AoR 135: Are Cows "Tools"? The Effects of Language with Anna Clare Monlezun

[ Music ]

>> Tip Hudson: Welcome to The Art of Range, a podcast focused on rangelands and the people who manage them. I'm your host Tip Hudson, Range and Livestock Specialist with Washington State University Extension. The goal of this podcast is education and conservation through conversation. Find us online @artofrange.com.

[ Music ]

Welcome back to The Art of Range. My guest today is Anna Clare, a repeat offender on the podcast. Yes, I'll let you do a little bit more introduction in a minute, but you wrote an article a couple of years ago published in Rangelands titled, "Why We Should Consider Cattle Partners." And I'm inserting my own parenthetic left of that, sort of like a subtitle, "Because Tools is So Utilitarian." And of course, somebody might ask, "What's wrong with utilitarianism?" Maybe we'll get to that. We visited a number of episodes ago about sociological research in rangelands, specifically with ranchers. Notice I didn't say "on ranchers." And the importance of research angles that are not quite so much, you know, so-called hard science. Hard science like on the chemistry of nutrient partitioning in blue grama versus buffalo grass or something. And I think it's unfortunate that these other angles of inquiry, I guess, are often called soft science, because they -- they actually tend to get more at how real people make real decisions that have real impacts in the real world, the world that we depend on for life, which is pretty tangible and concrete that you could even say it's hard research. But coming back to the title of the article, saying that cows are partners, might seem really soft to some people. Nevertheless, I think -- I do think how we think about the things around is and different categories of things makes a difference in how we interact with them, which does very much matter. And in fact, in the article your first question that's sort of posed hypothetically to the reader in the article is, "What would happen if we stopped referring to cattle as tools?" And I guess the cynic would say, "It would make no difference at all. Nothing would happen." But I happen to think that you're on to something, and of course I think that because I resonate with that line of thinking. And it interests me. But it's my podcast, and I do a podcast because I like learning and I want to share it, and I enjoy it. And that's a very nonutilitarian impulse. So, there. Anna Clare, welcome back. I'm pleased to be visiting again.

>> Anna Clare Monlezun: Thank you. I'm really excited to have this conversation as well. Thanks for the invitation.

>> Tip Hudson: For listeners that are new listeners, there is an older episode with Anna Clare where she does some introduction, but maybe just give a thumbnail sketch of what you're doing and why, and how you got there.

>> Anna Clare Monlezun: Okay.

>> Tip Hudson: Before we jump in.

>> Anna Clare Monlezun: Okay. So, I come from originally a background in the social sciences. I worked as a counselor. And using the expressive arts therapies, specifically. So, at some point in life I made a hard shift and went back to school, deciding that I was kind of done working with people and I wanted to work with plants and animals, which had always been a passion of mine. I was always just fascinated by nature. Always wanted to have animals around me. Wanting to engage with animals. Wanting to be in the country. And so, I was redirected to those kind of childhood passions at a certain point in my life and realized that's what I should be doing, and I felt a strong call to go back to school and went into the Department of Animal Sciences at CSU, which is actually where the phrase "cattle as partners" was born. And that's because it was the -- a title of my master's thesis in Animal Sciences, which no one has ever read and never will, and I actually wouldn't recommend that you read it. But it was "Cattle as Partners in Conservation." Something like, colon, "The Effects of Grazing on Range Health Outcomes," or something like that.

>> Tip Hudson: Yes.

>> Anna Clare Monlezun: And that's where that phrase first came. And I deliberated on it for years after that. And it became a stronger and stronger concept for me, as I was introduced to Robin Wall Kimmerer's book, "Braiding Sweetgrass," and the way she talked about plants. And I thought to myself, "That is how I feel about animals." And actually, I had written something that had already a catch phrase that expressed that concept. And so, I then went and did a doctoral program in the Department of Ecosystem Science and Sustainability at CSU as well, with a focus of -- my research focus was always in grazing systems. So, continued that thread. And at a certain point, when I was supposed to be writing my dissertation, I just had to get this paper out of my heart and mind. It was stronger and more motivating than my dissertation at some point in time, and so, I did it.

>> Tip Hudson: That was going to be my first question was, "What was the impetus to write that article?" because it's not something that you normally would see.

>> Anna Clare Monlezun: Right. And it was -- I felt very vulnerable sending it. My PhD advisor, Dr. Stacy Lynn, she was the -- I passed it by her, and I said, "I know I'm not supposed to be writing this right now, but I just have to get it out." And I had her do a review of it and she did some editing and helped with the first revision. And that was wonderful and gave me just this kind of support which is her way of working with graduate students. She just was like, "Do it."

>> Tip Hudson: Yes.

>> Anna Clare Monlezun: "If you feel it, do it." And so, I submitted it to Rangelands and wasn't sure what was going to happen, but I got two incredible -- incredibly supportive peer reviews on it. And it was out. Yes.

>> Tip Hudson: It was out in 2022, I think.

