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3 days ago
- General
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Cattle Battle: How wolves and livestock collide – and how one Idaho project offers solutions
Ranchers Jay and Chyenne Smith raise Black Angus cattle near the tiny town of Carmen, Idaho. The ranch is located just over the ridge from one of the original sites of wolf reintroduction, and the Smiths say wolves have killed more than 200 of their cattle in the past 20 years. (Photo courtesy of Jay and Chyenne Smith) This is the fourth installment of Howl, a five-part written series and podcast season produced in partnership between the Idaho Capital Sun, States Newsroom and Boise State Public Radio. Read the first installment, Carter's Hope, the second installment, River of No Return, and the third installment, Fixing Yellowstone. Idaho rancher Jay Smith has a wolf problem. Over the last 20 years, Smith said wolves have killed more than 200 of his cattle and caused major financial harm to his family's business. 'At today's value at nearly $2,000 a head, times that by 200 and see if we could have invested that money over time what would that have been?' Smith said. 'Significant.' Smith and his wife, Chyenne, raise Black Angus cattle near the town of Carmen, a tiny community near the Continental Divide, just west of the Montana border. Jay grew up nearby; his family has been ranching in the area since 1924. Last year, the family celebrated its centennial on the land. But their history goes back even longer. Smith has a family history book documenting cattle ownership back to the 1600s. 'So my family's cattle raising lineage goes way back,' Smith said. There's something else that goes way back in Smith's family: Warnings about wolves that have been passed down through the generations. The J Lazy S Angus Ranch is situated in a green valley set in the shadows of high mountain peaks, some of which rise above 10,000 feet. Wildfire smoke often hangs in the air during the summer. And on the other side of the valley, the Salmon River cuts through the landscape. The ranch features a classic red barn, a horse corral, an assortment of farm machinery and a renovated old cabin surrounded by shade trees. They have a small herd of Morgan-Quarter Horse crossbreeds and an array of cattle dogs that go everywhere with the Smiths, including high up in the surrounding mountains. 'One of the main reasons Chyenne and I bought this place is A, because ranching is in my blood,' Smith said. 'But B, it's exactly how we wanted to raise our children. I wanted them to have the work ethic and the animal husbandry background that I grew up with. I think it's very important.' Running cattle and working the ranch is all he's ever known, and Smith wouldn't trade it for anything. 'I don't know if you ever watch TV, but I got to be a cowboy every day of my life, so I don't know how you go wrong there,' Smith said. '(There is) a lot of freedom. These ranches are big, and so we had a lot of private property where us kids could go a long ways without getting in trouble or being in the wrong spot. And I don't know how a city kid could ever get their head around that, but we could literally go for miles and not be somewhere we shouldn't be.' The Smiths' several hundred cattle have a lot of room to roam, too. During summers, the cows live in the high country. They spend 12 to 16 weeks each in a cow camp way up in the mountains, roaming far and wide on public land. And that's where they run into trouble with wolves. Only a few ridgelines separate Smith's ranch from wolf ground zero: one of the original sites of reintroduction 30 years ago – Corn Creek in the Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness. From their porch on the ranch, Jay and Chyenne Smith can see the Diamond Moose Grazing allotment, where wolves have a track record killing and harassing livestock, Smith said. 'It's been one of the most consistently conflicted allotments throughout the years,' Smith said. Jay Smith was 22 years old in 1995 when the government reintroduced wolves. He has seen ranching before wolves were reintroduced and the difference the animals made after they were reintroduced. 'We worked really hard to keep (reintroduction) from happening,' Smith said. 'And then when it became inevitable and we could see the writing on the wall, then we started trying to position ourselves for how to live with the inevitable. It was coming. We've been here 100 years. We're not leaving. So now how do we make this work?' Not only do the wolves literally eat into their business, but every time the Smiths or other ranchers speak out or try to do something about it, they say they are vilified. 'The negativity and the hate towards ranchers is worse than the wolves, in my opinion, and it's because the public's been fed this fairy tale of what wolves are,' Chyenne Smith said. 