AoR 151: Targeted Grazing for Wetland Health - Maria Pacioretty & Chase Carter

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>> 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 at www.artofrange.com. Welcome back to the Art of Range. My guests today are in this next episode in the series with the Life on the Range story series, are the on-the-ground managers at the Sterling Wildlife Management Area in southeastern Idaho near Pocatello. They've been doing habitat improvements on wetlands with targeted grazing and prescribed burning. So we have with us a repeat offender, Steve Stuebner, who is the writer and producer of this really tremendous Life on the Range story series. We also have Maria Pacioretty. She's the regional wildlife habitat biologist with the Idaho Department of Fish and Game. Chase Carter, who is a rancher in the Pingree area, and has been the primary guy working through all of the ins and outs of trying to accomplish habitat improvement with livestock grazing. Steve, Maria, and Chase, welcome.

>> Thanks, great to be here.

>> Yeah, thank you.

>> Yes, thanks as well.

>> Maria, why don't you start with some background on the Sterling Wildlife Management Area? You know, most of the listeners are not going to be from southeastern Idaho, so describe a bit what that environment looks like, what the vegetation is, and what is the problem that you thought you might be able to solve by sticking cows in wildlife habitat?

>> Yeah. So the Sterling WMA is located along the western edge of the American Falls Reservoir here in southeast Idaho. And it's a little over 4,100 acres of land. And it's a mosaic of wetlands and uplands. And it's a very popular hunting, fishing, trapping, bird watching destination here for recreationists in this end of the state. So when I first started on the WMA about eight years ago, I noticed that our wetlands primarily had a pretty serious biomass problem. There's a lot of just decadent, dead standing vegetation, so cattails, bulrushes so thick that hunting, hiking, a lot of these areas are just impenetrable. So even like wildlife use in these areas was greatly diminished. And so I started trying to come up with some unique ways to try and get at how could we possibly reset this kind of ecosystem. And the WMA is a bit unique in terms of wetland work because I don't have a lot of direct control over the water that's flowing over the management area. So that makes certain wetland management actions difficult if you can't, you know, control the water that's coming in. And so that's part of the reason why the biomass was, the problem is so bad. And so that's kind of what kick-started this project was we did a comprehensive wetland review, Idaho Department of Fish and Game and multi-agency partners. And we started a lot of conversations with Seedskadee National Wildlife Refuge in Wyoming who had been using cows off and on the winter to try and break up some of their cattails. And it was that conversation that really started me down this kind of rabbit hole of cattle grazing research on the WMA. And I knew I wanted to bring back grazing on the WMA. I just wasn't quite sure at the time the right way to do it because there's a lot of different factors, you know, when you're managing for wildlife and hunting season pressure is really high. So I didn't want to have cattle out during hunting seasons and didn't want them out during a lot of the main nesting seasons. And so it just kind of was a lot of back and forth. And out of the blue in 2018, 2019, Dallin and Chase Carter called me about trailing some cows through the WMA, kind of like a shortcut. And kind of went back and forth and ended up letting them do that. And then they called me again and was like, "Would you guys be willing to sit down with us? We think we have some ideas of how we could help you graze." And that phone call conversation kick-started so many partnerships in this project and to where we are today. It's been great. So that's kind of a little bit of background on how we got started in terms of the wetland issues.

>> Yeah, because I'm also not that familiar with the area. And you mentioned that some wetlands and particularly wildlife management areas often do have water control. Even if it's a semi-natural wetland, you oftentimes have some ability to control water levels. And I've seen several places like in New Mexico was one. And I think the Klamath is somewhat similar where they can manipulate water levels to sort of encourage different kinds of vegetation and then draw it down in order to attract things like -- I'm not a wildlife guy. We call them dabbling ducks. Am I getting the right term there?

>> Yes.

>> OK. That want shallow water but not dewatered ground. So is this somewhat, is this a natural wetland or somewhat of a semi-constructed wetland associated with that reservoir?

>> So Sterling is mostly natural. There are some components to some of the units that are structured. The WMA is unique in the hydrology of the area. It's not necessarily tied to the influence of the reservoir levels there which is kind of a different situation. So it's more influenced by subsurface flow coming across the desert. And so I've got, each of my wetland units I look at very differently because the water kind of works differently on each of those. And I only have one area where I actually have a well. And even then, I'm only semi-able to control the water there. So short of undergoing like a massive multimillion-dollar engineering wetland restoration process, which is something that we've been looking for but just haven't been able to do, that's where we started thinking outside the box of how can we work on these wetlands and kind of get them back to a more productive state. Because we have a lot of migratory waterfowl, water birds, shore birds, you know, that hit that area. That American Falls Reservoir area is a really important STOP oversight in the Pacific Flyway for birds. So that's just kind of what we just started thinking outside the box. And Dallin and his brother, Chase, were so great because they had also been forced to think outside their own box in terms of their grazing program and how to make it work with the hot wire and rotating segments. And so we kind of -- it was a very much like all of us working together to try and figure this out. It was like, it was a big experiment, you know, and it took some selling to get approval for as well. And once we got through that first season, we were like, holy cow, this is working and it's working great and we need to expand on it.

