NRCS Initiative a Success: Wildlife and Ranchers Benefit

In 2005, the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) began offering funding to help minimize the conflicts between ranchers and endangered predators.

“We are glad to be able to offer this assistance at a time when predation from endangered species is rising as a central issue in Montana agriculture,” said Dave White, NRCS state conservationist. “The program will help ranchers safeguard their livestock, protect their financial solvency, and, hopefully, help them to better coexist with these predators.”

Through an Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) special initiative, three new practices were added to offer ranchers non-lethal, proactive measures to protect their livestock from endangered species such as grizzly bears and wolves. These new practices include:

• Installation of specially designed electric fence around areas with concentrated numbers of livestock, such as calving and lambing lots.
• Hiring and use of a herder to facilitate prescribed grazing and predator deterrence as an alternative to cross fences.
• Disposal of carcasses from farmsteads and feedlots.

Interest in these practices far exceeded initial projections. Through 19 contracts, ranchers have installed over 7 miles of fence, hired herders to ride more than 32,000 acres of private grazing land, and disposed of more than 300 animal carcasses for a total cost of $340,000.

The Range Rider project in Sweet Grass County is one effort funded in part by the NRCS special initiative. Initiated by the Boulder Watershed Association, reducing livestock depredation from predators, increasing knowledge about livestock/predator interactions and predator activities, and improving livestock management are among the goals of the project.

“This is an experimental project. Nobody really knows what will work to best decrease livestock-predator conflicts,” said Bill Brownlee, Boulder Watershed Association wildlife committee chairman, local landowner, and program participant. “We realize the wolves are here to stay and we’ve got to find a way to operate under these conditions.”

The Boulder River watershed is located south of Big Timber, Montana, in the Absaroka Mountain Range. Grizzly bears are abundant in the area, which is also in close proximity to Yellowstone National Park and associated wolves.

Over the 2005 grazing period, riders were hired to patrol approximately 60,000 acres of private and public land utilized for grazing by local landowners. These riders were trained in the use of telemetry equipment to track wolves, preserving livestock predations for confirmation, the use of non-lethal deterrent devices, low-trace camping techniques, and fire regulations, among other topics. NRCS funding was used to help pay the riders to monitor predator activities, use non-lethal methods of deterring predators, and facilitating prescribed grazing. Other partners in the project include the Sweet Grass Conservation District, Predator Conservation Alliance, Montana State University Extension Service, U.S. Forest Service, and the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks.

“Our program wouldn’t be going if it weren’t for NRCS,” said Brownlee. “I applaud NRCS because I feel they went out on a limb to support us in this project.”

Last Modified: 06/26/07