'And we're the bad guys in every one of those stories.' Jay Smith said he hasn't seen a nickel in compensation for the livestock wolves killed. 'We have been paid for zero head ever,' he said. Although Smith said he hasn't been paid for any of his livestock losses, other Idaho ranchers have. The state of Idaho has a compensation program to reimburse livestock owners the fair market value of animals that are killed by wolves or grizzly bears. It applies to cattle, sheep, pigs, goats, chicken, llamas and even bees – basically any animal used for food or in food production. From 2014 to 2022, the state of Idaho's livestock compensation program paid out $687,029.50 to 299 different livestock producers for compensation for verified livestock losses, state records show. But to be paid, livestock owners must have a confirmed wolf kill claim filed with the Office of Species Conservation each year. 'In the topography we run in, we can't find them in time,' Smith said. 'They just simply don't come home. We'll find a pile of bones. We'll find wolf scat right on top of those bones. I mean, we know what happened to them. But as far as Wildlife Services coming in and being able to make a confirmation report to send to the Office of Species Conservation to put us in the reimbursement program, we are zero for 200. That's our batting average.' State records show that most investigations of wolf complaints don't conclude that wolves were definitely responsible. From July 1, 2023, to June 30, 2024, Idaho Wildlife Services investigated 99 complaints of livestock losses blamed on wolves, state records show. About 28% of those investigations ruled wolves' responsibility for livestock deaths were 'confirmed' or 'probable.' But more than two-thirds of the wolf complaints, about 68%, were classified as 'possible/unknown.' In some cases, wolves may have eaten the carcass of livestock after the animal was already dead but did not kill the animal. Smith said his losses add up. 'We have lost over 200 head of livestock in that 20-plus years to wolves,' Jay Smith said. 'One year we'll lose 20 head of cattle, and one year we'll lose zero,' he added. 'And we just never quite know how to explain or how to do better, or how to mitigate that risk. It's very variable, and it's very unknown. But it's remained over the years. It hasn't gone away. It sounds like it's come and gone, but the wolves are still back there.' And even if wolves don't kill livestock like cows and sheep, even the presence of wolves can distress animals enough that they aren't as healthy and wouldn't be worth as much at market. But wolf supporters say the number of livestock killed is extremely low. In Idaho, Montana and Wyoming wolves are confirmed to have killed an average of less than 300 domestic animals per year – out of 6 million cows and sheep in those states. But even if the overall numbers and percentages are low, the cost is high for the farming and ranching families like the Smiths. With 30 years of experience since reintroduction and all the claims made by wolf advocates and all the meetings with the feds, nothing has changed Smith's mind about wolves. He opposed reintroducing wolves, and now that they are here, Smith thinks there are too many of them. As a result, he thinks ranchers should be given broad authority to kill wolves to protect their livestock. And as the chairman of his local county's Republican Party central committee, Smith has helped make that happen. He said he co-wrote a 2021 state law that helped make it easier to kill more wolves by expanding when and how they can be hunted and trapped. The law allows hunters to purchase an unlimited number of wolf tags to kill wolves and makes trapping on private land legal year round. 'There's still people vehemently against every proposal we have,' Smith said. 'And I don't know why. We're not out to kill them all. We're just out to make a living and keep our livelihoods.' Chyenne Smith agreed. 'It's about not being able to do everything we can to protect what's ours when we need to,' she said. When there are problems with wolves harassing or killing livestock, ranchers often call on trappers to catch the predators. And one of the best people at trapping wolves is Rusty Kramer. He's the president of the Idaho Trappers Association and the incoming president of the National Trappers Association. Whether it's badgers, beavers, bobcats, coyotes, foxes, muskrats or wolves, if it's legal to trap in Idaho, Kramer has probably caught it. Depending on the animals, he's used scent lures, bait or even blind set traps, hoping to entice an animal to step on a silver dollar-sized pan, which triggers the trap's jaws to lose around the wolf's foot and seize hold. Once a wolf is trapped, Kramer shoots it behind the shoulder with his .22 magnum pistol, killing it. Since wolves were reintroduced, he's trapped and killed 25 to 30. Kramer was born and raised in Fairfield, Idaho, near the Sawtooth National Forest in central Idaho. 