Management assessments, providing surprising details on the state of the public range. For example, 16 percent of roughly 20,000 grazing allotments failed to meet the BLM's ecological health standards — based on criteria such as soil health, water quality and at-risk species habitat — because of damage caused by livestock. Almost three-quarters of the assessments have been completed. The speed and quality of assessments depend on individual offices. Idaho's Snake River Plain field offices appear to be above average in completion rates, while declaring more land unhealthy than other regions. The BLM records include some duplicates, and many allotment boundaries have shifted since the assessments were done. This map represents the most recent available data.
]]>This week, Wielgus, director of Washington State University's Large Carnivore Conservation Lab, released his newest study with equally surprising results. "I analyzed it like 50 times, with different statisticians and layers and layers of peer review because the results are kind of astounding," he says. The new paper challenges assumptions about how state wildlife agencies deal with problem wolves. It turns out that killing wolves that kill livestock may backfire in the long term. According to the study, lethal removal may actually increase the odds that wolves eat more cattle or sheep the following year.
Overall, wolves are doing fine in the Northern Rockies, compared to their brush with extinction in the 1970s. Their population has dipped slightly since its peak in 2011 to roughly 1,700 wolves, but biologists say it's secure.
People have long assumed that fewer wolves lead to fewer depredations on sheep or cattle. And wildlife managers often say that lethal removal can be a salve for vitriol toward wolves, by providing a short-term solution for the harmed livestock producers, and by showing that states are actively managing the animals. It's part of the reason some states allow wolf hunting, and why Washington, Montana, Idaho and Wyoming all lethally remove wolves that harm livestock. In 2013 the later three states killed 202 wolves for control purposes, or 8 percent of the population in all four states.
But when Wielgus and his coauthor looked at 25 years of data on lethal wolf control and livestock depredations from Idaho, Wyoming, and Montana they found that killing one wolf increases the odds of sheep depredation by 4 percent the following year. For cattle, it increased the odds by 5 to 6 percent.
This pattern holds until 25 percent of the wolf population is removed. That's because wolf populations in the states studied grow at a 25 percent rate. So once the lethal removals exceed the population's growth rate, wolves begin to decline, and so do depredations. But that's not a sustainable solution for the wolves, or for people who don't want to see them on the endangered species list.
It's important to note that this study has found a correlation between wolf removal and livestock depredation over a large region, but it hasn't established the exact reason for the patterns. To learn more about why lethal removal of wolves doesn't appear to protect livestock, Wielgus now needs to drill down to individual packs.
Wielgus suspects the answer may be found in wolf social dynamics. The animals may compensate for losing part of their pack by increasing reproduction and thus, the need to hunt for those new pups. Or wolves may become less efficient hunters in smaller groups and turn to dining on livestock. "I think the take home point is that social behavior and social systems of these large carnivores, pack dynamics, territory, all of that is a very important element to how wolves interact with their environment," says John Pierce, chief wildlife scientist for the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife. "As we move forward in wolf management we should carefully be studying that and don't assume a linear relationship (between wolf removal and depredation)."
Pierce thinks the study is too preliminary to change wolf management in the near future. But his agency is funding Wielgus to research proactive, non-lethal wolf management such as having cowboys called range riders monitoring for trouble, and using special fencing, or lights and sounds, to deter wolves. Wielgus is comparing the effectiveness of those techniques to lethal methods, and also mapping where livestock are at the greatest risk of wolf attack.
That work is still in its early stages, but Washington is starting to see good results with proactive non-lethal methods, says Pierce. Ideally, learning more about those techniques will help prevent events like what unfolded in northeastern Washington in August. The Huckleberry Pack became habituated to feeding on sheep, and after non-lethal wolf deterrents failed, a sharpshooter took out the alpha female (not the wolf they were hoping to eliminate) at the request of Washington's wildlife department.
Wielgus hopes that his studies will help wildlife managers reevaluate practices that may be based on long-standing assumptions. "Science progresses," he says, "and eventually we'll get it right."
Sarah Jane Keller is a correspondent for High Country News. She writes from Bozeman, Montana and tweets @sjanekeller. Homepage image of grey wolf being released into Yellowstone by Barry O'Neill, courtesy National Park Service,
]]>High Country News: Will you explain how 4-H was established and how land grant universities (institutions that received federal funds through the Morrill Acts of 1862 and 1890) played a role?
Kiera Butler: 1902 or 1903 are the years that people trace it back to. People at land grant universities were developing new ways of farming, using specially branded seeds and tractors and industrializing. Farmers were wary of these new methods. So, as a way to reach the farmers and gain their trust, the universities started clubs for kids. They (would) encourage kids to grow two plots of corn — one plot with the old kind of seed and the another with selective breeding. The parents would see how well the kids' plots were doing, and they would emulate those methods for themselves. It's a very clever way of getting ag science into the general farming public.
HCN You write about how companies like Monsanto and DuPont play a role in shaping what 4-H kids are learning. Where's the influence of these companies in 4-H today?
KB 4-H is housed in the U.S. Department of Agriculture but there's a fundraising non-profit arm, the National 4-H Council, which, in the last five to 10 years, has stepped up is courting of corporate donors. So Monsanto, Cargill, DuPont and other big (agricultural) companies have contributed in various ways. It's anything from DuPont-sponsored biotech curriculum, to volunteer programs where company employees might volunteer with a local 4-H chapter for a day.
Agendas of agribusinesses occasionally make their way into 4-H curriculum. In the biotech curriculum sponsored by DuPont, there are copious links back to the DuPont webpage. There's one about chocolate milk because what makes your Nesquik dissolve into milk is soy lecithin — a product produced by DuPont. So the lesson is like: "Learn about soy lecithin, and also, enjoy chocolate milk." The influence is definitely there and pretty obvious.
HCN You spent a lot of time with 4-H families to research this book. Did they have opinions about these companies funding 4-H curricula?