>> Yeah, I'm itching to get to Chase but I've got a couple more questions to just dial in. What is the nature of the problem? Because I can imagine some people are listening to this thinking, well, yeah, if it's a natural wetland it's supposed to be full of cattails and big honking grasses. Why is that a problem? And I mean you talked about it sort of being the vegetating kind of, vegetation sort of suffocating itself. But can you describe a little bit more why this accumulation of material is a problem? I mean people that have been around wetlands have certainly seen this where if there's no fire, no grazing and no harvest of any kind, no way to remove that biomass, it just piles up but what are -- so, you know, to me that feels like a problem. But other people, particularly people that maybe think it's not a good idea to graze wetlands which is not an uncommon perspective, may feel like, so why is that a problem? So the vegetation piles up, falls over, dies, rots, moves back into the wetland. Why is that a problem either for the natural function of wetlands or for the wildlife that want to use them?

>> Yeah. No, that's a very good question. So what happens when this biomass just accumulates over time, it gets so thick, like you can't even walk out into it. You have to like put snowshoes on or swim, like it is so thick. And what happens is like the sunlight stops being able to penetrate down into kind of that shallow surface water area. And so you basically end up with these like biological dead zones underneath these really thick mats. And that's a problem because that means you're not generating, you know, any small like aquatic plant species. You're not getting a lot of aquatic invertebrates.

>> Just to spell that out, that's what's feeding the waterfowl, right? They're not eating cattail stalks.

>> Right, yeah. So in order to have productive, you know, waterfowl and water birds they need those insects and, you know, subaquatic plants. They need all that to feed their chicks and to survive so there's just not -- it's just basically, again, it's suffocating. They're just dead zones. There's not a lot of life underneath those mats.

>> And low plant species richness because you -- yeah, without that regular disturbance, it moves toward --

>> Towards a monoculture, yes.

>> The dominance of all of these larger statured perennial grasses, rushes, reeds. And so your species richness goes down.

>> Correct.

>> And vertical structure goes up. Yeah, literally up.

>> Yep.

>> And so you don't have -- yeah, you need the variety of plant species present to support all of the different stuff that wants to live there.

>> Yes, and they're not really decomposing as fast as people would think when they're in that state either, just because there's just not a lot of, you know, those processes going on when it's that stagnant. And so if you can get in there and break up certain sections and open up some more spaces so sunlight can get in then you can start having some more rapid decomposition of those plant structures. But when it's so thick like, you know, what was happening and what is still happening in some areas that we haven't gotten to yet is it's just, yeah, it just stays there and it gets thicker and thicker every year.

>> Well, I'm wishing we could show a picture right here. But maybe that's a good prompt for me to recommend people to go to the Life on the Range page for this story and take a look at the video and the photographs. And Steve had sent a photograph to us with his notes about the interview that said it was his favorite. Steve, talk about this picture and why it's your favorite photograph.

>> Yeah, I mean if you, you know, talk about one picture saying a thousand words. I mean they had one of their employees just like lying down on top of one of those giant mats of vegetation and he's not even hitting the ground. And so it's just like Maria is saying, it was just suffocating. And anyway, yeah, please take a look at our video and the page. You'll see a number of pictures and I think people will see right away what she's talking about.

>> Yeah, the photograph looks like somebody tried to jump off a diving board backwards and land, you know, do a backwards belly flop and then never reach the water. They're just perched on top like the size of a full-grown man perched on top of the vegetation out of the water in a wetland. Yeah, that's a lot of, there's a lot of vertical structure there.

>> Yep.

>> I'm aware that migratory waterfowl migrate. Hello, Captain Obvious. But do you have birds that spend all the time there, all their time there? When the birds are there, what are they doing there? For people that are not familiar with sort of the lifecycle, the annual cycle of these birds, what are they doing when they're here? Are they flying through? Are they nesting? What are the birds doing?

>> Yeah, all good questions. So we have both migratory and resident waterfowl. So we get both. We see like the biggest flushes of waterfowl arriving in the area obviously during the spring and fall migrations. But the resident waterfowl that we have that stay year round, they find areas to nest, raise their young, feed. They use the areas that are usually well or spring fed in the winter that still have some open water. But they use a lot of the adjacent fields and transition zones around the wetlands, you know, to nest. Diving ducks and water birds like cranes, you know, they look to nest in the actual wetland vegetation. So we have a bit of both things going on out there which I think makes it really unique.

>> Yeah. And what species are those? Not all of them but like the ones that people would pay attention to that are noticeable.

>> Oh gosh. Just some pretty common ones that people, you know, often think of. You know, we have your mallards. They're very generalist birds. They do well in a lot of habitats. We get a lot of northern pintails, especially this time of year in the winter. We see shovelers, wigeons. I get a lot of teal, both green and blue wing. I see a lot of cinnamons in the spring, cinnamon teal. We do get a lot of like sandhill cranes that migrate through and those are fun. And usually quite a few pairs of those will stop and stay on the WMA to nest during the year. And we get a lot of shorebirds that also arrive late spring, early summer. And then we also get a lot of trumpeter swans overwinter about like October, end of March-ish. A lot of southeast Idaho is a big stronghold for majority of the Rocky Mountain trumpeter swan population, so we get a lot of that in the winter as well.