'I just learned how to trap looking over my dad's shoulder and riding around with him and just kind of fell in love with it as a kid and I've been doing it ever since,' Kramer said. It started as damage control, trapping ground squirrels and marmots, also known as rock chucks, to protect the alfalfa. Later, he moved on to coyotes and muskrats. Kramer's father taught him how to process and sell the pelts, stressing the importance of using every part of the animal. As a kid, the pelts put a little extra money in his pocket. For him, trapping is a way of life and a family tradition. Today, Kramer said the Idaho Trappers Association runs the largest fur sale in the United States, in Glenns Ferry, where a trapper can make good money for a wolf pelt. A quality wolf pelt can go for $500 or more. For 10 years as an adult, Kramer lived in Boise – the state's largest city – about a 90-minute drive from Fairfield. After Micron Technology laid him off, Kramer returned to Fairfield. But it's tough to make a living on trapping alone, and Kramer also runs an alfalfa farm and is the watermaster for his local water district. It's the farm where Kramer and other farmers run into trouble with wolves. Ever since wolves came back, Kramer says, a lot more elk are hanging out in the valley where he and many other farmers grow alfalfa. He says the elk hang out there to keep safe from wolves, who tend to avoid agricultural areas because of the human presence. The elk trample the fields and eat the alfalfa, creating a headache and a cost for Rusty. 'I don't hate wolves,' Kramer said. 'I very (much) admire wolves. How far they can roam and how cunning they are and survive out there.' But he thinks it was a mistake to reintroduce wolves to Idaho. 'I'm under the opinion it would be cool to snap your fingers and it's back to 'Dances with Wolves' days,' Kramer said, referring to the 1990 movie starring Kevin Costner. 'You know, where it's buffalo from Ohio to Oregon and grizzlies and wolves. But there's only so many places that grizzlies, wolves and buffalo can have in the 21st century, because they just roam so far. These aren't foxes and coyotes that can live around humans.' 'There's just not enough space for them in the 21st century, in my opinion,' Kramer said. Suzanne Asha Stone is trying to to demonstrate that ranchers can live side-by-side with wolves today. Thirty years ago, Stone was an intern working on the wolf reintroduction project. Since then, she's become a prominent wolf expert and advocate. She is the executive director of the International Wildlife Coexistence Network and a co-founder of the Wood River Wolf Project in Idaho. Lately, Stone has been focusing on helping ranchers protect sheep and cattle without killing wolves. Stone said the catalyst for the work was a 'train wreck' of conflict between wolves and sheep in 2007 in central Idaho's Blaine County. Unaware that wolves were denning with pups in the area, a rancher let out his flock of sheep with some livestock guardian dogs for protection, Stone said. 'So to wolves, having those dogs come in meant that they had strange wolves coming in and were a significant threat to their pups,' Stone said. 'The rancher, of course, didn't know this. He had no idea that the wolves were there. But within 24 hours, we had dead sheep, dead livestock guardian dogs and a (wolf) pack with a death warrant on their head.' Stone said the community came together after the event to look for a way to project sheep and wolves. 'It was at that time that the residents of Blaine County pushed back hard and said, 'We really enjoy having wolves here. We had our own little Yellowstone happening right in our backyard, where we could go out and watch these wolves and their pups, and we want to keep them alive,'' Stone said. From there, Stone sat down at the table with ranchers in the area, as well as an official with the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Wildlife Services. Stone said just about everyone was skeptical, even wolf biologists who wanted to keep more wolves alive. 'And so we sat down with all of them and then reached out to the ranchers and just said, 'Let us try these nonlethal tools. Now everybody's telling us we're going to fail, but let's try and see what happens,'' Stone said. Stone started using something called fladry. It's nothing more than a barrier of waving flags, but it has proven successful to deter wolves in Eastern Europe and help sell high-mileage Hondas stateside. 'It looks like the flagging that sits around used car lots, basically,' Stone said. 