THE GORGE — A program to certify bird-friendly ranches could help restore the Columbia Plateau, free for any rancher who wants it, and the rapidly-vanishing bird species of the sagebrush.
Ranchers are the heroes of this restoration. “They can manage the land and the areas that they control a lot better than one person setting in an office like I am, right? I can provide all this input, but they’re the boots on the ground,” said regional ACR program lead Seth Hulett.
Audubon is extending its Audubon Conservation Ranches program here.
With restorative grazing and other techniques, ranchers can restore an ecosystem so degraded, only 20% of it remains intact — creating new habitat for birds some haven’t seen in 30 years.
“We have ranchers that come to us that are looking for the recognition that for the work they’ve already done, and that they’re also wanting help to keep enhancing and maintaining and protecting it.
“But we also have the other side, where we have ranchers that are coming to us that are saying, ‘Hey, I’ve I used to have these birds on my property, and I haven’t seen it for 30 years. What can we do to enhance our land, to get those birds back?’” Hulett said.
Hulett grew up in central Oregon and has spent his life in the Pacific Northwest. Audubon hired him to adapt this Midwestern program to the Pacific Northwest. He’s spent the last two-and-a-half years seeking funding, getting ranchers involved, and writing up the rules.
Landowners here have much bigger tracts than in the Midwest, up to thousands of acres, and also manage National Forest and state grazing lands.
And the birds are “vastly different.”
The project area includes northeastern Oregon, a bit of Idaho and lots of eastern Washington. Land varies from shrub-steppe to massive riparian areas, potholes and coolies. “We have really cool systems that we don’t see a lot of other places in the world,” Hulett said. Right now, private owners hold 75% it all.
Why the lost habitat? Fire plays the biggest role, Hulett said.
Historically, fires were small, frequent blazes that slid under the sagebrush without killing it. “And it would have regenerated; it would have provided nutrients back to the grasses to restart the next year, and it would have came back greener and more vibrant,” Hulett said.
Invasive cheatgrass changed that, with oily leaves burn like tinder. Cheatgrass out-competes native plants, and loves disturbance, growing back even bigger in the wake of the massive fires it feeds. “We could see hundreds, thousands of acres burn in a day when you get strong wind in a dry climate,” Hulett said.
The Labor Day fires of 2020 burned 400,000 acres in 48 hours, cooking habitats for sage grouse, sharp-tailed grouse and pygmy rabbit.
Sage seeds may take 2 years to germinate, 40 years or more to mature. “It’s really challenging to get that habitat to come back without human interaction,” Hulett said.
A program goal is torturing the cheatgrass, knocking it down early in spring. Cows do this handily, by eating it.
“It’s a thing I’m trying to change is people’s mindset on, you know? Grazing done right can make a difference,” Hulett said. “If you do it wrong, it’s going to destroy the landscape. But if we’re able to make sure that we’re not overgrazing it, that we’re doing it at the right time — that’s also key — giving it a rest every so often, we’re going to allow that landscape to kind of slowly start to rebuild. Then that’s when the birds come back. That’s when the wildlife and the plants start to come back.”
Staff visit each ranch, study the habitat, and find solutions to protect or rebuild it for ten priority birds like sandhill crane, burrowing owl, and ferruginous hawk. Hulett writes a customized habitat management plan for the ranch’s use.
The program then looks for local, state or national partners to fund any restoration work: Tree and shrub establishment, rangeland seeding, fencing. Ranchers must protocols on habitat management, animal health and welfare, and environmental stability. s
“We really have to look at the science in order to build what’s best for not just the birds, but the operation that we’re trying to keep going so that they can be the boots on the ground for this habitat,” he said.
Each ranch gets a third-party audit. A beef producer can then label their product with the ACR seal, which customers can look for in stores.
Certification is not for every rancher, he admits. Some cow-calf operations raise calves to sell, not finished beef. “They’re not finishing the beef themselves, but they still want our support, and they still want these habitat management plans,” he said. After certification — which can take two years from first contact to putting the beef on a plate — staff will surveys for plants and birds, to prove it’s working.
“It doesn’t cost the rancher anything,” he said. “We fund all the audits, we fund all of our time and resources.” Grants and foundations fund the staff.
Six ranches are joining, in different stages of enrollment. None are certified yet. Hulett’s working on the first habitat management plan, and collecting data for a second.
“You know, it’s hard to be a rancher and run the operation there,” he said. “I mean, they work from sun up to sun down. It’s their livelihood. They don’t always have the time to be going through all the financial option options out there, and that’s something that we can do.”
He wants the program to connect neighbors. “I think has been lost over the last few decades is we just don’t have those connections between our neighbors ... It is important to think about the community aspect of a program like this, and we don’t talk about that in the conservation landscape as much; and that is one part of the program that I cherish.”
Program information at www.audubon.org/our-work/prairies-and-forests/ranching.
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