>> I promise I'll stop grilling you here in just a minute, but I do have more questions. I've seen wetlands where all of those birds are present and it seems like they often gravitate. I'm not sure that's the right word. They tend to be visibly present and prefer places that have open water margins. And one of the things that I've seen with wetlands that have no disturbance whatsoever is they sort of terrestrialize, where the edges get thicker and then the open water gets smaller and smaller. And on the edge of the open water, you've got an immediate transition to really tall vegetation. And ducks sometimes like to be in those little, you know, tight holes that have high sides, but the bigger waterfowl seem to prefer places where they've got open water margins. Is it beneficial to have both of those and are you trying to create a variety of conditions? Or is there sort of a sweet spot in the middle that's good for everything and you can manage toward that?

>> Yeah, so we actually were measuring for like a mosaic of those conditions. We don't want to get stuck in kind of a state we were in where it's all one state, as in the dead senescent, just some open water straight to tall emergent. We want kind of a mosaic. Like an ideal target that you'll see in a lot of wetland management is like 50-50, 50% open water to 50% tall emergent vegetation. And so you need to try and hit a mosaic of all those different zones, especially if you're trying to kind of provide the best resource for all those different species that are using the area.

>> Yeah, that's interesting. That's reminding me of a really good quote from Sam Fuhlendorf, who's a scientist out of Oklahoma that's written a lot about patch grazing, patch burning, particularly in high productivity environments. And regarding patches, he said that, I think he said, and there's an old episode on this but it's been long enough. Anyway, I think he said six patches makes you six times less likely to be entirely wrong. It's like good risk management. Something's going to do well.

>> Yeah, we like messy. We don't --

>> Yeah.

>> That's what we're going for is messy and mosaic and, you know, just trying to reset the areas.

>> So how was that historically maintained before there were domestic cattle and Europeans lighting fire?

>> So historically, this whole area was like a drain to the Snake River, so before the dam, before the reservoir. So a lot of these wetlands were there historically and so there would have been like bison and large ungulate grazing and sage-grouse and all of that going on. And so it all kind of drained from the big desert, Great Rift, you know, to the Snake River channel there to the west.

>> Yeah. So it would have been some natural fire.

>> Yeah.

>> Lightning caused fire.

>> Natural fire.

>> Probably Indigenous people causing fire.

>> Natural bison, ungulate grazing, stuff like that.

>> Got it. OK, so some of the same ecological mechanisms just from different people and animals.

>> Right.

>> Got it. OK. Chase, I'm wondering at what point -- like have you been adjacent to this and thought for years, I think we should graze that, I can help them out? Or did -- how did this proposal come to you?

>> Well, to start out, you know, I've been in this business coming on 20 years so knew relatively. Me and my brother decided to try our hand at ranching. We come from a ranching family, fourth generation. But we figured out early on that we couldn't do things with the same business model that like my father or grandfather used which would be, you know, turning to feeding hay for, you know, five, five and a half months during the wintertime. The margin wasn't there. And so we looked for ways that we could, you know, extend the grazing season and minimize our dependence on hay. And the last 15, 20 years with the hay market's been very volatile. I mean, we've seen, you know, all-time highs and all-time lows. It seems like every five, six years, you know, it vacillates from one end to the other end. And as a business owner we thought, how can we steady this? And so we looked to extending the grazing season which led us to, you know, getting good with hot wire. That's not something that we grew up with but we had to get creative and find ways that we could, you know, put out a large quantity of fencing and also remove it during the wintertime when ground is frozen and those kind of things. And initially, we started grazing crop aftermath, you know, stubble of alfalfa and wheat fields. And once you start doing that you start looking like, hey, what other options are out there? And as we drive by these fields in the fall and see the growth out there, the farmers, you know, they would allow us to come out there and we struck a deal with them and we could, you know, partition off some of their fields. We could provide water. And as we developed those tools and looked around us, we said, what other opportunities are out there? And obviously, we're ranching there close by the WMA. We thought, hey, there could be an opportunity there. And as we would, you know, observe, just as a rancher, not a biologist, say, look, here's the WMA and you could see the overgrowth. And here right next to it is a place that is grazed and you would see maybe more ducks and geese in that field as opposed to over in the WMA. And that started to maybe work our minds a little bit, you know, and it kind of went from there.

>> Yeah, that's a really interesting observation. One of the most shocking moments in the 25 years that I've been working as a rangeland professional of some kind was visiting a site like that with a farmer a few years ago, probably 10 years ago now, where there was natural pothole wetlands, and the whole thing had been taken over by Russian olive and giant reed and cattails. And he's driving me out to this spot that he wants to show me and we're going through like a tunnel. It felt like a dark tunnel that the sun couldn't get into of vegetation on like 12-foot high giant reed and, you know, the Russian olive trees closing over the top of our head. And then we get to this spot and I get out to open the gate. And as I get out to open the gate, like it opens up onto this vista that looked like we were in the Serengeti or something. And the sound was deafening. I had not spent that much time around sandhill cranes because they don't come through the area where I'm at. But there were literally thousands upon thousands of sandhill cranes both on the ground and in the sky. And you almost couldn't hear yourself think. And, you know, what was out in front of us was short grass with sort of scattered water in this mosaic with not a lot of -- the trees that had been removed. But it was so shocking. I mean it was literally like I was in a nature film and I'm expecting to hear some guy with an English accent, you know, describe what we're seeing out here. And it was the first time I'd ever seen pelicans in the Northwest. There were sandhill cranes, Canada geese, bald eagles. It was really crazy. But that sounds a bit like what you're describing here where the birds are all in this area that have had some vegetation management. So what was the next step in working with the wildlife area? Because that's not always an easy thing to do to get something like that authorized on state land.