KB What 4-H looks like depends on the community that a particular club (is in). It's not like the National 4-H Council telling them exactly what they have to learn. There's curricula that National 4-H Council publishes and people use them. But I think that probably if you looked at 4-H clubs where the hogs are raised in the middle of the country, you'd probably see different hog-raising practices than you'd see here in California.
KB I'd have to check that, but I think they have funded 4-H in the past, if not currently. A lot of companies think of this as an investment in future employees. They see this massive youth development program promising to train a whole work force in science and tech skills. And if the companies can influence what seven million kids are learning, the values that they're being taught, that's an excellent opportunity from the company's perspective.
I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing. But if they're learning about how great soy lecithin is and forming positive associations with this particular biotechnology, for better or for worse, they're going to bring those values with them as they go through school and enter the workforce.
HCN In the book, you discuss sustainability, and you quote a 4-Her saying that, "No one is willing to admit that the fundamental purpose in teaching kids to raise animals, and to produce animals for market and a sustainable community, got lost somewhere." Will you explain this?
KB In order to achieve what some people have described as "Arnold Schwarzenegger pigs," there's a lot of pressure for these kids to use things like ractopamine, and other feed additives that have hilarious names like Sumo and Explode. First of all, it can be bad for the animals' health. But also, the meat doesn't taste very good. So, I think that Sally was saying in that quote that the original goal of making an animal that tastes good and is responsibly raised has been lost in this contest to make the biggest, prettiest pig.
HCN Has that followed what's going on in mainstream America in terms of growing foods for size and transportability, but without much flavor?
KB In some ways, judging trends for livestock shows follow culinary trends. It used to be that judges were looking for pigs that were all muscle and had very little fat, which was back in the '90s low fat craze era. But now that bacon is having this incredible moment, judges favor pigs that have big bellies.
HCN How will 4-H look in the future; what's changing for the organization?
KB I see in California a lot more interest in sustainable livestock raising. I've heard so many people express the desire to have a (new) category at fair, with organically raised or consumer satisfaction in mind. There's also a big push to do a lot of science, technology, engineering and math; making robots or learning about GPS.
And the international stuff is also interesting. (4-H is now becoming widespread in Ghana.) It remains to be seen whether these 4-H clubs will really take off in Africa in a big way. Agriculture in general in Africa is changing so fast, so it will be interesting got see whether 4-H shapes it the way it shaped agriculture here in the United States.
Tay Wiles is the online editor of High Country News. She tweets @taywiles. Photographs of California 4-Hers by Rafael Roy.
]]>Tohannie has lived her entire life on Black Mesa, an arid, tawny chunk of land once veined with glittering coal and now studded with slag heaps and waste ponds. Both Hopi and Navajo claim it among their ancestral homelands; before Europeans showed up, the tribes' relationship was "one largely of peaceful co-existence and intertribal cooperation," writes historian and Navajo activist John Redhouse. The Hopi lived in agricultural villages atop the mesa, while the more transient Navajo grazed their livestock below.
When the U.S. government forced Navajo into internment in the 1860s, those who managed to escape fled to what's now Hopi land at Black Mesa. Later, encroachment from white settlers forced more Navajo onto the Hopi reservation, and what eventually became an ongoing, century-long land dispute was birthed. It culminated in the 1974 Navajo-Hopi Land Settlement Act, which drew an arbitrary line down the center of Black Mesa, splitting it between the two tribes. Navajos living on Hopi land were forced to relocate, as were Hopi living on Navajo land.
Ultimately, more than 12,000 Navajos were forced from their homes, compared to just 100 or so Hopis. It was the largest forced relocation since the 1880s.
But some Navajo families refused to leave. They became known as the resistance, and in 1996 were granted the right to stay on the land they'd occupied for generations — as long as they signed a 75-year lease and agreed to abide by Hopi laws. At least seven families, including the Tohannies, refused to sign, unwilling to undermine their right to live in perpetuity on the land their ancestors had grazed.
Meanwhile, a debate over natural resources that would deepen the Hopi-Navajo divide was escalating. The same lawyer who negotiated the land settlement was also working for Peabody Coal, and in the 1960s, the company began strip mining Black Mesa and building the country's first coal slurry pipeline over countless Hopi cultural sites. The project also depleted a billion gallons of groundwater a year for decades, which some blame for exacerbating the effects of the current drought. Roberta Blackgoat, another Black Mesa elder, expressed a widely-held sentiment when she told journalist Jerry Kammer that "it is our feeling and the feeling of our Moqui (Hopi) allies that the American government created the land dispute so that it would be easier for American energy corporations to exploit the vast mineral resources in the land."
That's the history. What's happening today is no less fraught. And no one knows that better than Clayton Honyumptewa, director of the Hopi's Department of Natural Resources.
Honyumptewa is used to being the bad guy: For the past 28 years, he's been charged with the unpleasant task of making sure that traditional sheepherders abide by Hopi rules and keep their herds below 28 sheep. Many Navajo resisters consider this number unfair, and herds of 200 or more aren't unheard of. So periodically, Honyumptewa forces families to cut back or have their sheep impounded. In 1998, he helped the Bureau of Indian Affairs cut the number of livestock from 23,000 to 10,000.
But since then, the number has again grown, and the reservation has been desiccated by drought. "We haven't had any good rains or snowfall," Honyumptewa says. "The number of animals has depleted the vegetation, which has caused a lot of erosion. It's getting worse and worse."
So in late October, Honyumptewa decided to put his foot down. "We've given up too much already," he says. "We've lost a lot of land and it's time that we say this is it: We've got to save our land and resources."
Hopi rangers identified 43 Hopi ranchers and roughly 35 Navajo who were exceeding grazing permits, and issued citations. Those who didn't reduce their flocks had sheep impounded — including Caroline Tohannie and her daughter, and several other Navajo elders.