>> Anna Clare Monlezun: Yes.

>> Tip Hudson: Yes.

>> Anna Clare Monlezun: Which was the year that I wrote and defended by dissertation.

>> Tip Hudson: Oh, yes.

>> Anna Clare Monlezun: And finished school. So, it kind of -- I think it -- let's see. It came out, yes, in the February issue and I graduated in December. So, yes. It was interesting timing.

>> Tip Hudson: No, it's a good article.

>> Anna Clare Monlezun: Yes.

>> Tip Hudson: Yes. I think what I liked is that in the sciences world, we're often critical of philosophy and people like science because it helps us understand causation and it helps us understand what is, but science doesn't tell us what ought to be.

>> Anna Clare Monlezun: Right.

>> Tip Hudson: And I don't know that I want to go further into that at the moment, because we've got lots to talk about, but it does beg the question, "These things affect how we think and act with everything else that's in the world." And it does get the terminology. You know, what's in a name?

>> Anna Clare Monlezun: Yes.

>> Tip Hudson: I saw an article years ago that addressed this terminology distinction. I think it was something like you know, "Why we shouldn't call farmers producers?" I think we talked about that just briefly in our previous interview--

>> Anna Clare Monlezun: We did.

>> Tip Hudson: -but the author was obviously arguing in favor of discarding the term "producer," mostly because it's just utilitarian and doesn't really get at even how farmers feel about what they do. And they are more than just food producers.

>> Anna Clare Monlezun: Yes, I totally agree, and I have -- I don't like using that term. And as you know, you asked what am I doing now? I also have -- I raise livestock. I ranch out in Central Colorado. And I never feel like a producer, not one moment of my day. That's not how I connect with what I do. And I would imagine most ranchers and farmers feel the same. And it is a very kind of commodity-oriented connotation.

>> Tip Hudson: Yes, I almost think that that term, I'm probably wrong here and if you know different, correct me, but I think the first time that I began hearing that term was when there was a pretty big push for quality assurance. Beef quality assurance, pork quality assurance, but you know, sort of ironically, that was part of the problem was that people were treating animals like they weren't sentient beings. And not using good handling practices, and not using good injection procedures, and you know, all things that stem from seeing the cow as an it. I think in philosophy, I don't know who came up with it, Martin Buber or somebody, but the I-Thou versus the I-It--

>> Anna Clare Monlezun: Yes.

>> Tip Hudson: -dichotomy. And we tend to apply the I-It dichotomy to everything except under humans. Interestingly, in fact I think this came up in some of Sherry Turkle's work which I've referenced a couple times, but she's a sociologist at MIT who's -- she's been there for 40 years and has been understanding the relationship between man and machines, and of course now computers. And part of why she wrote her most recent book, "Reclaiming Conversation" was that she was being pulled into hard sociological research on children who were applying the I-It thinking to other humans. Meaning they only see other humans as a means to an end, as opposed to somebody that has equal value with them and were seeing extremely anti-social behavior. Her theory is it's because of -- they've been immersed in a digital world and on screens and haven't had to interact with real people nearly as much as they would need to.

>> Anna Clare Monlezun: Wow.

>> Tip Hudson: So, that obviously, that sounds like it's more catastrophic when we apply it to people.

>> Anna Clare Monlezun: Yes, right.

>> Tip Hudson: And I feel like we see it all around us.

>> Anna Clare Monlezun: Right.

>> Tip Hudson: But it probably ought to apply to the animals and objects that we work with. And I guess I would say, I don't think that that means that we don't eat them. It just means that we treat them with more respect when we eat them.

>> Anna Clare Monlezun: Right.

>> Tip Hudson: There was a -- I know I'm talking a lot, but I did an interview with Prather Ranch in California, and they have their own abattoir. And he described the processes that they use to kill and then take the hide off of animals. And they do it in a way that's different than you know, what a regular--

>> Anna Clare Monlezun: Oh, really?

>> Tip Hudson: -what we call a slaughter plant does. You know, they don't use the hide puller. They don't use a pneumatic volt gun to put the animal down. It's still a slaughter plant--

>> Anna Clare Monlezun: Right.

>> Tip Hudson: -but they do it in a way that is intended to be more respectful to the animals. And I -- that may feel like a meaningless nuance, but I think if it does, that actually reveals the extent to which we've been embedded in this utilitarian, you know, I-It thinking for so long. It's the water that we swim in.

>> Anna Clare Monlezun: Right. Yes, that's so interesting because that is something that I've wrestled with myself. I mention in the paper in the beginning, and I actually -- the editor asked me to kind of add that paragraph where I kind of explain a little bit of my background and I mention as a teenager, I as actually a vegetarian. And I've never -- I hardly ever say that to anybody in the world that I work in now, because I just feel like I'll be totally ostracized. But it is a part of who I am, and as I mentioned, it's something I am embody today because it was a big part of my -- those stretchy, like you know, kind of edge-breaking teenage years of experimenting and identity and such. And I did it to boycott ironically, the very industry in which I live today, and that is the meat industry. But in those days, this you know, I didn't have an option of sourcing meat locally. I did. Like I had family raising cattle, but I -- it wasn't a thing. It wasn't a -- of the mentality to buy direct from a ranch or a farmer. You went to the grocery store. And I had written a paper. This is back when there was -- what was it called, Netscape before--

>> Tip Hudson: Oh, yes.

