Tanner Family Improves Habitat For Cattle and Sage Grouse

At the Tanner family’s Della Ranch, they run about 1,000 head of Angus cattle on a mix of private and public lands in the heart of prime sage grouse habitat in Northwest Utah, due west of the Great Salt Lake. During the summer months, they also run a guest ranch. People come from all over the world for a chance to ride horseback in a cattle drive, participate in daily ranch chores and soak up the vast views from the top of the Grouse Creek Mountains. The Tanners recently entertained several Swedish women who had traveled to Yellowstone National Park to research a story about wolves prior to their arrival. Knowing the women enjoyed seeing wildlife, Jay Tanner said, “Let me show you our sage grouse.” It was springtime, and a bunch of male sage grouse were strutting their stuff on a lek located on the Tanner’s private land. Tanner took the women out in the wee hours of the morning in hopes of seeing female sage grouse fly in to mate with the males. “We had a good morning,” Tanner recalls. “We saw deer and elk on the way to the lek, and there were 40 to 50 males strutting away on the lek. The gals set up their cameras, and then here come three elk right up to us. They got some really neat pictures of the elk walking right up to the lek. It was a unique experience for them, and they were really excited.” The Tanners are cattle ranchers, but they also enjoy improving habitat on the ranch for sage grouse, wildlife and livestock. “What’s good for sage grouse is good for cattle and other wildlife, too,” says Jay Tanner. At the Tanner family’s Della Ranch, they run about 1,000 head of Angus cattle on a mix of private and public lands in the heart of prime sage grouse habitat in Northwest Utah, due west of the Great Salt Lake. During the summer months, they also run a guest ranch. People come from all over the world for a chance to ride horseback in a cattle drive, participate in daily ranch chores and soak up the vast views from the top of the Grouse Creek Mountains. The Tanners recently entertained several Swedish women who had traveled to Yellowstone National Park to research a story about wolves prior to their arrival. Knowing the women enjoyed seeing wildlife, Jay Tanner said, “Let me show you our sage grouse.”  

It was springtime, and a bunch of male sage grouse were strutting their stuff on a lek located on the Tanner’s private land. Tanner took the women out in the wee hours of the morning in hopes of seeing female sage grouse fly in to mate with the males. “We had a good morning,” Tanner recalls. “We saw deer and elk on the way to the lek, and there were 40 to 50 males strutting away on the lek. The gals set up their cameras, and then here come three elk right up to us. They got some really neat pictures of the elk walking right up to the lek. It was a unique experience for them, and they were really excited.” The Tanners are cattle ranchers, but they also enjoy improving habitat on the ranch for sage grouse, wildlife and livestock. “What’s good for sage grouse is good for cattle and other wildlife, too,” says Jay Tanner. “It’s interesting that the habitat we create for our cows also is the same habitat that the wildlife need,” adds his brother, Brent, in a video produced by the National Cattlemen’s Foundation Environmental Stewardship Program in Colorado, an organization that honored Della Ranches with a stewardship award in 2011. The Tanners have been working on improving their ranch over seven generations dating back to the days when their ancestors homesteaded the ranch in the 1870s. Over the last five years, Della Ranches have teamed up with the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) to make voluntary cost-share improvements on their private land to benefit sage grouse. The NRCS-led Sage Grouse Initiative funded the projects since that program launched in in 2010. The Sage Grouse Initiative is a national partnership that aims to proactively conserve sage grouse and habitat on private ranch lands in 11 western states. Sage grouse are considered a candidate species for protection under the Endangered Species Act; a final decision on listing is expected in September of next year. Improvements for sage grouse on Della Ranches include the removal of approximately 9,000 acres of junipers, tweaking grazing management to make room for sage grouse nesting and raising their broods during the spring and early summer, and installing water developments for cattle and wildlife...more