'It doesn't look intimidating to us at all. Wolves don't like it. They don't trust it. And so we were able to keep the sheep behind those fladry pens for the rest of the season without having a single other loss. And the wolves were right there raising their pups for a good part of that summer. No more incidents at all.' Stone's critics called it beginner's luck and questioned whether she could replicate her results over long periods of time or large areas. That led to the creation of the Wood River Wolf Project, which for the last 17 summers has been partnering with ranchers in the area to use non-lethal tools and techniques to protect sheep from wolves. The project area covers about 4,600 square miles of rugged, mountainous terrain. Stone says there's no one-size-fits-all solution to wolf conflicts – different terrain, different predator behavior, even varying access to electricity can affect what works. So, she'll try just about anything – and her group has over the years. They've used lights, blasted air horns and played recordings to scare wolves away. In one case, wolves were feasting on llamas at an eastern Oregon ranch. So Stone's team set up those 20-foot air dancers you see at car lots and lit them up at night. 'So when the wolves came over the top of the hill, they saw this enormous monster up there flapping around and making all kinds of noise, and oh my gosh, they were in the next county the next day,' she said. 'We've only lost two wolves in the 17 years now of the project and an average of less than five sheep a year for that entire 17-year period,' Stone said. 'So it's the lowest loss of livestock to wolves in any area where wolves and livestock overlap in the Western United States, probably beyond that. It's a very successful project, and we use less money than what they do to kill wolves outside of the project area, where they're losing more livestock there.' But Stone hasn't convinced everyone. In fact, one key holdout is her own state government. Even when nonlethal methods of wolf control are available, the Idaho Department of Fish and Game's written policy preference is to kill wolves to reduce the overall wolf population in the state. 'A lot of what we've learned here is being applied in countries all over the world, just not in the state of Idaho, and not to any real extent beyond our project area, because the state is so determined to kill wolves rather than to live with them,' Stone said. Idaho Capital Sun, like the Oregon Capital Chronicle, is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Idaho Capital Sun maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Christina Lords for questions: info@
Yahoo
11-07-2025
- Climate
- Yahoo
Texas floodwaters damaged crops and endangered livestock. Now farmers and ranchers are cleaning up
BEND, Texas (AP) — Across a wide swath of Texas, the inundated rivers that ravaged communities also tore through farms and ranches. In the town of Bend, about two hours north of Austin, Boyd Clark waded into rising waters to help one of his stranded ostrich hens. Matthew Ketterman spent several agonizing hours trapped on top of his truck amid coursing rapids after driving out to check the fences on his exotic game ranch outside Burnet, about an hour south of Bend. And the overflowing San Gabriel River knocked Christmas trees sideways and staff had to get petting zoo animals into a temporary pen at Sweet Eats Adventure Farm in Georgetown, about 65 miles east of Ketterman's ranch. As authorities work to understand the extent of the loss of human life—as of Friday at least 120 people were killed more than 160 missing —farmers and ranchers are working to assess damage to their properties, crops and animals. Many are facing the task of caring for livestock while salvaging what crops they can and cleaning up the wreckage. While many farmers lean on a relentless optimism to get through the uncertainty of relying on the weather for a living, extreme weather disasters like catastrophic floods, droughts and wildfires can take a toll. The weather events also pose unique challenges to those who rely on seasonal tourist rushes or who might not have crop insurance. It's a double-edged sword: as some farmers turn to agritourism or niche crops to weather unpredictable markets, climate change is also intensifying many of the natural disasters that can make it more difficult for those experiments to succeed. Even the larger operations are not immune; farmers who produce all kinds of crops must plan for emergencies. 'We expect it to happen again. It's never a question of if, but when,' said Jon Meredith, co-owner of Sweet Eats, an agritourism outfit that mainly grows Christmas trees. 'And so we just continue to try to mitigate our losses and reduce our risk around events like this.' Still surveying the damage, starting repairs Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller said there has been so much rain so quickly that some farmers are seeing complete loss or severe damage to their crops and infrastructure, in several counties and beyond the banks of overflowing rivers. 