>> Anna Clare Monlezun: -yes. Okay, this is when that was.

>> Tip Hudson: I grew up writing all my papers in high school on a typewriter.

>> Anna Clare Monlezun: Right. I had a word processor.

>> Tip Hudson: So, I think there might have been a word processor my senior year--

>> Anna Clare Monlezun: Yes.

>> Tip Hudson: -but yes, I actually wrote things out and then rewrote them entirely on a typewriter.

>> Anna Clare Monlezun: Exactly.

>> Tip Hudson: Yes.

>> Anna Clare Monlezun: So, this is just slightly past, right, just into -- but yes, we had a word processor I remember, but the -- so I, on Netscape, I used as a research tool to write a paper, I was like a junior in high school, on the beef industry. And of course, I'm sure it's an extremely biased amount of information available in that various, you know, micro kind of web world. Very different than what we have today. And I was horrified. And it was nothing like what I had seen growing up, but it was something that I thought was everything. And I just decided I didn't want anything to do with it. And the way that I -- when I fast forward, right, fast forward some years, and the way that I returned to eating meat was by raising the animals myself. That's really how I returned to it. And around that same time, I was visiting the Denver Museum of Nature and Science that has a Native American area in the museum. And I read the caption on a photograph that -- and it quoted a hunting prayer that said, "Be not angry with me, thou I am obliged to destroy you to make myself live." And I use that quote as a mantra, as I shifted from vegetarianism back to eating meat again. And that was -- every plate of food that got put in front of me, that was my prayer. And I'm not a religious person, but that's what I -- I would call it my prayer. And so, and just showing that acknowledging that relationship with the animal. And that's how I made it through back to raising livestock, eating meat again, and to this day -- so then, my son was born. And every time we haul, you know, we load animals in a trailer to go to harvest, we stand there. He stands on the wheel well, you know, stands up, looks in the trailer, and we say out loud, "Thank you for your life." And my son has done that since before he could even speak. And to this day, we don't harvest the animal without looking at it and saying, "Thank you for your life." Whether it's a load or whether it's an individual.

>> Tip Hudson: Right. It doesn't do anything to the outcome of the animal--

>> Anna Clare Monlezun: No.

>> Tip Hudson: -but as you say in the article, language has transformative significance and affects how you -- it affects your internal posture toward those animals, which affects--

>> Anna Clare Monlezun: Right.

>> Tip Hudson: -how you care for them.

>> Anna Clare Monlezun: Yes.

>> Tip Hudson: You know, this whole circle comes back around to quality assurance.

>> Anna Clare Monlezun: BQA.

>> Tip Hudson: Right.

>> Anna Clare Monlezun: Yes.

>> Tip Hudson: If you want to avoid injection site lesions, treat your animals with respect.

>> Anna Clare Monlezun: Yes.

>> Tip Hudson: Yes. No, that's interesting. You know, speaking of terminology, we could rat about pet peeves, but you know, resources is a word that drives me crazy. It literally refers to all tangible and intangible things in the universe. And of course, you know, as Nathan Cera said about sustainability, if it means everything, then it means nothing.

>> Anna Clare Monlezun: Right.

>> Tip Hudson: And the word no longer has any usefulness. So, I think there are some problems with utilitarianism, which is some of what you're getting at in the article. And I do think that it affects how we think and act toward animals. I think some of the -- some of the blame maybe for how we have done things, people are complex, history is complex. And one of the things that's been blamed is a Judeo-Christian ethic, you know, that supposedly advocates for a dominion. But I ran across some writing a while back saying that the -- Hebrew, and that part of the Bible actually has more of the connotation of a sense of stewardship, of bringing forth the nature of each creature.

>> Anna Clare Monlezun: Now, someone has explained this to me, who's more familiar with the Bible [inaudible].

>> Tip Hudson: Yes.

>> Anna Clare Monlezun: Yes.

>> Tip Hudson: I like that idea.

>> Anna Clare Monlezun: Yes.

>> Tip Hudson: You know, of -- and that our responsibility as humans is that preserving or conserving an environment that allows that -- all of those creatures to survive or thrive. And I think that's a useful impulse, and also affects how we think. So, there's probably lots of different philosophies and religions that may actually end up with a pretty similar idea. You know, what you're describing from Native American thought is a very similar concept with what I'm calling a more accurate interpretation of this Judeo-Christian, you know, so-called dominion mandate. But more along the lines of stewardship. What other problems do you see with utilitarianism?