>> Well, my first memory of it is, you know, we -- Dallin arranged, my brother, Dallin, he arranged a meeting with Maria and Anna. And they came out. We got in the same vehicle and we just drove around and looked at things and talked about things and shared ideas. And that led to our first initial attempt where we grazed a small portion that was mostly highland, not a lot of wetland in that area. But we grazed it for just a short duration of maybe two weeks as we moved through that area to some corn stalks out further west on some farms. And that was our initial experiment with grazing that area. And Maria could speak more to what they saw as a result on their end of things. And, you know, we also had to consider the nutritional value to the cows. A lot of this biomass, you know, there's a lot of it but it's not necessarily the best nutrition for the cattle. So we also were a little bit hesitant to say, "OK, what are the limits of what we can do with this kind of vegetation?" And maybe Maria could speak to a little bit what they saw after that first experiment of the small portion we grazed there on the Thompson segment.

>> Yeah. Well, I'll add to that. That's one of the risks of targeted grazing. I mean, you're talking about stuff that is a ton of fiber and not a lot of forage value. And, you know, it's one thing for somebody like me to say, "Well, yeah, we should graze that," but if you're the guy that owns the cows that's easier said than done.

>> Correct, correct. Yep. I mean, these are mama cows that are going to have babies in the spring and, you know, that's our profit. That's something we got to protect and so --

>> Right.

>> And it took a while. We've been able to grow with our knowledge of that and ways we can mitigate that. And also enhance, you know, the grazing value of the feeds that's there, but also help, you know, the wetlands and help the fishing game meet their goals at the same time.

>> Yeah. So to Chase's comment about what we saw, we had to do like this initial trial. One thing, like he was saying, for them to like figure out their operation out there, but also for fish and game to kind of see if this would work. Nothing like this had been done in the state in terms of developing a winter contract. I had many conversations with some folks to explain the grass wasn't growing in December and I could take more than 50%. So there was a lot of conversations back and forth on our end and, you know, legitimate concerns because of things that had been done in the past. And so we did this trials about 80, 90 acres and most of it was more of an upland vegetation. But the back end of this pasture was part of a wetland because we had a slough coming in so we could water the cows so we didn't have to haul water. And that spring, I took our wetland ecologist out there that we had hired for the wetland review I spoke about earlier. And I was just walking along and answering questions and then I noticed she wasn't with me anymore. And I turned around and she stopped and she's like, "What happened here?" And I was like, "What do you mean?" And you could look and there was a line in the wetland of lush, green, productive blooming plants. And then it just hit this wall of brown and dead vegetation. And I was like, "Oh, that's their hot wire line. That's where they stopped the cows because they were watering here." And that was the real moment for everyone of like, oh. That's when we did the deep dive and called the Fish and Wildlife Service and really started defining, you know, our next move. And so after that, I kind of went full steam ahead and we developed a service agreement contract with Dallin and Chase. And picked about 300 acre wetland unit there on the WMA that we went ahead that following winter and kick started this project. And like Chase said, it was a lot of just learning for everybody, just learning what worked, what didn't work. And I'll let Chase explain the nightmare it was to try and hotwire the wetland the first year and all the stuff we learned. And what we learned that the cows would actually like to eat and what they didn't like to eat and what they'd go back to. And yeah, it just kind of was like pushing a snowball down the hill after that. But I'll let Chase pitch in there.

>> Yeah, you don't run your claw down through the middle of that and just roll off wire.

>> Yeah.

>> Well, yeah. So that first year that we came there to the shop on that segment, it was mostly wetland. There was little, you know, highland in that area. And so first of all, we said, OK, there's a lot of biomass here. First of all, we want to partition it off so the cows would focus in on an area for, you know, four or five days. And then move on to the next one or allow them to back graze as well. And it was also the cows' first time being in an area where that's all they had to eat. And it was interesting to see that, you know, they acclimated. And year after year, they got to where they would go to those same forages and eat them better. Whereas the first time, I remember that night, we left them on the wetland. They were kind of looking at us like you want us to eat this?

>> I thought you were my friend.

>> Yeah, exactly. And so we put out protein. That's one of our rules is we got to always have protein and mineral out there for the cows 100% of the time. We don't ever want that to disappear. Just to make sure that we're ensuring, you know, a healthy cow and a healthy calf in the springtime. But fencing that, yes, there was these huge segments where we figured we got to get a hot wire through there. And the only recommendation I had was to get on a four-wheeler and just get it going as fast as you could and slam it into the wall. And then you'd back up and you'd do it again. And eventually you would punch a hole through this wetland. And then once we had the wire through there, the cows would travel along that corridor as well and started to, you know, trump a lot of that dead plant matter into the ground or against the ground so that when it unthawed in the spring that there would be some, you know, contact with the soil. And the first year was just miserable to fence it. The second year was so much easier and it's gotten to the point where we can about put a fence anywhere we want unless there's open water. And so that's really changed just over the matter of a few years.

