Based at Santa Fe, NM, the Western Landowners Alliance (WLA) has published and issued a glossy, ambitious guide for ranchers about how to reduce conflicts with grizzly bears, wolves, and elk on public and private lands.
In July 2011, the group of livestock producers, landowners, resource managers, conservation biologists, wildlife agencies, and private investors representing eight million acres of leased and deeded land across nine Western states and Alberta met to forge a network advancing practices and policies to sustain multi-use working lands and protect native species.
In her preface, WLA Executive Director Lesli Allison said the 84-page guide was developed for those constructively engaged in sharing and managing “a wild, working landscape that sustains both people and wildlife,” which she called “one of the greatest conservation challenges of our time.”
Allison praised the guide’s more than 30 contributors for their “wealth of real-world and often hard-won experience in ranching and wildlife management. … Out of necessity and interest, they are innovators and close observers of wildlife, livestock and people. They know first-hand the difference between what looks good on paper and what works on the ground.”
She credited the National Geographic Society for making the project possible. Allison also singled out Rick Danvir, a founding member, advisor and principal guide author who spent 30 years as a wildlife biologist and pioneered many strategies to integrate wildlife conservation and profitable ranching.
“This guide will be successful if the knowledge and perspectives it contains help reduce conflict and prevent losses of both livestock and wildlife,” she wrote. “We hope also that it will open new ways of thinking and of relating to land, wildlife and one another.”
The WLA’s motto is “Stewardship with Vision.” It “recognizes that economic vitality and conservation go hand in hand. Given that private lands encompass the most productive and biologically diverse landscapes, including the majority of water resources, landowners have a pivotal role to play in shaping the future. WLA provides a collective voice, a peer network and a shared knowledge base for landowners striving to keep the land whole and healthy.”
On its website, WLA also notes that private ranches, farms, and forest properties are an important mainstay for Western rural communities, providing jobs and a high quality of life.
“They also provide valuable open space, protect crucial habitat and wildlife corridors, harbor the majority of imperiled species and control much of the water, including headwaters critical for healthy watersheds and downstream users.”
It also stressed that it takes knowledge, science, money, skilled labor, community resources, and supportive public policies to keep land healthy, productive, and intact—in addition to desire and vision.
The guide’s introduction states that the relationship between ranchers and large carnivores capable of killing and eating livestock historically has been predominantly adversarial in the western United States. Ranchers and government-sponsored programs have employed poisoning, trapping, culling, shooting, and even aerial gunning to reduce the number of predators and conflict.
Those efforts succeeded in reducing the numbers of gray wolves and grizzlies; black bears and cougars maintained their populations, but coyotes fared best, nearly doubling their range to inhabit both eastern and western states, thriving in both wild and urban settings.
“As populations of elk, wolves, and grizzly bears have increased in the West, conflicts with rural farmers, ranchers, and other landowners have also increased,” causing agricultural challenges from elk and other ungulates, including crop depredation, forage competition and disease concerns, the guide’s introduction said.
Albert Sommers, a Wyoming rancher and legislator, was quoted as saying: “Keeping ranching economically viable is the best way to keep wildlife habitats connected and available for wildlife. Working ranches are generally a better place for big wildlife species than housing developments.”
The guide compiles landowner contributions acquired through one-on-one interviews, meetings and group discussions hosted by WLA the past two years. Contributors describe and assess the effectiveness of wildlife conflict mitigation strategies and practices.
“WLA offers this guide to help ranchers, farmers, and other private land managers better understand the approaches and practices currently used by fellow landowners to reduce carnivore and ungulate conflict. We hope that it will help inform discussions to improve policies and funding for conflict mitigation. As landowners, we believe that the successful conservation of large carnivores, ungulates and working landscapes are closely linked—wildlife and rural livelihoods equally depend on healthy working landscapes.”
The guide is divided into sections pertaining to large carnivores, plus elk and other ungulates. Articles regarding wolf, grizzly bear and elk ecology and behavior are included. “Bison as Livestock” is a typical article. Stories about various landowner assistance programs also are featured. — Mark Mendiola,WLJ correspondent
