Patricia R. McCoy
Capital Press Staff Writer

May 11, 2007

HYRUM, Utah - The debate seems endless. Environmentalists contend removing livestock will improve rangeland, while ranchers say properly managed grazing is best for the land.

John Haskell can prove cattle grazing can be good for rangeland, even on land set aside as big game habitat.

The Utah rancher runs about 1,000 head of yearlings on the 55,000-acre Hardware Ranch, a state wildlife preserve managed since the late 1940s by the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources. The proof lies in pictures he has showing riparian exclosures no longer overrun with thistles, brush rebounding on deer wintering range and noxious weeds such as dyer's woad disappearing inside fence lines even as it thrives along the road outside those same fences.

There's also plenty of monitoring data proving grass and forbs are rebounding on summer and transitional, spring and fall range, he said.

The results are dramatic enough that Haskell was asked to speak at the National Grazing Lands Conservation Initiative symposium in St. Louis last December.

The Hardware Ranch was historically a sheep ranch, but also a major winter area for the Cache mule deer herd and elk. Moose and sage grouse are also native to it. The state purchased it to resolve major conflicts between growing big game herds and agriculture in Cache Valley , the region around Logan , Utah , Haskell said. The goal was to feed elk and provide for the Cache mule deer herd each winter, stopping crop depredation.

The operation quickly became an educational, hunting and tourism opportunity. The ranch, in the foothills of Utah 's rugged Wasatch Mountains , drew tens of thousands of winter visitors for sleigh rides and elk-viewing, he said. Hardware Ranch is well known throughout northern Utah and into southeast Idaho .

Habitat declined

"The trouble was, the quality of the habitat declined under state ownership," Haskell said. "It was especially bad in winter feeding areas. The elk were fed, but the deer were left to browse on the sagebrush. They soon put so much pressure on the brush that heavy grass began taking over the land. The deer started looking elsewhere for feed."

Noxious weeds were the second major problem. Dyer's Woad, spotted knapweed, cheatgrass and medusa head rye were especially aggressive, taking over vast acreages. Thistles, though not officially on the state noxious weed list, also increased greatly, he said.

Mechanical treatment wasn't an option. The ranch is on steep, rocky ground. Restoration seedings or herbicide spraying with land rigs would be impossible and prohibitively expensive. Aerial treatments were also too costly to be considered, he said.

"About five years ago a personal friend who is a wildlife biologist called to discuss the problem. He asked if it would be possible to graze cattle in a given area hard enough to knock the grass back, allowing the brush to grow," Haskell said. "I told him, 'Sure! That's exactly what our forefathers did before they knew any better.'"

It took another year to a year and a half to sell the idea to other agency personnel. At last, Haskell received a grazing contract.

He manages his yearling herd differently for each part of the ranch.

"We hit the winter range areas hard, removing enough grass and weeds to leave bare soil behind. That gives sagebrush the opportunity to spread," he said. "Our herd is rotated through a series of pastures from 500 to 1,000 acres in size every two weeks.

"That's only about a third of the ranch. The other two-thirds of the land is summer, spring and fall range. There, the goal is to stimulate the grass and forbs to create good feed for grazing when elk and deer come back into this country each fall," Haskell said. "We go for short-duration grazing and very low utilization. Ideally, we use only 25 percent of the forage. Our cows move every five days to two weeks."

Fenced riparians

Finally, the ranch already had several fenced riparian exclosures. In some cases fences were low so elk and deer could easily get at the browse inside. Other riparian zones were surrounded with eight-foot fences to exclude even them. All were overrun with thistles and noxious weeds.

Haskell turns from 150 to 250 head of cattle into those areas for at most a day or two at a time. That's enough to knock back the wolf plants and weeds.

Haskell's participation in what is officially a habitat restoration project is not unrewarded. The rancher is paid so long as he meets the objectives of the program. That payment is very small, though, working out to about $2 an acre, he said.

"When we started the ranch had no infrastructure at all, except for a very little fencing. Most of it needed maintenance," he said. "We're gradually installing more permanent fencing, but we also use a bunch of temporary electric fence. We had to develop cattle water sources."

Some claim cattle won't eat cheatgrass, spotted knapweed or dyer's woad. In fact, cheatgrass is 75 percent protein and very palatable to livestock when green, the rancher said. They must be turned out on it before it dries and goes to seed.

As for the other noxious weeds, Haskell works closely with Fred Provenza, professor of range animal production in the Department of Wildland Resources, College of Natural Resources , at nearby Utah State University in Logan . Provenza has done extensive work in training cattle to eat weeds most assume they won't touch, the rancher said.

"We turn out on the Hardware Ranch any time the grass is ready, from March 15 to April 15, generally around the first of April," Haskell said. "The herd stays on the winter range until about the first of July, if there's enough feed. Then we start moving through the other pastures for the rest of the summer, into fall. We keep the herd in one unit as much as possible."

Grazing in designated wildlife habitat isn't without its special challenges. Haskell recently hosted a group from Trout Unlimited on a tour explaining the project. A member of that organization had seen his cattle in a riparian zone and became concerned, leading to the group's visit.

"They were quite astonished when I showed them the pictures with the thick blanket of thistles in that exclosure before we started. You can still find thistles there, but they've been knocked back considerably," he said.


Pat McCoy is based in Boise . Her e-mail address is pmccoy@capitalpress.com.