>> Anna Clare Monlezun: I think it's the power of that the kind of exert as who we are, kind of the web of life. We have a lot of power. We have very little power in some circumstances when you think of like landscape level, right, change and natural processes. But when it comes to especially working with animals, we are able to exert extreme amount of power.

>> Tip Hudson: Right. Humans especially collectively--

>> Anna Clare Monlezun: Yes.

>> Tip Hudson: -have and wield a lot of power on the earth.

>> Anna Clare Monlezun: Yes. And I don't think there's anything just inherently wrong with utilitarianism, because we are, I'm going to use the word resourceful. You know, resourceful. We have to be in the way that we live to fulfill our basic needs. So, you know, provisioning those resources is inherently utilitarian, I think. But it's deeper than that. You know, so it's the how. It's the how do we do that? How do we provision? And I think that our -- every action and thought is connected. And as you know, I quote from Dr. Kimmerer, she's talks about how, in her book, about how our language and how metaphor is powerful in that sense in the way that we act. So, I am very careful with my words, but your words come from your thoughts. So, okay, so if we want to question our words, then we also need to question the thought patterns that are connected to those words. And when you start digging into that, it can be almost like a practice, you know?

>> Tip Hudson: Yes, we're shaped by the rituals that we engage in, whether that's, I mean stuff as simple as eating breakfast together, rather than watching the news or--

>> Anna Clare Monlezun: Right.

>> Tip Hudson: -scanning social media, you know, while you eat your food.

>> Anna Clare Monlezun: Right.

>> Tip Hudson: Everything. Like the things that you say to yourself that--

>> Anna Clare Monlezun: Self-talk.

>> Tip Hudson: -that orient your internal direction, which absolutely affects your behavior. Yes, all of those things, some of which are more subconscious than others, definitely affect how we think. That's part of what Sherry Turkle is getting at in this book, "Reclaiming Conversation." How we -- the things that we do in life suddenly and subconsciously and informally affect how we view other humans, you know, to state a more significant example.

>> Anna Clare Monlezun: Right. It's like you can still provision your basic needs, right? You can still be resourceful, but be relational about it, right, instead of utilitarian. You can consider the kind of symbiosis and the relationship that you have with those things. And have that be at the forefront rather than the use of them, right? Focusing on the relationship. And I intentionally, you know, when I wrote the paper, I meant for it to be provocative, especially in the beginning. But you know, questions, hypothetical questions and what if, lot's of what if's. Then the paper moves to the let's. Let us you know, and that was an intentional shift in language because I don't think we think about it. It's not -- we're not meaning to be malicious. We're not meaning to be you know, utilitarian or you know, cruel in any way. I think it's just not conscious. But that's [inaudible].

>> Tip Hudson: It's just part of the arrangement.

>> Anna Clare Monlezun: Right.

>> Tip Hudson: Right. We're not thinking about our thinking.

>> Anna Clare Monlezun: Right.

>> Tip Hudson: Yes.

>> Anna Clare Monlezun: Yes. And so, you know, provoking the questions, and then almost a call to action is kind of the way that the paper ends. And that flow was intentional.

>> Tip Hudson: Yes. One of the questions is, we -- because we live in a time where we have probably unprecedented scientific information about the world in which we live, and we're prone to think that everything is just matter in motion, you know, as has been maybe more poetically described, we're just dancing to our DNA, which seems to absolve people of any responsibility for what they do with other people in the world around us. And I think people have a hard time pushing back against that, but we actually don't want to live in a world where we're only dancing to our DNA.

>> Anna Clare Monlezun: Yes.

>> Tip Hudson: And doing whatever we think we want blindly, in the world of -- with the world in front of us. The world gets pretty dark in places where that philosophy is institutionalized you know, in people or in government.

>> Anna Clare Monlezun: Yes, right.

>> Tip Hudson: And I think we wrestle with a way back out of it, because of our really hard scientific mindset.

>> Anna Clare Monlezun: Yes. And I guess, you know, being in graduate school and reading, you know, you spend lots of your time doing literature review, right? So, just reading paper after paper, and then having that contrast with the kind of scientific writing of Robin Wall Kimmerer, right? And it's like rare -- it's just such a start, "Where is the heart? Where is it?" And like what -- in the way we communicate science. Why is it not normal to talk about compassion or talk about love or talk about admiration, you know? Oh, because it's subjective. Oh, because it's biased.

>> Tip Hudson: Right.

>> Anna Clare Monlezun: Right? There's all of these kind of orthodox scientific norms--

>> Tip Hudson: But it's still real.

>> Anna Clare Monlezun: -right, that disconnect us from the subjects of our study. And why?

>> Tip Hudson: Right, and deliberately.

>> Anna Clare Monlezun: Yes.

>> Tip Hudson: It's a deliberate attempt.

>> Anna Clare Monlezun: But that's why we love -- we love what we do, you know?

>> Tip Hudson: Right.