'We've had farm equipment washed down the river. We've had tractors underwater, so they're totaled, won't be able to use those. Irrigation equipment wadded up like a bowl of spaghetti,' Miller told The Associated Press. 'We're finding cattle dead on top of trees downriver. So it's pretty devastating.' Miller said there are resources available for farmers. Those include the State of Texas Agriculture Relief Fund, which helps farmers access disaster funding, the Hay and Feed Hotline, which donates animal feed and the AgriStress Helpline that provides 24/7 mental health support. Now comes the task of cleanup: repair miles of destroyed fence line, tally lost livestock and move debris from foliage and mud to piled-up picnic tables. After a harrowing night waiting for hours to be rescued, Ketterman, who had gotten stuck on his vehicle, felt lucky to be alive. But he and his team were also grieving the loss of a member who died in the flooding on his way to work. They lost some animals to the churning water, as well. 'We're in the hundreds of thousands of dollars of damage, but you know, at the end of the day that's just monetary and we'll recover from that,' he said. Disasters like floods can be tough for specialty farmers Small farms that offer experiences to visitors, don't sell to wholesalers or don't have crop insurance are especially vulnerable, said Hannah Burrack, professor and chair of the entomology department at Michigan State University, who has worked with fruit farmers in the aftermath of floods. Clark said ostrich growers can access some U.S. Department of Agriculture programs that cover the loss of grass that birds graze on, but otherwise there isn't much assistance. Ostriches also get too cold in heavy rain. And it cuts down egg production; the hens almost stop laying eggs and mud and water can ruin what few they do. 'It does definitely affect our production this year and our profitability,' Clark said. Burrack said that other crops for consumption like fruits and vegetables get submerged, they can no longer be sold. Unharvested plants in fields can build up, causing pest issues or creating an unpleasant experience for visitors. And once submerged, 'long-term echoes of these short-term stressors' can make trees more vulnerable to disease. Meredith said Sweet Eats was lucky the Christmas season is still months away; they still had a chance to put the trees back up. They would've had a harder time if they were still doing peach trees like they used to. 'Because so much of our stuff is pick-your-own, so if we can't be open for customers, then it magnifies the challenges that we face because of cash flow issues,' he said. All farms need to plan for emergencies, climate change It's not just floods: farms across the country have taken hits due to extreme weather in recent years. Wildfires have damped farm-based businesses in California including pick-your-own apple orchards in the southern part of the state and wineries in the north. An unusually warm winter had Midwestern maple syrup producers scrambling in 2024, while pinching drought has hit pumpkins, along with many other crops, across the West. It's good business sense to observe how climate change might affect your operation and make adjustments accordingly, said Rob Leeds, an extension educator at Ohio State University who works with farmers, especially those interested in agritourism. He described how after watching a barrage of tornadoes and high winds in recent years, some cattle producers in Ohio have been building tougher barns that more typically would be seen in windswept areas of the West. Some fall-themed agritourism operators have started installing fans and misters, anticipating more hot days later into the fall. It will take a while for Texas farmers to fully recover, but some are already building back stronger. Ketterman said he thinks they're going to put up sturdier fence posts in the coming weeks as they secure the fence line. They'll lean on each other, too. Many farmers described the tight-knit sense of community as they weathered the storm. 'We all started calling each other, to make sure we could get our animals out and anything else that we needed to save,' said John Meredith, owner of Sweet Eats. 'Just because this is a fact of life. When you live on a river, it's beautiful and enjoyable, but there are occasionally times where things can go south very quickly.' ___ Walling reported from Chicago. Amy Taxin reported from Orange County, Calif. ___ Follow Melina Walling on X @MelinaWalling and Bluesky @ Follow Joshua A. Bickel on Instagram, Bluesky and X @joshuabickel. ___ The Associated Press' climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP's standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at
The Independent
11-07-2025
- Climate
- The Independent
