What Does Bison Restoration Look Like? One Rancher’s View n autumn 2006, the Wildlife Conservation Society held a landmark conference in Denver on the future of North American bison. Among the questions being pondered by the large gathering of conservationists, scientists, wildlife officials from the U.S., Canada and Mexico, and representatives from the commercial bison industry was this: Should bison be listed as a federally-protected species in the U.S. and moreover, do they warrant placement on the IUCN’s Red List as an imperiled animal in need of global focus? While no one in attendance disagreed with the fact that bison, when numbering in the tens of millions, were once keystone species on the Great Plains, shaping the health and structure of plant, animal, and human communities, there is a divergence of opinion about whether buffalo can ever be restored to such large numbers that they again fulfill their historic role. Is the Buffalo Commons achievable or is it a post-pleistocene pipe dream? Would listing of bison enhance the goals of bison recovery or would it alienate private ranchers who far and away are responsible for stewarding most of the bison in the world?....
Global plan to save endangered horse and livestock breeds Rare livestock breeds are becoming extinct at a rate of one per month, prompting 108 countries to agree on a global plan of action to save the animals, including horses. The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization called the extinction rate "alarming". "Wise management of the world's animal genetic resources is of ever greater importance," said FAO Assistant Director-General Alexander Muller, addressing participants at the first International Technical Conference on Animal Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture in Interlaken, Switzerland, earlier this month. "The options that these resources offer for maintaining and improving animal production will be of enormous significance in the coming decades," he said. "Climate change and the emergence of new and virulent livestock diseases highlight the importance of retaining the capacity to adapt our agricultural production systems." Livestock breeding is crucial in this respect, FAO believes....
Recovery aid not helping rancher who lost millions Two years after Hurricane Rita claimed 10,000 head of cattle in Vermilion Parish, the industry still is struggling to recover. "The cattle industry was probably the most severely hurt industry in our parish," said Andrew Granger, Vermilion Parish county agent with the LSU AgCenter. Charles Broussard, 83, of the Flying J Ranch in Forked Island figures he suffered about $2.5 million in losses from Rita's storm surge. He lost four bulls worth about $50,000 total and about 90 head of cattle in all. Some died after the storm from drinking the salt water that flooded their land and sent them scurrying to the levees for survival. Miles of fencing was destroyed, several tractors, trucks and diesel-power units were ruined, protection levees were destroyed and eight houses on his property were flooded. Broussard also farmed rice and crawfish before Rita. But the salt water Rita pushed in from the Gulf of Mexico soaked into his fields and ponds, rendering them useless ever since, he said. All those federal and state programs that are supposed to help have not done Broussard much good. "FEMA turned me down because I'm in agriculture. SBA turned me down because I'm (in) agriculture," Broussard said....
Smaller ranches begin to produce smaller cattle Ranchettes have replaced working ranches in much of California, and now there are pint-sized cows to match. In the past two years, Bev Boriolo, 72, and her husband, Don, have built a herd of 12 miniature Hereford cattle, all well under 4 feet tall. The couple, who live on a grassy 30-acre parcel near Plymouth, Calif., are raising animals for a small but growing niche in the livestock business: little cattle for little ranches. The smallest of the miniature breeds stand less than 3 feet tall, fully grown. They're cute, they keep the weeds down and, as Bev Boriolo says, "They're as sweet as the dickens" -- something she attributes to their small stature. For now, the money in micro-beef is in breeding: raising adorable cattle and selling them -- for $3,500 and up -- not as meat, but as the parents of another herd-to-be....
Polo for the T-shirt set Eight horses and riders thunder down a grassy field, mallets cracking against balls and hooves beating the turf in a Texas-style take on a sport sometimes dominated by the rich or royal. Most weekends from now through mid-November, equestrians gather at this neatly manicured, 300-yard-by-200-yard pasture to practice their own brand of polo. If you're envisioning a champagne-sipping, caviar-nibbling crowd that's more interested in who's wearing what than what's happening on the field, you don't know the folks of Spencewood Ranch Polo Club. "We're more the beer-and-chips crowd," says David Crea, 47, polo manager for the club. "We play just for the love of the game." While a few of the 35 or so members of the polo club are just learning the sport, which they fondly call "ranch polo," others spent years honing their skill at the now-defunct Retama Polo Center in San Antonio. The players, who range in age from 15 to their 60s, include a television news anchor from San Antonio, a mother of three, a dentist, a high school student and a rancher....