But this is where the story diverges. Navajo activists say that all 65 of Tohannie's sheep were confiscated; Honyumptewa says only 56 were. Navajo say that their own elders, particularly those who didn't sign the lease agreement, were unfairly targeted; Honyumptewa says Navajo and Hopi were equally affected. Navajo say the sheep impoundments were sudden and violent; Honyumptewa says there was no violence and ample warning.
For now, Honyumptewa is respecting Navajo requests for a 40-day grace period, but after the holidays, he plans to go out again and make sure herds are within Hopi limits. "Sometimes I don't sleep thinking about (this)," he says. "A lot of (these families) have become real good friends and I feel for them, but the law's the law and we have to carry it out."
Navajo activists are continuing to protest the impoundments. "These women are elders," said one woman who asked not to be named. "They don't speak English, they don't read or write. The way they've raised their livestock is based on traditional knowledge, not conventional agricultural practices, and they've done well and managed their flocks all these years." Now, she adds, their lives are being torn out from under their feet.
It's tempting to conclude that the current situation represents the dying embers of a long and bitter land dispute, but that may not be the case. The threads of history that have created this knot and the arbitrary fences built in the desert are not so easily untangled. "We're completely surrounded (by the Navajo reservation)," Honyumptewa says. "We're not going anywhere and the Navajo aren't going anywhere. It's not going to end here."
Krista Langlois is an editorial fellow at High Country News.
In mid-November, 139 brucellosis-free animals were transferred to the Fort Peck Indian Reservation in northeast Montana. With bison from a 2012 transfer, Fort Peck's herd of Yellowstone bison will now be almost 200 strong, the largest outside the park. The Fort Peck tribes aim to increase the herd to 1,000, the estimated number needed to restore their historic impact on the landscape. Unlike the 2012 transfer, which ranchers tried to stop in court, this relocation has attracted little vocal opposition, says Defenders of Wildlife's Jonathan Proctor. "It shows the tremendous progress that's been made."
Disagreements like the one in Battle Mountain are hardly novel in Western politics. But this week, a new tool to understand livestock impact on public lands was thrown into the mix. Washington, DC-based non-profit Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) released an interactive map that collates over 45,000 BLM records that diagnose 20,000 allotments. The map is seven years in the making, the result of Freedom of Information Act requests PEER and Western Watersheds Project put to the BLM.
According to the map, 29 percent of allotted land, or 16 percent of the number of allotments, has failed to meet BLM standards of rangeland health due to impacts of livestock. Those assessments are based on a specific set of criteria, including things like watershed conditions, water quality, soil health and habitat for at-risk species.
In addition to looking at the macro-scale numbers of how much land has passed the BLM health test, the new map shows satellite images of each individual allotment—a way to "sky truth," as PEER puts it, what the agency is reporting. So, if the BLM says a piece of land is doing just fine, or if the BLM claims the landscape is taking a beating, anyone can zoom in to look for themselves and get details like the number of cattle on how many acres. Soil and vegetation disturbances from mining, agriculture, livestock or off-road vehicles are visible in the satellite images. A group of allotments in eastern Montana, for instance, are categorized as healthy, but are also clearly being used to grow crops. And they're sitting in prime habitat for Greater sage grouse—a species that U.S. Fish & Wildlife is currently considering listing as endangered. (There's an optional map layer that allows you to overlay grouse habitat.) PEER Advocacy Director Kirsten Stade says examples like this raise the question of how an area dedicated to crops or livestock could be considered "meeting all standards," when the majority of native vegetation has been supplanted.
In some cases, the map shows a whole bunch of unhealthy, red-tinted, allotments butting against green-tinted, healthy ones. That kind of scenario may be an indication that adjacent district offices are interpreting rangeland health differently and calling "healthy" what the manager next door may deem "unhealthy" or vice versa, even though they're in the same ecosystem with similar needs. In the case of Argenta, where the cowboy express came from, the fact that the allotment in question (which itself appears to have an incomplete assessment and tinted grey) is surrounded by either red or un-assessed land "suggests that maybe Doug Furtado wasn't so far off in his call that grazing needed to be reduced on this allotment," Stade said.
For its part, the BLM responded to an initial PEER report from 2012 with qualms about the non-profit's methodology. In any given unhealthy allotment, there may be a number of acres that are actually healthy, despite the fact the parcel on the whole is deemed a failure. But the non-profit was grouping all acres as unhealthy, which the BLM said skewed the data to be worse than it actually was. The BLM website says that the agency is creating its own mapping system that will show rangeland health acre-by-acre, instead of by allotment.
The agency also says it has "taken action to correct grazing management on 86 percent of the 1,925 allotments where livestock grazing was determined to be the cause for not meeting land health standards."
One reason PEER is publicizing the new data set is to push the BLM to be more consistent in its rangeland health evaluations. The agency is supposed to complete assessments of each allotment every decade, but many of the allotments PEER inquired about had reports that were 15 years old or more. The project is also meant to bring information together that, until now, has been scattered throughout district field offices across the country, PEER says. Tools like this one could help the land agency take a more landscape-scale approach to management, looking at full watersheds rather than just one piece at a time. And best-case scenario, these types of tools will add another layer of real information to the often emotion-driven debates around public land use in the West.For more High Country News coverage of public lands debates, see our recent investigation, Defuse the West, which looks at threats to public-land employees and confrontations with local land users.
Tay Wiles is the online editor at High Country News. Homepage photo of the Argenta allotment in Nevada courtesy Western Watersheds Project. Follow @taywiles
]]>He's still having fun, but for different reasons. Today, Gonzalez manages a modest herd of 200 beef cows on the Jornada Experimental Range, a long-term ecological and agricultural research site near Las Cruces, New Mexico, where grass is scarce, and water scarcer. Occasionally, he says, fellow ranchers ask: "What the hell are you doing?"
