The Art of Range Podcast

The Bruneau Owyhee Sage Grouse Habitat (BOSH) project is a collaborative partnership of state and federal agencies, wildlife advocacy groups, and private landowners to restore native upland landscapes in Southwest Idaho to a more natural condition benefitting sage grouse, songbirds, antelope, spotted frogs and other wildlife. Conifer encroachment is now recognized as the second most significant th...

Thank you for your patience as we shift funding sources and work into a slightly different approach to content. This brief piece describes these changes and previews upcoming episodes.

Dr. Nathan Sayre has written a delightful book on the origins and history of rangelands science, public ownership, agency management, and grazing philosophy in the United States. Join Tip and Nathan as they discuss his background building fence on ranches on the Southwest, his pathway to the sociology of rangelands, and then surprising findings in Sayre’s book research. Finally, they visit about r...

Our language both reveals and shapes our internal philosophy about all of the beings and things in the world. And it guides our behaviors and interactions with those things -- humans, animals, plants, and non-living things. Yet these below-the-hood inclinations are formed very informally, usually without conscious thought. This interview with Anna Clare follows from an article in Rangelands on whe...

Maybe there is no silver bullet, no holy grail of grazing. But there are patterns of grazing impacts that work well for particular plant communities, and good grazing managers give attention to these effects and modify them over time to achieve landscape goals. Jim Howell is the founder of Grasslands, LLC, a ranch management company that directs grazing on over 320,000 acres of land around the wor...

"Decades of scientific research on grazing and soil organic carbon (SOC) has failed to form a cohesive understanding of how grazing management affects SOC stocks -- characterized by different formation and stabilization pathways—across different climatic contexts." This quote from the introduction to the review paper "Ruminating on soil carbon: Applying current understanding to inform grazing mana...

Solar "farms" have met with resistance in Middle America because they often displace food farms, taking arable land out of production. But what if solar energy could be harvested at a utility scale on top of food or forage? This is the face of solar energy research today, and AnnaClare Monlezun is leading some of this research on White Oak Pastures, a livestock farm in Georgia owned by Will Harris...

It's been said there is wisdom in a multitude of counselors. But in the same way that not all practice makes perfect, only good practice, it's important to listen to people with a proven record of range management success. This panel of experienced range professionals discusses principles that have helped them adapt well personally and professionally to change. Join my discussion with John Ruhs, A...

It's been said that the only thing that is certain is change. These young rangeland professionals engage in interview discussion around what "Change on the Range" means to them. The 2023 annual meeting plenaries addressed the synthetic nature of rangeland science and the necessity of working across disciplinary and geographic and social boundaries to be effective. Effective change may require all...

Neighbors helping neighbors fight fire--this is the goal of Rangeland Fire Protection Associations (RFPAs) according to the Idaho Dept of Lands: "RFPAs empower local landowners to protect their own property and their neighbors’ where fire protection services are limited or not available. RFPAs can also respond to fires nearby that would otherwise take time for other firefighting agencies to reach....

Australia is hosting the IRC2025 in Adelaide, and this is the biggest rangelands event leading up to the 2026 UN International Year of Rangelands & Pastoralists. Australia boasts more rangeland than the United States, with wild, open spaces everywhere. Andrew and Nicole discuss uniquenesses of Australia, challenges common to other parts of the world, and the 7 themes of the congress. This event is...

"Layer something on your dirt that increases revenue opportunities and reduces risk." Clay Worden and James Rogers offer capstone comments on The Art of Range ranch financial resiliency series, from the importance of leveraging land assets (the big value in a ranch property) to tracking and managing production unit costs and revenues. Transcript and links at https://artofrange.com/episodes/aor-127...

Is it possible to generate renewable energy, beef, and wildlife habitat in the same space? Long-time collaborators Puget Sound Energy, WSU Extension, Stingley Ranches, and Washington Dept of Fish & Wildlife have proven the reality of this unlikely combination for more than 15 years on sagebrush ecosystems in the Intermountain West. The Wild Horse Coordinated Resource Management group has been mana...