>> Wow. So how often, a question for either one of you, how often then will you have cows back in the same area? Is that every year, every other year, every third year? Or do you know yet?

>> Well, it's been about every year to date because the biomass is so bad. And what we learned talking to some other, you know, folks in different regions too, is because you're grazing in the winter, you know, you're dealing with frost and frozen ground. And so you're not having necessarily impact that a lot of folks think of grazing like hummocking and ruining riparian stuff. It's frozen so there's not that surface damage that people often associate. And so doing it every year so far has not only increased the forage quality but it's just made such a big difference. And we haven't reached a point yet where we're like, oh, well, maybe we shouldn't this year. So it's something like I obviously monitor every year but it's been, yeah, every winter.

>> And have you gotten to all the different places that you would like to apply this vegetation treatment to? Are you still trying to expand as well?

>> Still trying to expand. I mean, it's a lot of work and it's a lot of work for Dallin and Chase. And so it's just something that, you know, once we kind of figured out what works and what doesn't, it's made it easier for us now to expand the program and also start incorporating some other management tools like fire.

>> Yeah. Chase, a quick question, if you're willing to share some details. The listenership for the podcast is probably about half ranchers and the ranchers are going to be wondering. So give me specifics. How many cows did you have in on how much area and for how long? And how much time did you succeed in not feeding hay? And did you have to use supplementation to get the animals to do well on this really fibrous stuff? What are the details?

>> Well, so Maria could probably tell you more about the exact acreage, but we have about 400 cows and we've stayed on average one and a half to close to two months. This year we'll stay over two months a little bit. And the acreage isn't a vast amount of acreage but, you know, there is a lot of plant material there. As far as supplementation, we've always had a protein block out there that has minerals in it as well. And we've just kind of made it a rule that they've got to have that all the time. Hats off to Maria and Anna, they were really open-minded. We had our goals as a ranching operation was to not have to feed hay. Their goals were different goals. And once we saw that we could maybe, you know, meet our goals and also find ways to go above and beyond and help them, we ran some different experiments with different ways to distribute the mineral and the protein. And also we did use some hay supplementation at different times. When we saw their biggest concern was how to break down these biomass areas where there's thick cattails and bulrushes, because it was frozen we could drive a pickup out and not get stuck. And so we would start to target those cattails with our protein. And once we would, you know, put the protein down in a certain area, that would attract the cattle into that area and they would concentrate. And they would do a better job of breaking down that biomass. And so we also experimented a few times with bringing down some clean alfalfa hay and fed in some of those areas. And it was interesting because the next summer you could see the tracks of where the pickup had gone. There was new growth up through the bulrushes where the mats on either side had prevented any new growth from happening. And so that's kind of the window we shot forward, usually January and February.

>> Yeah.

>> One thing we did is we did move our calving date back. You know, originally we were calving in, you know, the middle of February. And we decided, hey, if we're going to do this, I think it might serve us better to move our calving date back so we don't have, you know, too many calves born down there at the management area. And also it reduces the nutritional requirements of our cows. They're still in that third trimester pregnant versus lactating. And as soon as they have a calf and start lactating, they need to have higher nutrition.

>> So Maria, you guys have been doing some monitoring of various kinds to try to track the results beyond just the shock value of people coming out and saying, "Man, that looks good." What kind of data do you have and has that been -- I can imagine there's likely still some detractors from this. How has this been received by people outside of kind of your core team there?

>> It's actually been incredibly well received. That's what's also made this project so great is we have not had a lot of negative pushback. A lot of the community around the WMA has been extremely supportive because they have, you know, I'm sure for decades even, some of them have just been wondering what fishing game is going to do. And so the community --

>> Oh yeah, they're bad mouthing you behind your back.

>> Oh, I'm sure. No. The community around the WMA is really great. We've got a lot of really great landowners. So there's been a lot of positive support for that as well. One of the cool things is it's generated a lot of discussion, you know, outside fishing game. Even within, it's generated a lot of discussion about grazing policy and different things, and other WMAs calling me and asking for details. So it's generated a lot of discussion. It's led to different presentations. And I've had to ask Dallin and Chase to do a lot of things, a lot of videos, conference presentations, and just unique aspects like that. We've even had a NASA DEVELOP program out of Idaho State University came out and they did a remote sensing analysis work on as part of a project for some graduate students. And, you know, I just never thought I'd ever get to say that I did anything with NASA as a wildlife biologist.

>> Yeah.

>> Chase got to help lead the tour for those guys. Yeah, we've done, besides just the on the ground, just looking at everything, our sportsmen and women who use the WMA, they've been very supportive. A lot of them are just like what did you do? I can actually walk across this unit and hunt, and I never could before. We take photo points, monitoring points. So we kind of do a pre-graze grid and then we do a post-graze. And then we also do a couple follow-ups during the growing season. And we've got it set up to do -- we've got the remote sensing work that the ISU team developed. I've had a couple of students for their senior projects do some wildlife species observations. And we're kind of getting to the point now, a couple years down the road where I feel like we have enough where we could actually put together something a bit more formal. I just haven't had the time to date to do that, but I'm hoping that I can get something together and take it to SRM, for example, in a year or two.