>> Anna Clare Monlezun: You know, we love going out and doing field research. We love, you know, seeing the results emerge from the data, and then working, struggling with that data, and interpreting it. You know, it's a beautiful process of discovery. And I think that we wouldn't be doing it if we didn't love it, if we weren't fascinated by every cell to the subjects of our -- I mean, people who study -- I have a peer studying polar bears. I mean, I'm not super passionate about polar bears, but if you don't love that animal, you know, you can't spend a lifetime of study on it, or the, you know, Diana Wall who just passed away, she was an incredible mentor to many people at Colorado State University studying the, you know, microbiome of Antarctica. You have to love that, you know? And but we don't use that word. We don't--.

>> Tip Hudson: No. Oh, I wish I had the book with me. There was a book called "A Little Manual of Knowing," by Esther Lightcap Meek.

>> Anna Clare Monlezun: Okay. You're a way better rep than I am. So, I'm going have to come listen to this again and write down all of these authors.

>> Tip Hudson: Yes, but she gets at that very idea--

>> Anna Clare Monlezun: Yes.

>> Tip Hudson: -that in order to truly know something, even if we want to scientifically know it--

>> Anna Clare Monlezun: Yes.

>> Tip Hudson: -you can to -- it's sort of like reading. C.S. Lewis said that, "There has to be a willing suspension of disbelief in order for you to truly enter into you know, the fictional world that's being presented to you by the author."

>> Anna Clare Monlezun: Right.

>> Tip Hudson: And she's saying, "In order to know something, even in the scientific way, you have to let yourself know that thing," which means loving it.

>> Anna Clare Monlezun: Right. But then, when you go to communicate your science, you have to leave that completely out, because then someone might think you're being biased--

>> Tip Hudson: Right.

>> Anna Clare Monlezun: -or you're a biased observer.

>> Tip Hudson: Right.

>> Anna Clare Monlezun: So, what do you do with that?

>> Tip Hudson: Everybody is a biased observer. Even the ones that think they're not, that's the problem.

>> Anna Clare Monlezun: Well, that's true. And I guess that, you know, we could tear this apart really and start thinking about every step of the scientific process, and at some point you do detach yourself and you're looking at numbers, and you're looking at a spreadsheet. And you absolutely have to be unbiased, right, about what emerges from the data. And that's fine. That's what we have to do in the scientific method, but there's just a lack of the other side of scientific communication. And I just--

>> Tip Hudson: And the love is a couple steps back.

>> Anna Clare Monlezun: Right.

>> Tip Hudson: Like it affects the very questions that we ask, using the scientific method, relationship with these things.

>> Anna Clare Monlezun: Right. And same with ranching. Same with working with animals. I mean, I will never forget, I was with -- working on a project with a rancher in Oregon, and we were on his, you know, on the side-by-side. We had finished up some ecological monitoring for the day. And we're riding back to the homestead and the cattle were in the pasture and a calf had just dropped. And he just dead stopped. I mean, how many calves has he seen be born? Like, he's seen hundreds, thousands of calves born. But he stopped to watch. And I get choked up because it was a moment I will never forget. He is a rancher in his 70s. Like I said, I don't know how many times he's seen a calf born. He stopped in the middle of the road and just sat and watched. And I turned to look at him and he had tears.

>> Tip Hudson: Yes, yes.

>> Anna Clare Monlezun: You know? It just--

>> Tip Hudson: It never gets old.

>> Anna Clare Monlezun: -never gets old.

>> Tip Hudson: Right.

>> Anna Clare Monlezun: Never gets old.

>> Tip Hudson: And it is beautiful.

>> Anna Clare Monlezun: Yes. And that moment, those moments that we have with livestock, that incredible like awe of the beauty of what they are, you know, I can just wrap myself up in it. But from day to day, and then when we go to talk about it, or we go to present at a conference, or we go to you know, Cattle Lands and everyone's dressed to the nines with their hat and their boots, and like we're not going to talk about the moment that we shed a tear on the side-by-side, because the calf, you know--. Why don't we do that more? I don't know. I just -- and that was part of the inspiration to get this paper out, because I feel like with the criticism that we endure from a lot of the general public in our industry, I feel like language and more heart language and those kinds of stories are -- could make a difference in the way that we communicate our work to the general public.

>> Tip Hudson: I do think it's there.

>> Anna Clare Monlezun: Something's there.

>> Tip Hudson: I think it's there with most people.

>> Anna Clare Monlezun: Yes.

>> Tip Hudson: Like you see all these sociological and economic analyses of ranching that find you've got, you know, 1 to 3% rate of return investment, and of course, the question's always, "Why do you keep doing this? You know, you're not making any money. You're working 80 hours a week and not getting much in return in terms of money." I think it's because people really aren't totally utilitarian, even if they themselves can't articulate or put their finger on that impulse. You know, we call it lifestyle or something. But ranchers love the lifestyle. There's emotion in it. And I think it's one of the things that will change public perception of ranching is seeing it done well.

>> Anna Clare Monlezun: Right.

>> Tip Hudson: You know, you shouldn't judge an industry based on its worst representatives.