Such skepticism is directed primarily at the animals he raises. When Gonzalez parks next to a wood-and-wire corral, it's obvious there's something different about them. They are speckled and streaked with brown, black and white, have horns that spiral as they age, bony frames, and a name that is endlessly fun to recite. These are criollo cows. (Try it: cree-oh-yo.) One stares at us with dewy eyes, then cranes her neck and scratches her auburn face with a long hind leg, rather like a dog.
Criollo are unusually leggy. They are also unusually small, anathema to the bigger-is-better philosophy that drives the beef industry. Gonzalez's criollo top out near 1,000 pounds, a few hundred pounds less than conventional beef cows. Corporate meatpackers won't buy them. Rick Estell, an animal scientist with whom Gonzalez collaborates, says raising criollo is "kind of like raising sheep if you're a cow man."
But in the criollo, Gonzalez sees only potential: an animal that could rescue ranching and rangelands in the Southwest from their failing marriage to Angus and Hereford, the dominant British beef breeds. "Things are bad," he says bluntly. "Everybody's going broke. Everybody's running out of grass. It's all dry. Never are we going to get the same money for criollo as a big animal, but our costs will be lower. And at the same time, I think we'll be saving our land."
Criollo were brought to the New World on Christopher Columbus' second voyage in the late 1400s. (The word describes people or animals of Spanish ancestry born in the Americas.) The cows were eventually introduced and adopted from Tierra del Fuego to the Northern Rockies, and were established in the American Southwest by Spanish conquistadors in the late 1500s.
People kept criollo for milk, meat, leather, grease and draft. The hardy cows — often free-roaming and seldom selectively bred — adapted to their new environment primarily via natural selection. They required little water, subsisted on available forage, and could withstand hot weather. Texas longhorns, Florida cracker cattle, and corriente sport ropers are among their descendants.
Criollo in the Southwest started to be phased out with the introduction of British breeds during the late 1800s and early 1900s, when the modern beef industry took off, spurred by expanding railroads and beef demand in Eastern markets. But the newcomers were hard on the desert, and the desert was hard on them. Large livestock need a lot of food. Productive grasslands and inexpensive feed made the enterprise viable for a time. But unsustainable stocking rates during the droughts of the 1880s, 1910s and 1950s ravaged the grasslands, which are now dominated by mesquite and creosote, shrubs that most cattle and wildlife won't eat. And supplemental feed is no longer cheap.
Around 2000, Ed Fredrickson, a former livestock researcher at the Jornada, became convinced that with the landscape beaten up, feed and fuel costs and global temperatures rising, Southwestern ranchers needed to change, raising smaller animals that could tolerate heat, eat less and more broadly, and move more to minimize overgrazing of native grasses.
To aid his search for a desert-friendly cow, Fredrickson hired Gonzalez, who had recently returned to the U.S. Fredrickson already had his eye on criollo. "To me, it made sense to work with this animal with 400 years of adaption to the Southwest — if we could find it," he explains. "We were losing the genetics." (Longhorns, for instance, have criollo blood, but also that of other cows.) Fredrickson had been working with Mexican livestock geneticist Jose Rios, whose DNA analysis of criollos throughout northern Mexico uncovered only two populations with unpolluted genetics — pure descendants of the conquistadors' cows. One was in Baja California, a state the U.S. wouldn't allow livestock imports from. But it would be possible to draw from the other population, kept by the Tarahumara Indians and Mestizos in the Sierra Madre.
The pair took trips to the region to check out animals. Fredrickson noticed the cows eating forbs and trees, and relatively little grass. Once, in Copper Canyon, Gonzalez spotted an animal perched on the steep and rocky canyon wall. "I thought it was a goat," he recalls. Peering through his binoculars, he was surprised to discover it was a cow. "This is something we can work with!" he thought.
They wanted a "rugged animal," and in the hottest depths of Copper Canyon, they found one. The criollo was a good size. Some were semi-feral and rounded up only when needed, while others seemed like pets. They were docile, wandering in and out of people's huts and tolerating herding by small children with sticks. The cow's long, strong legs let it navigate the canyon with ease. Gonzalez and Fredrickson thought the breed could manage the Southwest's mountains and deserts and traipse long distances through sand, a laborious task for the massive British cows with their stubbier legs.
They selected and purchased 30 cows and three bulls, and in 2001, in a Jeep with no brakes, Fredrickson drove them two to three at a time to the village of Temoris, loaded them onto train cars and accompanied them to Chihuahua. "We were supposed to stop at the cattle facilities, but didn't," Fredrickson recalls. "So I'm moving cattle from downtown Chihuahua. It took some trucks, some tequila and a few things like that."
Add in time for disease testing, bureaucracy and corruption, and it took about a year to get the cows to the Jornada, where Fredrickson began to evaluate their habits. His early studies showed that criollo spend less time near water than British breeds, graze fewer hours and over more diverse terrain, and remain active during extreme heat. That might be because they store fat around their kidneys, rather than only under their hide, and thus retain less heat.
Now, a new phase of research will look more closely at their eating habits and investigate how economical criollo are, and whether there's a market for the beef. There's anecdotal evidence that criollo will eat more of the shrubs and tougher grasses on degraded grasslands, but no hard data yet on whether that amounts to a statistically different use of the landscape.
"A lot of people say, 'Why don't we go back to buffalo?' " Gonzalez muses, bracing himself against the fence. "Well, in dry lands, why don't we go back to criollo?" Gonzalez is cognizant of the argument that no cow belongs in the desert, but believes that with light stocking rates and large pastures, criollo can have a minimal footprint. For that to be true, Fredrickson notes, landscapes still need ample resting time during and after droughts. And there are trade-offs. Because criollo travel well, they also probably spread shrub seeds more widely. Still, says the animal scientist Estell, "If you're doing less damage to the landscape and can still produce some beef, it seems like a win-win."
