Selling Conservation
UW research reveals landowners’ surprising attitudes about conservation easements
Chris Bastian grew up working on his grandparents’ ranches in southeastern Wyoming every summer and thought he’d spend his life as a rancher.
Bee Ranching
Paying landowners to create and connect pollinator habitat
Bees are declining, and that’s bad news for ag producers.
The True Value of Flood Irrigation
What’s seen as wasteful water use has hidden benefits
Ranchers today in the Upper Green River Basin say they are modern-day beavers.
The Feedgrounds Conundrum
Brucellosis spreads as Wyoming tries to protect livestock
As he does every single morning from November into April, Bondurant, Wyoming, rancher Kevin Campbell leads his two draft horses, Ed and Smoke, out of their pen and harnesses them to the hay wagon to feed elk.
A Brief History of Brucellosis
~1887 – British physician David Bruce investigated a mysterious illness that killed four soldiers on the Mediterranean island of Malta
Measuring Return Flows
This story is a sidebar to One Irrigator’s Waste is Another’s Supply: Upstream Efficiencies Mean Less Water for Downstream Users in Nebraska’s Panhandle.
As a child in northeastern Wyoming, I remember my summers as irrigation season.
Wyoming Conservation Exchange
New Marketplace Will Reward Wyoming Ranchers for Conserving Sage Grouse Habitat
The Upper Green River Basin of Wyoming, at the headwaters of the Colorado River, is laced with clear running streams and fosters abundant habitat and some of the most robust greater sage grouse, mule deer, and pronghorn populations in the world.
One Irrigator’s Waste is Another’s Supply
Upstream Efficiencies Mean Less Water For Downstream Users in Nebraska’s Panhandle
On a warm summer morning in western Nebraska, 77-year-old farmer Bob Busch stood next to a sugar beet field in a worn denim shirt
Collaboration in Action
Wilderness and Livestock Advocates Advise US Forest Service on New Planning Rule
When Jim Magagna, Executive Vice President of the Wyoming Stock Growers Association, arrived at the first national advisory committee meeting for forest planning, he looked around
Cattle as ecosystem engineers
Climate, soils, topography, grazing, and fire have shaped the composition and structure of vegetation on rangelands in the American West. Collectively, the many possible combinations of these different factors should lead to diverse plant communities and associated diverse wildlife species.
Conservation grazing: Ranchers lead the way
On the Howell Ranch and adjacent properties in western Colorado, cattle are used to create prime elk hunting opportunities. Managers carefully consider elk movements when they design the annual grazing plan for the ranch.
Economics of engineering with livestock: Incentives for establishing biological diversity
Recognizing the importance of agricultural lands for wildlife, a number of programs in the western United States encourage ranchers to manage rangelands in ways that benefit both landowners and wildlife. Financial incentive for improving biodiversity per se is yet to come.