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The Prairie Farmers Preserving the World’s Most Threatened Ecosystem – Forever
Dallas May spotted the first shoots of grass a few months after a wildfire tore across the ranch he runs with his family in Lamar, Colorado, in 2022. Propelled by winds up to 70 mph, the blaze killed some of his livestock, destroyed 42 miles of fencing, and burned through vegetation and beaver lodges along the creek.
“It was a moonscape,” May recalls. “Everything was charred and gone.”
Before the fire, May had barely noticed the spindly stalks of needle and thread grass amid the many types of grass on his pastureland. But after the rain came, the sprouts shot up from the scorched ground. Over the following months, a succession of different grasses sprouted from seeds stored in the soil.
“We had an entire natural seed bank,” May says.
That’s because for decades, May and his family have managed May Ranch near the Arkansas River — a major tributary of the Mississippi River — to encourage native habitat to thrive alongside their cattle. This region is part of a swath of grassland that sweeps from central Canada to northern Mexico, vital to many species of birds that migrate across North America.
A Horned Lark at May Ranch, which has been granted the National Audubon Society’s “bird-friendly land” certification. Credit: Evan Barrientos/Audubon.
But today, these temperate grasslands are considered the most threatened major ecosystem in the world. Less than 40 percent of the region’s 550 million acres of historical grasslands have survived, and an average of two million acres are lost annually, converted for development or cropland.
Ranching, though, is a natural fit on this landscape. Grazing cattle help keep wild grassland healthy, subduing woody and invasive species. And through conservation-oriented practices, ranchers like May are not only preserving habitat for birds, they’re also yielding benefits for carbon sequestration, water quality and biodiversity.
“Grazing is probably one of the most essential functions that you need to appropriately manage grassland,” says Rich Schultheis, coordinator for Playa Lakes Joint Venture, a bird conservation organization working across the western Great Plains. Ranchers are key partners: Without them, he says, “we would be in such a worse place.”
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The decline in the various types of prairie that once covered the Great Plains has had dire consequences for wildlife. Since 1970, the population of birds that rely on grassland has dropped by 53 percent — a loss of 700 million birds.
The pockets of habitat that remain are critical to their survival, but under threat: Just 21 percent of Great Plains grasslands have never been disturbed. “If that grass is gone,” Schultheis says, “that’s a much more difficult and heavier lift to get that grassland back on the landscape.”
That’s where ranchers come in.
In contrast to crop agriculture that requires plowing up the land, ranching typically leaves large tracts as native habitat, allowing livestock to munch on vegetation that grows there.
This is actually good for grassland, Schultheis explains: Grasses like disturbance. Historically, Great Plains prairies would have been shaped by wildfires and grazers like bison. Today, cattle serve that purpose.
Protecting wild habitat had always been a part of May’s ethos. He grew up in Lamar, in a family of ranchers. But May really got the chance to put his conservation-minded approach into practice in 2012, when his family bought the land they’d been leasing since the 1980s.
Dallas May on his ranch in Lamar, Colorado. Credit: Evan Barrientos/Audubon.
The Mays run about half the number of cattle that they could on a ranch this size — around 600 mother cows. (The total could include up to 1,400 animals, with the coming and going of calves, bulls and young female cattle.) Keeping the number low leaves plenty of vegetation, which helps both wildlife and the ranch, May explains, and means there’s always plenty of grass left for the following year.
“If you allow the cattle to be part of the ecology, rather than dominating it, they are a benefit to it,” May says.
But running a smaller herd reduces the ranch’s profit. May has found a path to making up the financial gap by working with an array of conservation-driven partners.
One of his first steps was to get a conservation easement, through which the Mays agreed to bar the development of their land now and in perpetuity. They essentially “donated” their development rights. In exchange, the Mays get a state tax credit.
The Mays have had lucrative offers from potential buyers eyeing their land for renewable energy installations or to plow up the grassland to farm it. But, May explains, the family felt it was important to ensure the ranch would stay working grassland.
A burrowing owl on May Ranch. Credit: Evan Barrientos/Audubon.