It has been for Dennis Moroney of The 47 Ranch in southern Arizona, who is converting his whole herd to criollo. Drought and the changing climate caused Moroney to cut his herd to half the size it was a decade ago to help maintain vegetation. Raising criollo, which he finishes and sells without a middleman, has kept him afloat despite the reduction. They range well over Moroney's rugged terrain, browse shrubs, cactus, trees and grasses, calve easily, fall ill rarely and get little supplemental feed. "But the acid test for our business," says Moroney, "is do our customers like the meat?"
It's tender and beautifully marbled, Moroney reports, and farmers market and co-op customers accept smaller cuts — a 7 or 8 oz. ribeye. Moroney tells them about the animals' historical relationship to the Southwest, "but the main pitch is that it tastes fabulously," he says. "It's a little earthier than conventional beef, maybe even floral," says David Smith, executive chef at Criollo Latin Kitchen in Flagstaff, deconstructing it like a fine wine. "You can kind of taste the grass in it" — or mesquite and prickly pear, as it may be.
]]>That's what one audience member told a panel of five farmers this week at a conference of the National Young Farmers Coalition in Durango, Colorado. Though the three-day event was mostly a chance for Western farmers to discuss the future of agriculture and learn about conserving water in the face of ongoing drought, the message came down to one thing: It's the soil, stupid.
For the last half-century, the trend in U.S. agriculture has been toward bigger farms, more advanced machinery and higher yields. While the argument can be made that such advances have helped feed our growing population, they've also degraded the soil. "We can't keep farming the way we've been farming," says Brendon Rockey, a potato farmer from Center, Colorado. "We just don't have the resources to maintain it."
The biggest resource that's lacking is also the most essential: water. With southwestern cities like Phoenix and Los Angeles getting ever larger, the over-stressed Colorado River may become even more taxed. And while it's not entirely fair for upstream farmers to cut back so that someone in L.A. can keep watering their lawn, agriculture is by far the biggest draw on western watersheds, and many farmers realize that the West's ability to survive persistent drought may depend on their ability to conserve water.
One way to do that is by taking care of the soil. A one percent increase in organic material over an acre can save up to 27,000 gallons of water — and pesticides, herbicides and other extensions of industrial ag kill the beneficial microbes that build organic material. Hence, GMO monocultures typically use more water than farms that employ techniques like cover cropping, crop rotation and no-till practices. That doesn't mean a rejection of technology — even small farms today are often incredibly high-tech — but it could represent a fundamental shift. There's "a growing demographic of young, beginning farmers — farmers by choice, not by heritage — who have committed themselves to small-scale agriculture," writes Lauren Markham in the November issue of Orion magazine. "Often with strong educational backgrounds and urban or suburban upbringings, these young people have chosen their vocation over many other options available to them, and … they've done it largely out of a deep environmental ethic."
Nonetheless, it's not just small, organic farms building better soil. Large farms — arguably necessary for the economy of scale they provide — can be good stewards, too, through many of the same methods. "There's room for both," says farmer Mike Nolan of Mountain Roots Produce in Mancos, Colorado. "Ten thousand acres of GMO corn is unsustainable, but so is one acre with 40 different kinds of veggies dug with a hand tool"— meaning, no one's going to stay in business or feed many people with the latter.
Plus, young farmers aren't alone in doing things differently. George Whitten, a third-generation, 61-year rancher from Colorado's San Luis Valley, was on hand this week to school young farmers on how combining pre-industrial practices with modern technology can help them survive drought. His own story is a case study: In 2005, after years of drought, many of his farmer-neighbors began planting cover crops by necessity, to conserve moisture and prevent their dry dirt from blowing away. At the same time, the public rangeland where Whitten had been grazing his cattle became almost too barren to support them. So Whitten began asking farmers if he could graze his cows on their cover-cropped fields.
Farmers who agree are paid for every pound of beef the animals gain on their land, plus they reap the benefits of soil improved by free nitrogen from the cow manure. Whitten, for his part, saves the expense of making hay, gets to know his neighbors, and feels he's contributing to the overall ecologic health of the valley. A decade ago, "it was impossible," he says, to get farmers on board with his crazy plan. But "the drought has forced us to do things we never imagined." And that, he says, gives him hope.
Krista Langlois is an editorial fellow at High Country News. She tweets @KristaLanglois2.


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text:
Generals hold off Northview
JEREMY WADSWORTH Enlarge
Anthony Wayne girls basketball coach Justin Zemanski did not ask anyone in particular to elevate her game after recently losing a key starter to a season-ending injury.
Yet, several members of the defending Northern Lakes League champion team responded with some of their best play of the season last night.
The result: a 43-32 home victory over Northview to keep the Generals tied with Perrysburg in first place.
Allison Papenfuss paced the Generals with
another double-double performance, scoring 12 points and grabbing 10 rebounds.
But Papenfuss received plenty of assistance.
Ashley Bromley scored 11 points while Erika Schmidt finished with eight. Ja'Neisha Galloway, who started in place of injured Jordan Floyd
(knee), scored two points and also contributed six rebounds and five steals.
"I can't say enough about Erika Schmidt, who was playing at 75 percent, and Ashley Bromley," Zemanski said. "Ashley had her best game of the year. The kids faced adversity and met it head on."
JEREMY WADSWORTH Enlarge
The Generals (13-2, 8-1 NLL) took the lead midway through the first quarter and maintained it for the rest of the night, even when Papenfuss sat out all of the second quarter after picking up her second foul with two minutes remaining in the first quarter.
"The bottom line is we just couldn't make any shots," Northview coach Jerry Sigler said. "They played the second quarter without Allison and we couldn't capitalize on it."
Olivia Fouty had 15 points and five rebounds to lead Northview (11-4, 6-3 NLL). Katelyn Dobson added eight points and five
Papenfuss scored eight of her points in the second half after her built a 23-19 lead going into halftime.
"I can not say enough about them," Papenfuss said. "They stepped up today and proved to everyone we're not a one-player team. We proved tonight that everyone can contribute.
"They played great in the second quarter, but it was tough watching on the bench."