Texas floodwaters damaged crops and endangered livestock. Now farmers and ranchers are cleaning up
Across a wide swath of Texas, the inundated rivers that ravaged communities also tore through farms and ranches. In the town of Bend, about two hours north of Austin, Boyd Clark waded into rising waters to help one of his stranded ostrich hens. Matthew Ketterman spent several agonizing hours trapped on top of his truck amid coursing rapids after driving out to check the fences on his exotic game ranch outside Burnet, about an hour south of Bend. And the overflowing San Gabriel River knocked Christmas trees sideways and staff had to get petting zoo animals into a temporary pen at Sweet Eats Adventure Farm in Georgetown, about 65 miles east of Ketterman's ranch. As authorities work to understand the extent of the loss of human life—as of Friday least 120 people were killed more than 160 missing —farmers and ranchers are working to assess damage to their properties, crops and animals. Many are facing the task of caring for livestock while salvaging what crops they can and cleaning up the wreckage. While many farmers lean on a relentless optimism to get through the uncertainty of relying on the weather for a living, extreme weather disasters like catastrophic floods, droughts and wildfires can take a toll. The weather events also pose unique challenges to those who rely on seasonal tourist rushes or who might not have crop insurance. It's a double-edged sword: as some farmers turn to agritourism or niche crops to weather unpredictable markets, climate change is also intensifying many of the natural disasters that can make it more difficult for those experiments to succeed. Even the larger operations are not immune; farmers who produce all kinds of crops must plan for emergencies. 'We expect it to happen again. It's never a question of if, but when,' said Jon Meredith, co-owner of Sweet Eats, an agritourism outfit that mainly grows Christmas trees. 'And so we just continue to try to mitigate our losses and reduce our risk around events like this.' Still surveying the damage, starting repairs Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller said there has been so much rain so quickly that some farmers are seeing complete loss or severe damage to their crops and infrastructure, in several counties and beyond the banks of overflowing rivers. 'We've had farm equipment washed down the river. We've had tractors underwater, so they're totaled, won't be able to use those. Irrigation equipment wadded up like a bowl of spaghetti,' Miller told The Associated Press. 'We're finding cattle dead on top of trees downriver. So it's pretty devastating.' Miller said there are resources available for farmers. Those include the State of Texas Agriculture Relief Fund, which helps farmers access disaster funding, the Hay and Feed Hotline, which donates animal feed and the AgriStress Helpline that provides 24/7 mental health support. Now comes the task of cleanup: repair miles of destroyed fence line, tally lost livestock and move debris from foliage and mud to piled-up picnic tables. After a harrowing night waiting for hours to be rescued, Ketterman, who had gotten stuck on his vehicle, felt lucky to be alive. But he and his team were also grieving the loss of a member who died in the flooding on his way to work. They lost some animals to the churning water, as well. 'We're in the hundreds of thousands of dollars of damage, but you know, at the end of the day that's just monetary and we'll recover from that,' he said. Disasters like floods can be tough for specialty farmers Small farms that offer experiences to visitors, don't sell to wholesalers or don't have crop insurance are especially vulnerable, said Hannah Burrack, professor and chair of the entomology department at Michigan State University, who has worked with fruit farmers in the aftermath of floods. Clark said ostrich growers can access some U.S. Department of Agriculture programs that cover the loss of grass that birds graze on, but otherwise there isn't much assistance. Ostriches also get too cold in heavy rain. And it cuts down egg production; the hens almost stop laying eggs and mud and water can ruin what few they do. 'It does definitely affect our production this year and our profitability,' Clark said. Burrack said that other crops for consumption like fruits and vegetables get submerged, they can no longer be sold. Unharvested plants in fields can build up, causing pest issues or creating an unpleasant experience for visitors. And once submerged, 'long-term echoes of these short-term stressors' can make trees more vulnerable to disease. Meredith said Sweet Eats was lucky the Christmas season is still months away; they still had a chance to put the trees back up. They would've had a harder time if they were still doing peach trees like they used to. 