>> Anna Clare Monlezun: Right. I mean that doesn't mean there aren't bad players, right?

>> Tip Hudson: Yes.

>> Anna Clare Monlezun: There are videos out there-

>> Tip Hudson: Right.

>> Anna Clare Monlezun: -of livestock managers doing horrible things and being terribly disrespectful to the animals. Getting frustrated, getting you know -- getting physical when it wasn't necessary, or whatever. I mean, that happens. You get frustrated. And unfortunately--

>> Tip Hudson: Exhibit C in the utilitarian impulse.

>> Anna Clare Monlezun: Right. And so, but unfortunately, those -- you know, it makes me think again how emotion is powerful because it's those emotional moments, right, that impact the public's eye. Right?

>> Tip Hudson: Negatively.

>> Anna Clare Monlezun: Negatively. Where are all those other emotional moments? Like how do we share those?

>> Tip Hudson: Right. There's no expose on you weeping over the sheep giving birth.

>> Anna Clare Monlezun: No, no. PETA is not--

>> Tip Hudson: There's no reporters there.

>> Anna Clare Monlezun: -no, exactly. There's not going to be a report on that.

>> Tip Hudson: Yes.

>> Anna Clare Monlezun: So, how do we do that? And--

>> Tip Hudson: Yes.

>> Anna Clare Monlezun: -and every time I've -- and I highly, highly respect the authors and the scientists that I, you know, meet at conferences who have written papers and use the word "tool" and talk about cattle as tools. I highly respect those scientists, and I worried about this paper rubbing the wrong way. But I do think that that is just one little, bitty thing. It's just one word, one more way that it seems insensitive. It seems -- and I know it's not, right? It's just the word that became the word to use, to describe one way that we -- one use for good cattle management. You know? Our stewardship.

>> Tip Hudson: Right.

>> Anna Clare Monlezun: Not management. But--.

>> Tip Hudson: Yes, I see where some of that -- where the tool terminology comes from, and that we're trying to advocate for a substitute safe for a chemical manipulation of the plant community.

>> Anna Clare Monlezun: Right.

>> Tip Hudson: Or you know, name whatever other treatment that's supposed to have some beneficial effect, you know--

>> Anna Clare Monlezun: Right.

>> Tip Hudson: -in redirecting species composition or the trajectory of succession or something, and we're using the term in that sense, probably--

>> Anna Clare Monlezun: And it's really grazing is the tool.

>> Tip Hudson: Right, right.

>> Anna Clare Monlezun: Right? It's grazing that's the tool, I think. Not the animal itself.

>> Tip Hudson: Right. And even -- an analogy, I just thought of this analogy that I've used regarding grazing well, versus grazing in ways that are harmful is that a tool, like a circular, can be used to tear things apart--

>> Anna Clare Monlezun: Right.

>> Tip Hudson: -or you know, or manipulate the physical environment in a way that builds things up. You know, in that sense, a tool can be used both positively and negatively. It just so happens in the case of livestock, it's humans that are largely responsible for directing the effects of that tool.

>> Anna Clare Monlezun: Right.

>> Tip Hudson: But yes, the tool is the grazing. It is different in the sense that you are relying on a living thing, doing something sort of on their own--

>> Anna Clare Monlezun: Right.

>> Tip Hudson: -to accomplish purposes.

>> Anna Clare Monlezun: Yes, it--

>> Tip Hudson: And the accomplishments are much more complex than just vegetation defoliation.

>> Anna Clare Monlezun: Right, exactly. And it creates this dichotomy that if you plan it almost in your minds, like it sounds like you and I like to do these kinds of exercises, you know, it creates a dichotomy of like object and subject, inanimate and animate. You know, a tool is inanimate. It's an object. A cow is not.

>> Tip Hudson: Right.

>> Anna Clare Monlezun: It's a subject. It's animate. It's a living being. It's just a mix-match and one that maybe has kind of collective kind of conscious influence and power. I don't know. I haven't tested that, that theory, right? I haven't studied this empirically at all. It's all my wonderings and I put it into a scholarly format, right?

>> Tip Hudson: Right.

>> Anna Clare Monlezun: And I'm sure that there are many -- there exists many rebuttals to what the paper suggests. And that's fine. But let's have a conversation. Like, let's make it conscious. You know?

>> Tip Hudson: Yes. In the -- oh, in Wendle Berry's novel, "Jayber Crow," he's describing the shift in farming in the aftermath of World War II where everything became more mechanized, and there were more inputs. And so, it was -- during that period of time, you had a shift away from more subsistence farming, where you just farmed in order to make enough food to support you know, you and the people around you--

>> Anna Clare Monlezun: Right.

>> Tip Hudson: -versus trying to convert a natural resource, there's that term again, into cash that could be used to purchase consumer goods. And so, one of the shifts was that now you had to farm fence line to fence line. You're farming the entire property boundary, instead of just farming, say the good river bottom soil, and then leaving the woodlands around it and you know, there were -- there was much more complexity to most farm landscapes all over the country when they were just farming the good ground. But then once you could apply fertilizer and mechanize tillage and a whole host of things, now we can just take the entire surface of the earth--

>> Anna Clare Monlezun: Right.