Both teams struggled in the second quarter with only 10 points scored - five for each team. Kelsey Conklin accounted for all of AW's points, including a 3-pointer to give the Generals a 21-16 lead with 3:26 left.
Conklin scored on a breakaway layup off an assist from Galloway to make it a four-point lead with a minute remaining.
Fouty scored Northview's only two baskets during the period, while Paige Maroney made 1 of 2 foul shots.
"That's the sign of a good team when other players step up," said Sigler.
AW trailed 7-5 when Bromley knocked down a 3-pointer with 4:39 left in the opening quarter to start a decisive 9-0 run.
Erika Schmidt followed with a layup off a Northview turnover to give AW a 10-7 advantage with 3:56 left in the period.
Papenfuss made it 12-7. Schmidt followed with another hard drive to the basket to give the Generals a seven-point advantage with 2:57 remaining.
But the Wildcats closed the quarter with a 5-2 spurt to end up trailing 16-12 after one quarter. The Generals played the final two minutes of the second quarter without Papenfuss after she was called for her second foul.
In the third quarter, when Papenfuss returned, Anthony Wayne outscored Northview 10-7 to take a 33-26 lead into the fourth quarter.
The Generals never allowed the Wildcats to pull any closer than three in the final period.
Contact Donald Emmons at: firstname.lastname@example.com or 419-724-6302.


text:
Are the gates arount functional now? :3
Freelancer modifier, 3d modeller (beginner), Music editor (rookie). I'm working on a mod for Freelancer called "Edge of Chaos" so if you wanna help, please send me a PM.
Are the gates arount functional now? :3
Basically the colors are typical Corsair. I just took the originally used textures. The thing on top is the main cannon, as seen on a Liberty cruiser, but smaller. This gun will also rotate horizontally, so it won't be fully forward-fire concentrated.
This project will go with me to the grave :P
The maps remind me a lot of Red Faction: Armageddon
Thanks! Once the testing session is over (in the beginning of the next month) I'll start developing the rest of the missions.
Is the mod like... gonna weight a TB or something?
In matter of fact, a Test version is already here!
Hi there mate! Are you a part of some modding group or something?
Allow me to give a suggestion: A brust of energy coming out of both sides and then coming back in, Stargate style but not water. That would be really epic IMO.
It looks pretty awesome so far!
Are you working on a new opening sequence effect?
Is it going to replace the classic SL Boridin model?
Why does the music sound so familiar?
I remember some time ago I found some mod that changes the SP and gameplay itself, I have no idea what is the name of this mod and I searched the whole database of downloads related to freelancer here on ModDB, and didn't find something even close to it. Did the mod just vanish? Or maybe I only imagined it?
May I ask a little question:
Why Pleiades?
How do you do those things?
Interesting how it somehow went near the original direction of the old project announced as "Freelancer 2" by MS, in which they planned to remake the original one with major changes in the gameplay, keeping the storyline and adding new chapters.
Isn't it one of your old things?
Would love to fly into it :P
Preformance patch *_*
I like the sound of this :)
It was the moment after I got bored and disconnected...
Well, I like the idea.
BTW a little bug report: When I minimize the game (alt+tab) it makes my screen black and keeps playing the music, and then I can't come back to the game. Maybe its a problem with the resolution? (1680x1050)
The Pirate Bay eh? Ain't this place illeagal?
Anyway, I love what you did with the game! You made so much improvements to the engine that you can call it Freelancer Engine 2.0!
You know, I'm not that sure its possible to do on purpose mate :)
Hey, could anyone report a bug on The-Starport's registration page for me? I tried registering and it didn't show the verification code image, no matter how much I refresh it... Now, none of the chat links worked, so I have no way to report it other then here... Thanks for the helpers!
You know, it could be a mod... ;)
Still banned from TSP T_T
The explosions are missing something - Debris.
Way better than the older version!
In fact, it doesn't even look safe at all!
You don't spoil anything, whoever played the SP knows it!
Anyway, this one is worth not spoiling.
BTW the model looks kinda familiar from somewhere... Did you "borrow" it from some other game or movie?
If it only was a bar...
Anyway, I was surprised to find it in a non-biotic looking station.
A red ring in Sol? Or it isn't sol?
An unstable biotical structure that somehow survives in space...
You know, I never understood the concept of biotical stations. No biotical structure can stand in a vaccum without being toren to pieces!
Show us something we didn't see yet ;)
Isn't it Discovery's Liberty Assault Cruiser?
Trust me, its better then it looks like!
BTW theres a misspell in the last row - with very released version. Very -> Every.
Well, IMO its just too vivid, almost as much as it is when its uncloaked. You could try to change the shader to something less popping out to the eye, or play with the texture...
The ship is too visible in Cloak mode. Can you increase the occupacity?
Edited with: Photoshop.
Maybe, or maybe not...
If TK dies, this one comes to live.
Problem solved, the modding goes on.
Well done! BTW some 3D wouldn't hurt... I recommand on Unity engine!
Well, does it blend in now?
Right, the IMG ones look just not comfortable... Anyway, I think the GMG one was better (the 1st pic).
What will blend in here in your opinion?
Ages 4+ eh?
Found that in my 100GB archive of jokes and funny stuff.
This is just an example. I'm still thinking what picture to put: The mod's logo or a picture of MilkyWay galaxy...
Yeah, SURPRISE!!! Its just that theres no use for those models, so I re-exported them as solars. Yes, I'm that bored.
Really? I think its not that good...
I got stock with this gunbost, so I decided to do what I know best: Merge! I took the middle of Liberty Freighter, and added Liberty Cruiser and Battleship elements.
Any more suggestions before I export?(No I won't make another one)
You see, I could use the same model in 88Flak, and also ask for premission to use models from many different mods, but I want it original, and original it will be!
Since neither one of them looks Liberty (even to me), then there won't be any Liberty Gunboat until I get it right.
I think its better without the wingies...