>> Yeah, absolutely. I want to ask about also prescribed burning and kind of the differences of effects. But I'm curious, have there been any, did anybody express concern about water quality with grazing the wetlands or has that not even been a concern? Because it would be one of the first things that comes up in Washington State.

>> I guess I never got that from anyone in terms of like an expressed concern. A lot of it was like we discussed and that's just, again, one of the big components for like a winter graze. And we haven't seen anything, you know, on our on-the-ground work that says that it's, you know, an impact. Everything so far has been very positive.

>> Yeah, that's interesting. The question wasn't a setup but it does make me recall some stuff that I've read. There's a researcher with the US Geological Survey, I think his name is Kate Middleton, who has done a lot of research on wetlands. One of the things that they point out is that, you know, where you have this giant accumulation of biomass you -- Beth Middleton, that's her name, they often export nutrients. It becomes a source of nitrate and oftentimes bacteria as well, because you get bacteria growing in the conditions that are supported underneath this thatch layer. In fact, I want to say in the Klamath or maybe multiple places, they actually hay this stuff and then take it off in order to remove the nutrients from the system so it doesn't accumulate and choke itself out. So my guess is avoiding that nitrate problem is a bigger benefit than whatever concern there could be about grazing it.

>> Right, yeah. Chase has asked if we could hay it for him. I haven't figured that out yet.

>> You have to do it when it's frozen, I suppose.

>> Yeah.

>> That wouldn't be great quality though. So you're also doing prescribed burning and this is, to my knowledge, a more common practice to try to manage, particularly US Fish and Wildlife Service does a lot of prescribed burning to manage wildlife areas. How would you describe the differences between the grazing versus burning in the effects on the vegetation and why one over the other, or are both of them a good idea?

>> Well, this is our first year doing the prescribed burning as of two like weeks ago, so caveat there. So we started talking about incorporating fire a couple years ago. I knew it would be important to bring fire back in but I was working on a safer way to do that. That's why I wanted to do the grazing work firs and our neighboring WMA Market Lake out of Idaho Falls started a rotational burning of their wetlands with the Fish and Wildlife Service and BLM. And so I would go up there and meet with them, and kind of work through their plan and talk to fire managers and kind of see the approach that they were doing. And started looking at how I could apply it to Sterling, but fit it into kind of what we had going on. Because every area is different, it's not a black and white approach, I feel. And so you really have to know your area and what is going to work and what might not be the best. And so we started getting serious about doing a fire plan. I think I contacted Bureau of Reclamation in 2023. They own part of this wetland property on the WMA. So we set up meetings and started doing some field tours early on. And it took from I think about fall of 2023 until now to kind of get something going. And we kind of developed a rotation to match what we had been designing for the cattle grazing. And it worked out really well because Dallin and Chase, you know, were so willing to meet with the fire managers and team and took them out on a tour. And, you know, they were really impressed and it's not -- you know, they don't have a lot of areas that have this type of targeted grazing in terms of built into a fire plan and so I think, Chase, we took them out to see, one of the first places we took them out to see was an area that you had I think laid protein. And they were just impressed at how well the cows beat that area down. And I was like, this will stop a fire. And they're like, yes, this will stop a fire.

>> Yeah.

>> It was a lot of meetings, a lot of back and forth. And when we got the funding figured out last year, that's when the plan came together. We got out on the ground and again, with Dallin and Chase and the burn boss. And was like, what do you need from a fire perspective in terms of control lines, fuel breaks? How big do you want them? Where do you want them? Then on the flipside for Dallin and Chase, how can we do it in a way that works for 400 cows? And so, that was also another curve ball, learning curve that we sorted out this winter. And kudos to the Carters for figuring that out because it was a bit different and more of a lift I feel this year to get it figured out but once -- I mean we set the lines. I'll let Chase talk about how we ended up figuring it out. But once we got the go-ahead to light the match, it went incredibly well. And we did that on February 12th. And it was about 160 acres that we were able to burn in the main wetland.

>> February 12th, as in 12 days ago? We're recording this on February 24th.

>> Yeah, 12 days ago.

>> Wow.

>> Yeah.

>> Yeah. So we knew coming into this season that this burn was planned and that the grazing would be a part of establishing some barriers to contain the fire and so whereas in the past, we would have included those areas that were going to be burned in our grazing plan. We purposely excluded them but bordered them where they would like the fire to end. And so it was a little bit more work putting the fence out there in a way that, you know, the cattle would respect it and still be able to access feed and water. But it really worked well from our point of view as well and it created something for them that they could use in their burn plan and help the fire.

