But an unfortunate new law to limit the horse population buys into the notion that public lands are reserved for private industry.
ranching
Posted inColoradans
Cows. Beer. Testicles. Coloradans keep traditional ranching alive on branding day.
Some Colorado cattle ranchers still practice the traditional rope-and-drag method on branding day, when neighbors and friends gather each spring to mark, vaccinate and castrate calves
Posted inOpinion Columns
Opinion: Wolves: A cost-benefit analysis
The numbers show that wolf-killing programs are a colossal waste of taxpayer money.
Posted inEnvironment
Vilified, sanctified, politicized, humanized: The Colorado prairie dogs controversy explained
The 2022 version of prairie dog hostilities currently focuses on Longmont, where more than a thousand prairie dogs have been digging holes and chirping at the future site of a retail center
Posted inNews
A Colorado ranch lost 9,000 acres to a wildfire in April. So how does it look in August?
LAMAR — Gazing north across the rangeland from the spot where a spring wildfire destroyed 9,000 acres of May Ranch pasture in a few hours, you can see scorched cottonwoods puncturing the horizon like black thumb tacks. In April, after a year so dry the sage roots turned to powder, the wildfire flew on hurricane […]
Posted inOpinion
Opinion: Let the wolves regulate themselves
As the State of Colorado drafts its plan for the reintroduction of gray wolves to western Colorado, the livestock industry is already clamoring for “lethal control” of wolves that take to hunting cattle or sheep. However, killing wolves in response to cattle or sheep predation does not prevent — or even reduce — future livestock […]
Posted inBusiness
Colorado ranches are trying to survive. The solution is selling more than beef, preserving land for more than cattle.
Ranchlands, which leases the Chico Basin Ranch southeast of Colorado Springs from the state land board, is finding other ways to make money
Posted inNews
Fire tore through a Colorado ranch sanctuary. The humans are fine, but the damage is deep.
May Ranch near Lamar has transformed itself into a sustainable, nationally recognized conservation champion, home to endangered species. A wildfire threatens much of the gain.
Posted inOpinion, Opinion Columns
Opinion: Colorado’s top animal-protection officer is not a friend of livestock producers
I am a 4th-generation livestock producer in Mesa County. At VanWinkle Ranch, we make our living by stewarding the land and caring for the animals we have responsibility for. There is dignity and honor in the work that we do to support food security in our county, state, nation, and globally. We have some serious […]
Posted inOpinion, Opinion Columns
Opinion: It’s not ranchers or wolves. It’s ranchers AND wolves
With or without Proposition 114, a few gray wolves are now back in a small part of northern Colorado. Whether they will be welcomed for the longer term is the question. Recent predations of livestock in northwestern Colorado by some of these wolves has many producers on edge. But predation by carnivores is nothing new. […]