Saddle up! This pony's a smooth ride "Once you go Icelandic," said tall, blond-haired Jelena Ohm, who recently came from Iceland to train horses here, "you usually never go back." OK, people of Icelandic descent have been saying that ever since they arrived in 1875. What else is new? Actually, Ohm, is talking about Icelandic horses. You can say the same thing about Icelandic horses that they do about cars: it's one incredibly smooth ride. Even for the duffer horse rider. That's why people become so fanatical about the breed. The ride is so smooth there are events where riders race around a track while holding a mug of beer. "And they don't spill a drop," said Brett Arnason, one of the largest Icelandic horse ranchers in Canada, who has participated in the race. The reason is, Icelandic horses have a special gait called a tölt. Most horses trot by transferring their weight from two legs -- the front right and back left -- to its other two legs -- the front left and the back right. That bouncing back and forth makes it feel like your entrails are being rearranged, for the amateur rider. The Icelandic horse's tölt, which is very fast at 20 kilometres per hour, is a running walk where one foot is always on the ground. So, an Icelandic horse gait is 1-2-3-4 and repeat, like smooth dance steps....
Quirky old-style contraptions make water from wind on the mesas of West Texas As rows of towering, high-tech wind turbines become a common sight on the windy mesas of West Texas and beyond, a modest, far older cousin is making a quiet comeback here after decades of decline. While the sleek, three-bladed modern turbines — many Asian-made, stuffed with computer chips and costing millions — generate green electricity, the machines built here according to 19th-century designs serve a more basic need. Simply put, these quirky contraptions of wood, steel gears, iron casing and galvanized metal make water from the wind. And for about $6,000 installed, you can buy one — well hole not included. According to one noted Texas historian, more so than the Colt revolver, the Winchester repeating rifle or even barbed wire, it was the water-pumping windmill that tamed the American West. Bennie Hazelwood Jr. places a sticker on a vane that will go on a windmill at the Aermotor Windmill Corp. in San Angelo. Aermotor started making windmills in 1888. "Our parents, and most everybody else out here, grew up with windmills. You could not come to this part of Texas and live without one," said Coy Harris, director of the American Windmill Museum in Lubbock. "In 1900, every house in town had its own windmill. If you wanted to live here, you had one. Otherwise, you were just passing through," he said. Until the late 1800s, when affordable and efficient windmills became widely available, settlers in arid parts of Texas and the Great Plains prospered only near sources of surface water....
It's All Trew: New Deal art provided hope Whether considered a curse or a blessing, the "New Deal Programs" of President Franklin Roosevelt during the Great Depression and Dust Bowl helped provide food and money for millions of people during these hard years. In all walks of life, old timers recall their time spent working for the WPA in various public works projects or the lifesaving CCC serving young men offering food, board and practical training in many fields. Lesser-known New Deal Programs to aid smaller special groups came into being in 1933 when the U.S. Treasury launched a program called the Public Works of Art Project. Funds were allocated to help artists, writers and photographers to record current history, the mass migration of the people and to try to bring some beauty into a drab existence. There were no shortages of artists or subjects. The first problem was where to display the art? Since a part of the Public Works Program was to build much-needed government or public buildings providing work for the people, many new post offices and federal buildings were constructed and chosen to display the artistic murals created by the artists. The term "mural" comes from the Latin word murus, meaning wall. Thus artwork appearing on walls or extended areas are called murals. Often, the new buildings had areas that were odd-size or had windows or doors in the selected mural site challenging the artists further. By the end of the program in 1934, about 15,660 works of art including 700 murals, painted by 3,750 artists were displayed throughout the nation. Later the program was extended from 1938 to 1943, creating many more....