>> Yeah. I think we ended up doing, what was it, 100 to 150 foot corridors chase kind of around the perimeter of the burn then we had a section that we used in the middle. And, you know, we walked it with the burn boss, you know, before the fire. And we did some touch-up mowing with some of my equipment. But other than that, like it was incredible. The group that came out to do the burn was Bureau of Reclamation, Bureau of Land Management, Fish and Wildlife Service, Bureau of Indian Affairs, and then Idaho Department of Lands and Fish and Game. So we had six agencies on the ground on the 12th. And it all ran incredibly smooth and we had no issues holding the line once things really got going. And we had a couple pinch points where we knew ahead of time that the fire would hit the line. And when it hit that line to where the cows had been grazing, the fire just stopped. A couple of the BLM firefighters I was with were just astounded. They were like, "When ever in our careers has fire hit the sagebrush and just stopped?" I was like, "Well, it is February and 15 degrees outside," and it was great.

>> Nice job on the fuel breaks.

>> Yeah, so it was, you know, it was really cool to see how it worked on the ground and, you know, being on the line and watching it was cool.

>> Yeah, and the cooperation between the people who are trying to plan fire based on what you want to achieve for the ecological objectives on the wildlife area and then coordinating and communicating that with the guy who's making biological fire lines by grazing down the vegetation, that's a really cool story.

>> Well, and one of the things that made it even more like I guess a doable project, you know, because our agencies, they have a lot going on. It's not like this is the only project they have to do. And one of the things that pushed them and made them want to do this work for us down here on Sterling is they're like, "You have your ducks in a row," no pun intended, "but you have this great partnership with this rancher and you've got your data, you have your objectives that you want." And having the Carters graze in that way meant that we didn't need to bring in a ton of heavy equipment work which requires more NEPA and a lot more paperwork for the federal agency side. So for them to see that we could pull off this kind of management work without bringing in all the heavy equipment, that was a big deal.

>> I wanted to ask you too, how expensive is it to do prescribed fire? Because that's one benefit of grazing but it hadn't even occurred to me that you might be able to deploy prescribed fire more cheaply because you've got some grazing around it.

>> Correct. Yeah. And I'm not the best person to speak on funds, so I won't. But it reduced the cost significantly when you don't have to, you know, bring in that heavy equipment, when you don't have to have a lot of concern on, you know, holding those lines and a lot of concern on mop up and babysitting. And all of that can add up really fast in the fire, especially if you end up, you know, something goes over the line and then you don't have a way to control it. So it's a big cost savings and I'm interested. You know, it was two weeks ago, so I don't know right now total what it cost.

>> Yeah.

>> But it wasn't like guys were there for 24 hours. We were all there for maybe, I don't know, Chase, eight hours if that?

>> Oh, yeah. And the actual time it took to burn was --

>> And then it snowed, so no one came back after it snowed.

>> Yeah.

>> And we've had a lot of moisture, so it was awesome that you guys were able to fit it in because it's been an amazing parade of storms one after another in February.

>> Yeah. I don't know how we got that lucky, but it was like we had that 24-hour window and we got it done. And then it snowed.

>> It got cold enough, you know, the week before that to kind of dry things out again. And then you had that one day and then we were back in some storm and some moisture.

>> When they build fire lines with this heavy equipment, doesn't that usually involve scraping down to dirt in order to -- can you do it without that?

>> Yeah, generally you want to have some sort of mineral soil contact. So it's either a disc or plow. You can mow, you just want to make sure everything's uniform. And you do, like with the wetland vegetation in particular, because the way that it mats and stuff, you need to have some soil contact to be able to stop it if something's creeping through.

>> I knew that was the case on uplands but I wasn't certain about wetlands. And of course on uplands, the problem with that is that those spots are inevitably a weed patch the next year.

>> Correct. That was also a concern.

>> And they're like a fuse going out to the landscape where that fire line now is a seed source for everything around it.

>> Yeah. And so, you know, weeds are a concern too. And that's why we also really preferred this approach to disking or doing anything like that.

>> And of course the BLM has been doing targeted grazing out in Owyhee and other places to serve as a fire break. And so we've got some experience and, you know, definite series of successes using cattle grazing targeted to set up fire breaks.

>> Yeah. So we definitely, this was good. We learned a bunch, Dallin, Chase and myself and the burn boss. And it's allowed, like I was already telling Chase this morning, that my brain is just thinking ahead right now to our next rotation this winter and, you know, what we might want to do differently and what we want to keep on doing and how to kind of prep for that. And so we've already got a rotation scheduled for this next winter.

>> Yeah.

>> I can't wait to come back this spring, Marie. I want to come back and do some filming on this. I'm just excited to see the results after the snow melts.

>> Yeah. And one thing that I like to tell folks like when I do presentations or talk about this project is that, you know, it takes a toolbox to truly manage habitat. And it's very unique to your individual site and location. And, you know, the grazing and the fire, all the stuff we're doing is just another tool. And, you know, we're going to incorporate some targeted spraying of cattails this summer after the burn in a couple of very small locations. And so we're just kind of working in different aspects of management as we get further and further down with this project. And yeah, I'm really excited to see the area this summer, you know, when everything comes back. And, you know, it'll be a very good monitoring exercise for us. And I'm excited to see as the migrations start and what starts moving in.

>> Well, now that Chase is a television star, Maria, I want to know whether you're on speed dial with other wildlife management areas that want to work miracles in their own area. Are you getting -- yeah, who else is interested in this? Are there other places like it that you're wanting or they're wanting to apply this to?