>> Tip Hudson: -and turn it into production. So, in the sense, the farmer did become a producer in that there was a moving away from you know, seeing the farm as something beyond a generator of salable food or agricultural products. And I think that's part of the beauty that people see in ranching is that we -- they at least in, you know, in the more -- in the, I'm going to say "better" representatives of the ranching community that we're more familiar with, you know, there is an impulse to try to maintain all of the pieces of the machine, so to speak. You know, you don't want to graze in a way that's going to destroy habitat for whatever. And in fact, I feel like you can make the case that it's more -- even more profitable when you maintain that, I guess, botanical complexity and heterogeneity, because that -- that feeds animal health. There's lots of connections that I think we're only just beginning to put our fingers on. It's like you're you know, thinking nature's thoughts after her, and trying to rediscover things that you know, are sort of intuitive if you have a mindset that says, "We want to keep all the parts."

>> Anna Clare Monlezun: Right. Right.

>> Tip Hudson: Then we take it apart, and then we try to put it back together. And in some places, we're having a hard time getting Humpty Dumpty reassembled.

>> Anna Clare Monlezun: Yes.

>> Tip Hudson: But that -- I think what people see in that is this beautiful, in every sense of the word, synergy between humans and animals and landscape that isn't mutually exclusive. Like if cows graze this landscape, it's not necessarily reducing the ability of that landscape to support the things that were already there.

>> Anna Clare Monlezun: Right.

>> Tip Hudson: And in fact, may in some ways enhance it.

>> Anna Clare Monlezun: Right.

>> Tip Hudson: And that's quite rare in the world of agriculture.

>> Anna Clare Monlezun: Yes, and that's one of the things, exactly what you're saying, is one of the things that I love about ranching. That you are a part of this ecosystem, right, that -- and you see how everything connects to everything else. And you can produce, right, produce food as well as support all of these other biological processes, and wildlife, right? And you see the wildlife come on and off the ranch. That's one of the things that I wish I could share with people who only know, or children especially who only know going to the grocery store, right? I feel this, like, need to somehow you know, let people know what it's like. And not that it's just -- it's not the lifestyle. Like, sometimes people will use that term. You know, it's the lifestyle and people want to -- from the outside or from the city want to come and experience the lifestyle. It's not a style. It is actually -- it is like deep, like interconnection with all of those things, from the soil microbiome all the way to the apex carnivore that roams the area.

>> Tip Hudson: It sounds cheesy, but it is living in harmony with nature.

>> Anna Clare Monlezun: Yes, yes, it is. And that's one of the things we intend to further develop on our ranch is proactive, a better word, at the moment, like an eco-tourism aspect of the ranch, where we can bring people, host workshops, host students, from something as simple as a family vacation where we offer them a two-hour you know, educational ranch tour, right, about regenerative, if you want to use that word, ranching, ranching advo-ecologically, right? All the way from that to you know, hosting an internship of a graduate student, you know? Allowing them to participate, learn skills, get hands-on, as well as connect back to their academic curriculum. I really feel like that as someone who has been privileged in this life to have a place to call home that's like this, that we can demonstrate this way of living, and this way of producing food, and supporting ecological processes, I feel a responsibility to share. To share that experience.

>> Tip Hudson: Yes, there may be some exceptions to this, but nobody's doing eco-tourism on a soybean field.

>> Anna Clare Monlezun: No. Right. Agri-tourism is a thing, right?

>> Tip Hudson: Yes.

>> Anna Clare Monlezun: That's something.

>> Tip Hudson: Yes.

>> Anna Clare Monlezun: And--

>> Tip Hudson: I'm not disparaging soybean farmers. You know, they're -- it's a sufficient way to grow food, and I think we do have some responsibility to feel people.

>> Anna Clare Monlezun: Yes.

>> Tip Hudson: We are successfully producing enough feed to feed the world, the world's people. And it's people in governments that prevent the food from getting to people that need food.

>> Anna Clare Monlezun: Right.

>> Tip Hudson: It's not a failure of food production.

>> Anna Clare Monlezun: Right.

>> Tip Hudson: And I think we're also learning how to do that a little bit more responsibly than we have in the past, even where you have real crop agriculture. So, I'm aware that I often use that as a distinction, yes and it -- because I will often say, "You're not growing wildlife habitat where you grow corn." You just -- you can't do it without destroying whatever was there before the corn. And now we're attempting to not destroy the soil where we have corn, but it's not sage grass habitat. It's for sure not.

>> Anna Clare Monlezun: Right. Yes, and you know, our world is just tied into this food system that supports the big cropping systems, you know? Just it supports it. It encourages it. It's dependent and it's going to be, if ever, you know, just a slow change from that, but yes, it's the way the world turns for now. But it is -- it is different. It's a different aspect of agriculture. Yes, you can't have sage grass habitat there but--.