In the past, many ranchers were skeptical of such easements, explains Maggie Hanna, director of the Central Grasslands Roadmap Initiative and a rancher in the Arkansas River Valley herself. Selling off a chunk of land at its development value is a back-pocket option for ranchers when they’re financially squeezed. But, Hanna says, conservation easements give landowners a different type of flexibility. Crucially, she notes, the land trust May worked with grew out of Colorado’s agricultural community. “When the solution comes from a community,” she says, “the solution is more durable.”
In Hanna’s experience, knowing that her land is protected from development has given her a sense of security. That, she says, allows her to manage her ranch for long-term sustainability rather than short-term profit — which also benefits the community.
“If we want to keep rural America afloat in any sort of capacity, keeping these landscapes intact also means that families can survive in these places,” she says.
May Ranch has also found other ways to profit off of its land and livestock. With its long-term commitment to keeping grassland undisturbed, the ranch was an early participant in Ducks Unlimited’s carbon credit program, which sells offsets tied to preserved private lands. While methane emissions related to cattle are a significant contributor of greenhouse gases, sustainable grazing practices can boost carbon sequestration. The ranch is also certified “bird-friendly land” through the National Audubon Society, a seal that appears on the packaging of the Mays’ beef.
May is one of 39 ranchers working with Audubon in the Rocky Mountain area to implement habitat management plans on their land. Because so much land here is held privately, landowners are vital to preserving grassland habitat, explains program manager Dusty Downey, a rancher himself in Wyoming. The hope is that Audubon’s support adds value to these ranches’ products.
“We need to be able to keep ranchers ranching, and the only way to do that is through their finances,” he says.
Evidence shows that when ranchers take a conservation approach, a multitude of benefits follow. In drought-prone eastern Colorado, for example, research finds soil in areas that have been responsibly grazed has a higher moisture content.
“We’re seeing the lands on these Audubon ranches be able to store more water, so it makes the land far more drought resistant,” Downey says.
And, as May Ranch shows, wildlife can flourish alongside livestock. In 2019, botanists documented 248 species of plants on May Ranch including 50 types of grasses, according to Christina Alba, a Denver Botanic Gardens research scientist who led the survey.
“There are few remaining untilled prairie habitats on the Eastern Plains and it’s a huge boon to plant diversity conservation to set aside tracts of untilled prairie,” says Alba.
Endangered ferrets being reintroduced to May Ranch. Credit: Ryan Jones/CPW.
Animals make use of that space. Last year, Colorado state researchers found two litters of wild-born young black-footed ferret kits on May Ranch, a huge milestone after endangered ferrets were reintroduced there in 2021. Eastern black rails, a white-speckled, red-eyed marsh bird that has almost disappeared from the interior of North America, migrate through the ranch’s riparian habitat.
Because of drought conditions and heavy water usage, the Arkansas River often runs dry in parts of Kansas. But, Schultheis says, migratory birds show the watershed remains linked even if the flow is disrupted. “As far as wildlife are concerned,” he says, “there is still a connection.”
Even so, the loss of habitat on a larger scale is a major challenge. May has been involved with several efforts to reintroduce the lesser prairie chicken, an orange-eyebrowed grouse locally extinct in eastern Colorado. But, despite great conditions on May’s ranch, the lack of habitat more broadly has hindered reintroductions.
Three years after the fire, May Ranch is still recovering.
Before the fire, a big part of the Mays’ business was selling pure-bred Limousin cattle for breeding, which involves carefully separating out cattle in order to document their parentage. The loss of fencing in the blaze means the herd now all runs together, dealing a blow to the ranch’s finances.
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As difficult as the recovery has been, May also sees the ranch reaping benefits from its commitment to wild habitat. After the fire, the beavers that lived along the creek disappeared — but when water returned, they came out of hiding and started rebuilding dams. Gradually, grass filled the scorched meadows.
“To me, that is the key to sustainability,” May says. “Keeping things there where they can recover on their own.”
The post The Prairie Farmers Preserving the World’s Most Threatened Ecosystem – Forever appeared first on Reasons to be Cheerful.
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