'Because so much of our stuff is pick-your-own, so if we can't be open for customers, then it magnifies the challenges that we face because of cash flow issues,' he said. All farms need to plan for emergencies, climate change It's not just floods: farms across the country have taken hits due to extreme weather in recent years. Wildfires have damped farm-based businesses in California including pick-your-own apple orchards in the southern part of the state and wineries in the north. An unusually warm winter had Midwestern maple syrup producers scrambling in 2024, while pinching drought has hit pumpkins, along with many other crops, across the West. It's good business sense to observe how climate change might affect your operation and make adjustments accordingly, said Rob Leeds, an extension educator at Ohio State University who works with farmers, especially those interested in agritourism. He described how after watching a barrage of tornadoes and high winds in recent years, some cattle producers in Ohio have been building tougher barns that more typically would be seen in windswept areas of the West. Some fall-themed agritourism operators have started installing fans and misters, anticipating more hot days later into the fall. It will take a while for Texas farmers to fully recover, but some are already building back stronger. Ketterman said he thinks they're going to put up sturdier fence posts in the coming weeks as they secure the fence line. They'll lean on each other, too. Many farmers described the tight-knit sense of community as they weathered the storm. 'We all started calling each other, to make sure we could get our animals out and anything else that we needed to save,' said John Meredith, owner of Sweet Eats. 'Just because this is a fact of life. When you live on a river, it's beautiful and enjoyable, but there are occasionally times where things can go south very quickly.' ___ Walling reported from Chicago. Amy Taxin reported from Orange County, Calif. ___ Follow Melina Walling on X @MelinaWalling and Bluesky @ Follow Joshua A. Bickel on Instagram, Bluesky and X @joshuabickel. ___ The Associated Press' climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP's standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at
CBS News
06-07-2025
- CBS News
Breathtaking sights and sounds from Wyoming's Green River Drift
It is 4 a.m. and 60 Minutes correspondent Bill Whitaker is preparing for a horseback ride on Wyoming's Green River Drift, the longest running cattle drive in the United States. Whitaker is saddled up to join Brittany Heseltine, then a 29-year-old range rider. Her job is to guide and watch over roughly 600 cattle in mountain pastures during their summer grazing. It was her third on the drift. The job lasts about five months and can be grueling. While on the remote range, Heseltine lives in a small, isolated trailer without running water and cell service. "It's just absolutely amazing to be out here alone in nature with all the wildlife," Hazeltine told Whitaker in 2021. "And I get to work my dogs and drive my horses every day. And, of course, the cattle. It's something that really soothes my soul and it really speaks to me, I guess. It's really difficult to explain, but I love it." Whitaker and 60 Minutes joined Heseltine for a one-and-a-half-mile trek that lasted close to three hours before the herd stopped for a bovine siesta. Watch Bill Whitaker's full 60 Minutes report below. The video above was originally published on October 17, 2021 and was produced by Sarah Shafer Prediger and Keith Zubrow. It was edited by Sarah Shafer Prediger.
CTV News
03-07-2025
- General
- CTV News
Nature Conservancy of Canada working to protect historic Bob Creek Ranch
The Nature Conservancy of Canada (NCC) and the Waldron Grazing Co-operative have partnered to conserve the Bob Creek Ranch along Highway 22 west of Claresholm. A conservation group is working to protect a historic ranch in Alberta's cowboy country. The Nature Conservancy of Canada (NCC) and the Waldron Grazing Co-operative have partnered to conserve the Bob Creek Ranch along Highway 22 west of Claresholm. The 1,000-hectare property will create a contiguous block of more than 43,000 hectares of conserved and protected land within the headwaters of the South Saskatchewan River Watershed. The land will be a permanent space for game species like elk, moose, deer and grizzly bears to move through. 'The Bob Creek Ranch is significant because it was kind of this hole that was on the northside of the Oldman River,' said Larry Simpson, with the Nature Conservancy of Canada, Alberta Region. 'It has two or three miles of river frontage, it has a couple miles of frontage onto the Bob Creek and it's also bordered by the Bobcat Creek Wildland Park.' The project is part of the NCC's Prairie Grasslands Action Plan, in which the group hopes to conserve more than 500,000 hectares of land in Alberta by 2030.