The North Complex Fire of 2020 was estimated to produce more carbon dioxide and pollutants in one week than all of the cars in California in one year. That fire was in the list of 5 biggest fires in state history until it got surpassed by the August Complex Fire the same year. But it remains one of the deadliest, with 15 human deaths. This fire also burned to death hundreds of cows and calves, and...

Jim Gerrish is in the top 10 names known to ranchers in grazing management. His career, both as a researcher and as a rancher, spans animal nutrition, plant and community physiology, East and West, irrigated and dryland, rhizomatous and caespitose. Our conversation covers all of that as well as livestock industry history, the decline in sheep production in the early 20th century, and rules of thum...

Listen to Jay Smith, a rancher in Idaho, and Joel Yelich, a University of Idaho researcher, describe their experience managing cattle on a 100,000 acre U.S. Forest Service grazing permit that had burned the year before. Jay was able to keep grazing the permit because virtual fence allowed him to keep cattle off the burn footprint without putting up barbed wire or hotwire. Most rangeland grazing pr...

Are you optimistic about 2024? This brief non-interview provides an overview of upcoming content on The Art of Range and an invitation to become a more active listener. Thanks so much for listening. And I'm optimistic, by the way.

Should we keep the farm? Can we afford to keep farming and ranching? How do conservation easements work? How much could an easement help? What do I have to give up? Food production is important (No Farms, No Food, No Future), but it has to pay enough to support a family in order to persist. Addie Candib is American Farmland Trust's Northwest director and is an advocate for local and regional land...

What if grazed wild, open spaces were actually open? Is barbed wire still useful? Can we afford it? Are there other ways to control livestock distribution today? Would other options be "better"? Fenceless control of livestock has been discussed for decades, and these technologies may mimic herding, which was practiced nearly everywhere, at least on large landscapes, up until the invention and adop...

Rangelands and people inevitably change. Managing that change involves people influencing people. The Society for Range Management's international annual meeting is the flagship ecological event of the year, bringing together ranchers, researchers, agency land managers, students, and other professionals from all over the world to share information and encourage one another. Dave Voth and Meghan Br...

Can grazing be used to help ecosystem function or is 'do no harm' the best we can do? What is meant by the new buzzword "regenerative"? Graeme Hand has been teaching and practicing grazing decision-making for a long time and has championed the idea of experimentation at spatial scales at which failing is not fatal to the environment or a livelihood. Kevin Muno is a rancher in southern California t...

"Beef is what's for dinner; open space is what's for dessert." Rick Knight is a wildlife professor who has spent decades bridging ranchers and environmentalists (whatever that means now). His research has shown that private ranchlands are critical for wildlife and that grazing may be quite important for conservation of habitat values. Transcript and links to resources mentioned in this episode at...

Anna Clare is a rangeland ecosystem scientist, systems thinker, synthesizer, and collaborative facilitator. This interview continues with one of the major themes of the SRM Ecosystem Services report introduced in episode 111 with Lauren Porensky and Jeff Goodwin -- human dimensions of ecosystems, including sociocultural valuations. The conversation spans ways of identifying and valuing intangible...

Napier Downs is a million-acre cattle station in the Kimberley region of Northwestern Australia. They export Red Brahman yearlings live to Indonesia, 15-20,000 animals per year, raised in a tropical savanna. We discuss the humanitarian importance of this live export market, the love-hate relationship with fire in this part of the world, land tenure arrangements on pastoral leases, and the distinct...

This is a re-release of one of the first episodes on The Art of Range. Fred Provenza discusses ideas from decades of research and experience on how animals and environment affect each other. Dr. Provenza calls this interaction a dance, which he has written about in his book “Nourishment”. Discussion includes how domestic animals can be selected or trained to match their environment and how this in...