If you don't like it I'll make another option.
Pokemon card? Why???
First of all, a background pic of the galaxy.
Cool!!! Will the view have a possibility of rotation to see the cityscape?
Click on "read more +" for full information.
Can't wait to see those on 3D!
BTW my advice for you is to draw the concept with a pencil. It will be more clear.
Ok I'll add it.
Since I don't know what are you talking about, the answer is no. But it will have HD textures.
As you can see, there are some glitches with the ring's orientation, but I'll try to fix it.
How did you make the holes? With a paper piercer?
Right, video/picture is better! In words describing people can imagine different looks, but if there is a picture, all those who see it know how it looks like.
That hurts a bit, don't you think?
This comment has been posted in a private group.
What can I make better? Where can I find a good jump effect?
Hey there group! Have time for other mods? send me a PM.
Can I use your textures in my mod? or it is only for 88Flak?
REQUEST FROM ADMIN: please delete this mod
The music is nice, but i can swear i heared it somewhere ealse...
What's your point?
You work on it alone?
Tell it to the HD mod creator.
This model is optional. The mod might not include it.
This model is optional. The mod might not include it.
Got my PM? So, what do you know to do?
I'm working on a mod for Freelancer called "Knowledge Of Sirius" so if u wanna help, please send me an e-mail.


text:
Tropic Thunder Photo Gallery
Tropic Thunder finds Ben Stiller as pampered action superstar Tugg Speedman, who is cast in the biggest, most expensive war movie ever produced. Heading out to Southeast Asia with a celebrity cast, including Kirk Lazarus (Robert Downey Jr.), an intense, three-time Oscar®-winning actor, and Jeff Portnoy (Jack Black), star of the popular gross-out comedy franchise The Fatties, the actors are soon thrown into a real-life situation and are forced to become the fighting unit they're portraying, in order to find a way out of the jungle in one piece. Tropic Thunder is released in September. Check out these early photos…
Roll your mouse over the left and right-hand sides of the image and then click to view more pictures.
Read our review of Tropic Thunder or our interviews with Robert Downey Jr, Ben Stiller and Jack Black
Alternatively, check out photos from the UK premiere
Recent Galleries:
- Disney's Frozen Fever Photo Gallery
- Focus - Margot Robbie Photo Gallery
- Focus (Will Smith/Margot Robbie) Photo Gallery
- The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel Photo Gallery
- Spectre: Rome Photo Call (Daniel Craig and Monica Bellucci)
- The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel Royal Film Performance Photo Gallery
- The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (Henry Cavill/Armie Hammer) First-look Photo Gallery
- Focus (Will Smith/Margot Robbie) UK Premiere Photo Gallery
- Daughter of God (Keanu Reeves) First-look Photo Gallery
- The Cobbler (Adam Sandler/Dustin Hoffman) First-look Photo Gallery


text:
Jumpstart Your Screenplay or Novel
Would you like to bring your imagination to life on the page? Join a professional female writer as you learn the tips and techniques of fiction and script writing. Spend some time getting in-depth with idea generation, character, setting, plot, and writing beginnings. Great supplemental program for the Screenwriter and Novelist Badges.
Date: | March 29, 2014 |
Time: | 9am-12pm |
Program Level: | |
Grades: | 6-10 |
Category: | |
Location: | Valley Forge Program Center 100 Juliette Low Way, Valley Forge |
Fee: | $14 per girl |


text:
Bernard (Bernie) J. LeBlancUpdated September 15, 2001 |
Bernard J LeBlanc |
613-830-8171 email@example.com |
Edit Your Page |
I am researching the LeBlanc family from Margaree Forks, Inv. Co., Cape Breton, Nova Scota. My family research has included records from the Margaree community, local books on genealogy, and the history of Margaree. Most of my records have come from the internet and the Family Tree Maker (FMT). The LeBlanc family of Dennis and Rose Esther had a reunion in July 2001. |
The content shown on this page has been submitted by a Genealogy.com customer, and is not subject to verification by Genealogy.com. Neither Genealogy.com nor its affiliates are responsible for the accuracy of any information contained on this page. The opinions expressed on this page are the author's alone and not the opinions of Genealogy.com.
© 2009 Ancestry.com |


text:
Joan & Lynette Antique Dolls and Accessories
Lynette Gross or Joan Farrell, Carmel & Indianapolis, IN
This little charmer is the oriental mold 1199 of Simon & Halbig. She has the deep character modeling and arched eyebrows of an Asian child as well as the slightly yellow cast to the bisque and to her composition body. She has a five piece body with molded and painted shoes. She has brown glass sleep eyes and an open mouth with teeth. She is wearing an antique silk costume that is sewn on and most likely original. She has a hat made of black crepe paper with embellishment. Some of the paper has worn off the top showing the cotton stuffing. If I was the new owner I would carefully patch it with black crepe paper. I don't make that kind of decision for our customers as it would also be fine left alone. Her head appears perfect although I did not remove the glued on fragile hat.
Item ID: JF-012-A020
Antique dolls of high quality at fair prices backed by expertise and professionalism, sold with love
No flowers or candy on Valentine's Day? Buy yourself a doll! See our many new items and "Spring cleaning" price reductions!!


text:
In This Section
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Audibility of a CD-Standard A/DA/A Loop Inserted into High-Resolution Audio Playback - September 2007
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AES E-Library
An Open Dataset for Research on Audio Field Recording Archives: freefield1010
We introduce a free and open dataset of 7690 audio clips sampled from the field-recording tag in the Freesound audio archive. The dataset is designed for use in research related to data mining in audio archives of field recordings / soundscapes. Audio is standardised, and audio and metadata are Creative Commons licensed. We describe the data preparation process, characterise the dataset descriptively, and illustrate its use through an auto-tagging experiment.
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In Stencil Type, Steven Heller and Louise Fili explore the variety and influence of the world's most ubiquitous typographic style.
