Latest Grazing Stories

North Dakota's agriculture commissioner says the federal government is opening Conservation Reserve Program land to grazing in 26 North Dakota counties to help drought-stricken ranchers. Agriculture Commissioner Roger Johnson says the counties are Adams, Billings, Bottineau, Bowman, Burke, Divide, Dunn, Grant, Golden Valley, Hettinger, McHenry, McKenzie, McLean, Mercer, Morton, Mountrail, Oliver, Pierce, Renville, Rolette, Sheridan, Slope, Stark, Towner, Ward and Williams. Gov. John Hoeven...

By Andrew Downie In an unprecedented move against rogue cattle ranchers in the Amazon, the Brazilian government has seized livestock grazing there illegally. Officials carted off 3,100 head of cattle that they said were being raised on an ecological reserve in the state of Para, in an operation intended to serve as a warning to other ranchers grazing an estimated 60,000 head on illegally deforested land in Amazonia, the environment minister, Carlos Minc, said. "No more being soft,"...

By Hagadone, Zach With help from a National Science Foundation grant, a Kimberly- based company is researching new methods of arid land restoration that it hopes may help bring back to life thousands of acres of wildfire-ravaged and overused soil around the state. Conservation Seeding & Restoration, Inc. received the $98,215 award from the foundation's Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program, and intends to use it for phase one of a feasibility study into spray-on biological soil...

By John Holland, The Modesto Bee, Calif. Jun. 14--Drought has done an estimated $12.9 million worth of damage to Stanislaus County's beef industry since last fall, a county official said Friday. The shortage of rain has stunted grasses on the county's 349,000 acres of nonirrigated grazing land, Agricultural Commissioner Gary Caseri said. This has reduced the weight gain that ranchers had expected in the cattle, so they are making less money from meat processors. Ranchers also have had to...

By John Holland, The Modesto Bee, Calif. Jun. 14--Drought has done an estimated $12.9 million worth of damage to Stanislaus County's beef industry since last fall, a county official said Friday. The shortage of rain has stunted grasses on the county's 349,000 acres of nonirrigated grazing land, Agricultural Commissioner Gary Caseri said. This has reduced the weight gain that ranchers had expected in the cattle, so they are making less money from meat processors. Ranchers also have had to...

Cattle and cannon fire are a poor mix, but ranch families and the Army have been mixing them together on 200,000 acres at Fort Hood, Texas, for more than 50 years. Home of the III Corps and the 1st Cavalry Division, Fort Hood is the Army's largest armor training post, covering 217,000 acres just north of Killeen, Texas. The post was established in the early days of World War II when the Army was racing to prepare for war overseas and needed training bases quickly. So the War Department...

By Jennifer K. Morita, The Sacramento Bee, Calif. Aug. 2--Bleating goats and sheep have replaced the noisy drone of a Weed Eater in some communities' efforts to reduce fire risks. A growing number of communities and government agencies are turning to four-legged grass trimmers to clear overgrown vegetation that can be hazardous during the hot, dry wildfire season. This year is the first time Rocklin city officials have used goats and sheep to get rid of pesky poison oak, star thistle and...

CORVALLIS, Ore. -- The general disappearance of cougars from a portion of Zion National Park in the past 70 years has allowed deer populations to dramatically increase, leading to severe ecological damage, loss of cottonwood trees, eroding streambanks, and declining biodiversity. This "trophic cascade" of environmental degradation, all linked to the decline of a major predator, has been shown in a new study to affect a broad range of terrestrial and aquatic species, according to...

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - The Netherlands is donating more than two dozen horses and cattle, close relatives of now extinct species, to Latvia to help the Baltic country preserve its open lands, conservationists said on Wednesday. The 23 Konik horses and 2 wild cows will be introduced later this month in Latvia's Kemeri National Park, where plant and animal species are threatened because abandoned land is turning into closed forest, the Dutch-based conservation organization the Large...

Costly and time-consuming efforts to eliminate wolves that prey on sheep, cattle and other domestic animals are ineffective on a long-term, regional scale, according to an examination of wolf control methods in Alberta and several U.S. states by University of Calgary researchers. Results of the study were presented today at an annual meeting of wolf scientists, ranchers and wildlife managers near Yellowstone National Park. Lead author Dr. Marco Musiani, an assistant professor in the U of C's...