>> Tip Hudson: No, I've heard stories from other people who were raised in the city. And when they first encounter, in the examples I'm thinking of, cattle, in a well-managed wild landscape, where you obviously have people working with animals, working with landscapes where you're maintaining all of the other ecosystem services, which sounds utilitarian, in that landscape. But it's there.

>> Anna Clare Monlezun: They [inaudible] contributions to people.

>> Tip Hudson: Yes, it can bring people to tears, because it's such a contrast and they realize -- it's almost they feel like, "Oh, that's what we were meant for."

>> Anna Clare Monlezun: Right.

>> Tip Hudson: That - it just feels like it fits. It's satisfying, and it--

>> Anna Clare Monlezun: Yes.

>> Tip Hudson: -it strikes a chord in people that oftentimes they don't even know was there. They didn't know they had that string in their heart that just got plucked--

>> Anna Clare Monlezun: Right.

>> Tip Hudson: -and it sort of overwhelms them. Holy cow, that is something that's really impressive.

>> Anna Clare Monlezun: Right.

>> Tip Hudson: Maybe we should do more of that and not less.

>> Anna Clare Monlezun: Yes, exactly.

>> Tip Hudson: Yes.

>> Anna Clare Monlezun: I totally agree. That was my experience the first time I ever went down to Georgia to White Oak Pastures on a research project. The multi-species kind of original to farming model and all the people that made that possible. It was an incredible experience. And I, you know, came back very inspired. I ended up writing a poem about it because I, you know, I was deeply inspired by that, and I come from that kind of work. But seeing another example, it was still like another boost, right? It wasn't like, "Oh, I've seen this before," or "Oh, I do that, too," or -- no, it was seeing it in a whole different context. That's one thing that I think I love seeing these you know, ranch days, field days, on-site, you know, seminars or lots of folks opening up their ranch to educational events. I think that that is so important and it's also this form of kind of peer-to-peer learning. You know, instead of being kind of closed off and being afraid to be transparent, and "Oh, what if somebody says something about this pasture? I'm not proud of it either. I don't want anybody--." You know?

>> Tip Hudson: Right.

>> Anna Clare Monlezun: No place is perfect, but everyone has something to offer. Something to give. And something for someone to be inspired by. I'm absolutely positive. And I've worked now, I visited in my work these days enough ranches to know that I think I've worked now on over 30 -- 30 ranches in the last two years, on a particular project. And spending a day on more than 30 ranches across about six states, I leave with something different from every place. Some new spark of inspiration. Like, the calf, it never gets old.

>> Tip Hudson: Right.

>> Anna Clare Monlezun: You can learn something from everybody. And I just think that this, you know, the non-profits and the professional organizations supporting these, you know, kind of field days and ranch days and such at different places is -- can be very powerful, just within the ranch, you know, management range, science and management community for sure. More of that.

>> Tip Hudson: Yes. Yes, I have felt for some time that the way to change people's attitudes is one at a time. And I think that's probably going to happen you know, through people encountering ranches like yourself that are doing it in a way that is obviously sustainable, to borrow a buzzword. But I do think it still means something to people, and probably is truly regenerative and that will affect how people feel and the emotions they have toward animal husbandry and livestock production. Yes, so thank you for what you're doing, I guess to communicate both directions. To, you know, to make efforts even though they feel like they're not a lot, to demonstrate and communicate with people that eat food, as well as trying to translate some of the ideas to influence the thinking of the scientific community, the people that are more prone to, I think, utilitarian thinking. I actually think in our sphere of range science, it's less that way than it is in other fields of science. Nevertheless, it's still there. I think it's part of you know, being a post-enlightenment culture that leads toward things that we think are objectively true. So, thank you for your work in trying to translate that, and actually doing it in the real world and trying to change people's hearts.

>> Anna Clare Monlezun: Thank you. Thank you for being interested in this line of thought and your attention to the paper. It's kind of going out on a limb, you know, this kind of writing in a peer reviewed journal, and I appreciate you giving me a chance to speak further on it and further share about the concept.

>> Tip Hudson: Happy to. Thanks again.

>> Anna Clare Monlezun: Thank you.

>> Tip Hudson: Thank you for listening to The Art of Range podcast. You can subscribe to and review the show through iTunes or your favorite podcasting app, so you never miss an episode. Just search for "Art of Range." If you have questions or comments for us to address in a future episode, send an e-mail to show@artofrange.com. For articles and links to resources mentioned in the podcast, please see the show notes @artofrange.com. Listener feedback is important to the success of our mission, empowering rangeland managers. Please take a moment to fill out a brief survey @artofrange.com. This podcast is produced by CAHNRS Communications in the College of Agricultural Human and Natural Resource Sciences at Washington State University. The project is supported by the University of Arizona and funded by the Western Center for Risk Management Education through the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture.

>> The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed by guests of this podcast are their own and does not imply Washington State University's endorsement.