>> Yeah, kind of, I got a lot of phone calls the first year or so when this started. And it's been a good -- like I said, it's generated a lot of conversations. And a lot of, you know, WMAs, like a lot of them are very unique to what they were established for, for the department. And there are some where you just probably might not be able to incorporate grazing. But there are some, especially in the Upper Snake Region where they are incorporating targeted grazing but their focus is sage-grouse and endangered plant species recruitment. And they're doing, like taking the same concept more or less with the hot wire but they're doing it a different time of year with different goals. And so we've just been kind of making it like an open channel and just willing to share, you know, documents, photos, contact information, and just kind of let it naturally go from there. I've hosted a lot of tours, you know, very open if anyone is like, "Hey, I want to come down and see it." Dallin and Chase are very generous with their time. And if I've got someone who really, really wants to see it, talk with them, one or both of them will come out and help me do that. So it's been very well received.

>> And from our point of view, we could really appreciate the open mindedness, the willingness to experiment. And it's fun for us to see the progress that's been made and the relationships to be established and to help us all work together for a common goal. That's been an enjoyable part of it for us.

>> Yeah, the particular circumstances and your goals are interesting. I mentioned that only because a lot of the research that I've seen on grazing wetlands has been around endangered species, where you have either flora or fauna that depend on sort of that shallow, not having the large plants and vertical structure and tall grass dominance. You know, so to maintain habitat for, you know, whatever, little amphibians or endangered plants that only exist in that landscape, you've got to do something to control the large woody. And we're talking about herbaceous species but, you know, woody grass. Yeah, so this is a really cool story. And Chase, to your point, I really like the idea of grazing for ecological objectives that are somewhat separate from livestock production. And oftentimes I feel there's this, we assume that there's sort of a mutually exclusive tradeoff. That if you're going to graze for some objective like that, you know, you're going to take the hit as the rancher. And this seems like there was a bit of a sweet spot here where it really worked out pretty well for you, where it wasn't like a production loss and it has the benefit for the wetland.

>> Yeah, you know, and every year it confirms that we're doing a good job when my calves are born, after we come off the WMA and they're healthy, you know, the health of the cow and the calf is good. It tells me we're doing something right for the production end as well.

>> Yeah.

>> And if I might, Tip, I just want to commend Maria and Chase for being pioneers on this project. And I'm sure with Maria, it wasn't easy to get permission through Fish and Game, since this is the first place this has been done in the state on Fish and Game land. And then working with all these other agencies as well, it just makes my heart sing to hear about this. And I want to come back. I think we did our film in 2022 and so we need to come back and do a follow-up story. But just kudos to these guys for their innovative and creative work, great job.

>> Thank you.

>> Yeah, it's really exciting. We will put a link to the video in the show notes. But yeah, Maria, go ahead. Then I've got one last question for Chase.

>> I was just going to say it's been really good to see the department be so supportive of this, you know. Initially, it was a lot of work to get done but now that they're seeing the benefits, it was really helpful to have Life on the Range come out and then also support me going to conferences to talk about this project. So as a whole, it's been just a really good project. And, you know, the benefits on the ground speak for themselves. Like I said, the sportsmen that come out and hunt, you know, our bird watching community that comes out, like people are noticing a difference on the ground and they're talking about it.

>> Yep, very cool.

>> Well, I'm looking forward to the follow-up video. And Chase, my last question is what's it like being a news personality?

>> I'd rather just be out with my cows walking through them, you know. But it is good. I think as producers and stewards, we need to be willing to go out and advocate for positive influences within our community. And sometimes, you know, you always think about, oh, I've got to get some stuff done or I'd rather be doing this. But if we're not doing this kind of thing, I think we're not progressing. We're not seeing all the options that are going to be available as we go forward and try and, you know, work together to enhance the landscape and as well to, you know, produce food.

>> Yeah, thank you for doing that. It's not comfortable. It's funny. I don't mind being on a microphone but I don't like being on a video camera. And I don't know why that is. Yeah, I hear you. I would rather not be doing that. But I do think that it's important to tell the story. And it's easier to do that when it's just a good story, you know. I'm hoping you don't find yourself in situations where you've got a hostile reporter who's trying to trap you in your words and, you know, they're there to just tell a story. But whether that's happened or not, yeah, I would like to thank you for doing that and being willing to let people know about this because I think it's a big story and it's important, and people should hear about it.

>> Well, I appreciate being featured on Art of the Range.

>> Yeah, thank you.

>> Thank you.

>> Glad to have you. Thanks for joining us, guys. Thank you for listening to the Art of Range podcast. Links to websites or documents mentioned in each episode are available at artofrange.com. And be sure to subscribe to the show through Apple Podcasts, Podbean, Spotify, Stitcher, or your favorite podcasting app so that each new episode will automatically show up in your podcast feed. Just search for Art of Range. If you are not a social media addict, don't start now. If you are, please like or otherwise follow the Art of Range on Facebook, LinkedIn, and X, formerly Twitter. We value listener feedback. If you have questions or comments for us to address in a future episode or just want to let me know you're listening, send an email to show@ artofrange.com. For more direct communication from me, sign up for a regular email from the podcast on the homepage@artofrange.com. This podcast is produced by Connors 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 sponsors. If you're interested in being a sponsor, send an email to show@artofrange.com.

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