Fall 2008

In this issue:

• Conservancy Rodeo Team  Rides for Glory
• City Kids and Cows: The Steels Fork Ranch
• The National Cowboy Poetry Gathering Turns 25!

Don’t Fence Me In: How Wildlife Friendly Fencing Can Change the West

“I’ve lived my whole life in this open country, and I’ve seen up to thirty and fifty head of deer and antelope at a time, moving all over these valleys.  Wildlife friendly fencing makes sense — it lets game animals move around and doesn’t impact your cattle operation.  It can be expensive, so cost-shares are important for private ranchers.” 
—Ed Elbrock (pictured above), Animas Valley, New Mexico 

Fencing is a high-cost, high-maintenance necessity of ranch life.  But it can wreak havoc on large skittish animals like bighorn sheep, elk and antelope that need lots of room to roam.  A study by Utah State University of more than 600 miles of rangeland fencing showed fences higher than 40 inches were responsible for 70 percent of all wildlife mortalities.

Elbrock and other ranchers throughout the West are taking action by putting “wildlife friendly" fencing on their properties with the help of cost-share programs from both public and private groups.

If you’re looking for information, the Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks Department has released “A Landowner’s Guide to Wildlife Friendly Fences:  How to Build a Fence with Wildlife in Mind,” which provides landowners with a step-by-step guide and rancher testimonials about how wildlife friendly fencing works on the ground. 

	Inch by Inch Simple solutions like raising the bottom fence wire 18 inches from the ground allows adults, fawns and calves to crawl under fences and travel as a herd. Download the manual.

Lynn Cornwell
The ranching industry nationwide mourns the loss of Lynn Cornwell, who died June 5 at the age of 57. A northeastern Montana cattle rancher, Lynn was president of the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association in 2001, and worked with The Nature Conservancy and other groups to develop the national Grassland Reserve Program. 

Round-Up

Restoration Row
Timothy Egan of the New York Times visits the heartland, and discovers that “there are people with us who still remember the Great Plains in its birthday suit, grass as far as the eye could see, what Walt Whitman called, 'that delicate miracle, the ever-recurring grass.'”

Better Ways to Water
USA Today reports that a collaborative approach to water use is helping farmers and ranchers.

Cattle ranching in South America's Pantanal — the world's largest freshwater wetlands.

Odds & Ends

Ranching and Climate Change
How will climate change affect drought, forage production and quality, species composition, and other aspects of rangeland ecosystems? How much carbon can well-managed rangelands sequester?

These questions were discussed when The Society for Range Management held a two-day workshop in Wyoming in early September with climate experts and ranchers.

January 24-31,2009
National Cowboy Poetry Gathering
Turns 25
The National Cowboy Poetry Gathering — America’s quintessential event honoring the western cowboy — is turning 25 in 2009. From January 24 to 31, the small community of Elko, Nevada, will overflow with thousands of cowboys and cowgirls, poets and musicians, artisans and scholars, rural people and city folks, in town for a grand celebration of the region’s ranching and rural culture.

“No kinder place exists than those where
land, laughter and the day stretch long.”

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