Steven Heller
Elbert Hubbard's Little Title Pages
Steven Heller takes a look at Elbert Hubbard's series "Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great," which was published monthly for 14 straight years.
Give My Regards to Broadway
Broadway Magazine covered the beauties and cuties of the stage beginning in 1891. To tickle your show lust, here are two issues.
Secret Society Stickers
Steven Heller takes a look at the coats of arms of secret societies around the world, circa 1900.
Institutional Racism
Steven Heller takes a look at institutional racism in the United States via packaging and book covers.
Weekend Heller: Type, Rome, Summer
If you love type and love Rome, you'll love SVA's Masters Workshop.
Design Selfie, 1957
What's a design or designer selfie? Take a look at this one by Philadelphia designer Matthew Leibowitz.
Wanted: Visual Journalists
Reportager and Moleskine have teamed up to present a new award for visual journalists.
Rare Design in Midtown
Glenn Horowitz Bookseller has a new Manhattan gallery, and a new exhibit—"Matter/Giacometti."
Tomi Ungerer, Provacateur
Steven Heller reveals what he learned while interviewing legendary illustrator, writer and social advocate Tomi Ungerer.


text:
Talk:Dinka people
WikiProject Africa / South Sudan / Sudan | (Rated Start-class, Top-importance) | ||||||||||||||||||||||
WikiProject Ethnic groups | (Rated Start-class) | |||||||||||||||||||||
Alphabet Display issues[edit]
The extended characters do not display on most computers due to limited Unicode support for the Dinka alphabet. A bitmap alternative should be provided Softgrow 00:59, 23 August 2005 (UTC)
- They weren't showing up in IE due to a limitation in IE's font handling, but I've added the Unicode template to the characters in question which works around the problem. Unicode itself doesn't have "limited support", just IE or the user's fonts. The characters are in the font Arial Unicode MS, which is commonly included with Microsoft Office, or several freely downloadable Unicode fonts. You can add a {{SpecialChars}} notice if you feel this needs to be explained in the article. DopefishJustin (・∀・) 20:01, August 23, 2005 (UTC)
Actually, you need OpenType fonts with support for combining diacritics. Arial Unicode MS can not support two of the uppercase characters that require combining diacritics.
Move to Language[edit]
Don't you think that alphabet+ should be moved to the language article? Koryakov Yuri 18:01, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
Picture from s:The New Student's Reference Work[edit]
Here is link to a portrait circa 1914 for when the article expands further: Image:NSRW Africa Dinka.png --Birgitte§β ʈ Talk 01:31, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
Suggested update in re Macharia Yuot[edit]
On the list of prominent members of the Dinka tribe, can someone include the runner Macharia Yuot? He is a distance runner at NCAA Div III Widener University. He recently won the 10k, 3k steeplechase, and 5k at the Div III track & field championships - the first runner in any division to win all three of those in the same year. http://sports.espn.go.com/ncaa/news/story?id=2466635&lpos=spotlight&lid=tab2pos1
I'd do the editing myself, but I'm afraid I'd muck up the page. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.8.131.52 (talk • contribs) 00:15, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
Ref Maasai[edit]
Two errors in the information here:
- the Maasai are not River and Lake Nilotes, as alleged here - they are Plains Nilotes (see http://www.bluegecko.org/kenya/contexts/nilotes.htm, and http://www.kenyafilmcommission.com/Home/Facts-&-Figures. Maasai are pastoralists, and have never inhabited riverine / lake regions. In Kenya and Tanzania, they inhabit some of the most arid sections of the two countries.
- the Maasai are not the tallest group in East Africa - not by a long shot. The Tutsi are far taller, and even the Kalenjin are probably taller. The Maasai are perhaps more famous, but they are not very imposing vertically!
Wanyonyi (talk) 07:02, 20 December 2009 (UTC)
1991 Southeastern Dinka Massacre[edit]
This section levels accusations against Riek Machar that need to be documented from reliable sources. Pending such documentation, I have tagged the section as failing in neutrality. Awien (talk) 18:18, 3 May 2010 (UTC)
- It's a really badly documented event but it happened. The Dinka are very bitter about it. It's hard to find a proper source but Google books as a mini achieve of texts with their numbers. The range appears to be from 2,000 to 3,000, obviously not the previously linked 69,000. Secondat of Orange (talk) 04:35, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
Cow Customs?[edit]
How come no mention of the practice of young boys orally stimulating cows and also the pratice of washing their hair with cow urine?
It was on national geographic: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQ8OSUXlpRw —Preceding unsigned comment added by 184.108.40.206 (talk) 02:01, 30 November 2010 (UTC)
- "This video has been removed as violation of Youtube's policy on nudity and sexual content" :P
- It's true but it's not a common phenomenon, hence not a ethnic image. The Cow urine thing however is most probably true. Secondat of Orange (talk) 04:39, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
Bad to worse[edit]
This entry just seems to get worse and worse every day. Non-neutral garbage gets removed, then put back in 20 edits later. No one can even decide what the various Dinka regions are called. References are added with no respect for guidelines, or even common sense. "Notable Dinka" invariably ends up looking like people's personal guest books of friends and relatives.
Someone knowledgeable really needs to go through this mess and make the entry readable and informative.
Horstvonludwig (talk) 11:33, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
- I completely agree. There's the JiangJang guy who just edits this page likes it's his personal site.
- Secondat of Orange (talk) 14:59, 14 March 2011 (UTC)
- ^ http;//www.sudancapcity.og
- Start-Class Africa articles
- Top-importance Africa articles
- Start-Class South Sudan articles
- Top-importance South Sudan articles
- WikiProject South Sudan articles
- Start-Class Sudan articles
- Top-importance Sudan articles
- WikiProject Sudan articles
- WikiProject Africa articles
- Start-Class Ethnic groups articles
- Unknown-importance Ethnic groups articles
- WikiProject Ethnic groups articles