Conservation Partners

Does the Eagle Rock Ranch have any partners or collaborators that have helped or otherwise assisted its conservation efforts?  Who are they?

1. Colorado Parks & Wildlife – CPW has collaborated with the Eagle Rock Ranch (and vice versa) for as long as we’ve owned the ranch.  We cooperate with CPW in terms of their elk census operations, elk collaring operations, bighorn sheep collaring, and game management efforts through the Landowner Preference Program, etc.  We’ve reported a sick eagle to the CPW, assisted in its capture, and one year later we were allowed to release the rehabilitated eagle back into the wild.  We cut and bale hay for the CPW on their property adjacent to ours on a sharecrop basis, and we’ve cleaned up trash dumps, and removed old barbed wire fences on CPW property, and we’ve worked with them to install wildlife-friendly fencing on our land.

2. United States Forest Service – The Eagle Rock Ranch has long cooperated with the USFS – Pike National Forest – on any number of forest related projects.  We’ve installed and repaired water drinkers on USFS land that serve both livestock and wildlife, served as a grazing permittee of the USFS, and have helped repair cattle guards and fencing on USFS land.  We serve as an additional set of “eyes and ears” for the USFS in helping ensure responsible usage of national forest lands by the general public.

3. Colorado Cattlemen’s Association – The CCA has helped us immensely over the years in terms of helping with cattle genetics, brand registration, cattle health, and regulatory updates and reviews.  The Eagle Rock Ranch has hosted the CCA and its membership here at the ranch for facility and ranch tours.

4. Property & Environment Research Center – PERC is based in Bozeman, MT, but has actively participated in our elk migration efforts and is the funding source under our first-in-the-nation Elk Migration Agreement.  Further, PERC has furnished the trail cameras that we are using in our elk movement/fence crossing research.

5. Colorado Cattleman’s Agricultural Land Trust – The CCALT serves as an integral partner in our Elk Migration Agreement and serves as the monitoring agency under that agreement.  Erin was recently appointed to serve on their Board of Directors.

6. Colorado Department of Agriculture – The CDA serves as the inspection and certification agency for our certified weed-free hay program.  CDA visits the ranch and inspects the hay meadows every summer prior to any certification and provides advice on grass and weed issues.  CDA has also installed and monitors remote soil moisture meters on the ranch and provides soil health advice to the Ranch.  Dave serves on the CDA Soil Health Advisory Board.

7. Colorado State University – The Eagle Rock Ranch volunteered our herd for a first-of-its-kind branding pain study that was conducted by CSU.  We’ve also hosted low-stress livestock handling clinics that were sponsored by CSU.  The Colorado Natural Heritage Program (“CNHP”) is associated with CSU Warner College of Natural Resources and conducted a baseline biotic survey here at the Ranch in 2023.

8. University of Colorado – Lichen samples collected by the CNHP team in conjunction with the 2023 Biotic Survey were studied and evaluated by lichenologists at the University of Colorado.  One such specimen was subsequently identified as a brand-new species.  All specimens have been preserved at the Herbarium in the University of Colorado Museum of Natural History.  Further, we have been invited on a couple of occasions to speak to students and professors at the University of Colorado Center for the American West on our conservation efforts at the Ranch.

9. Beef Quality Assurance – Eagle Rock Ranch believes that quality conservation measures and quality low-stress livestock handling and treatment go hand-in-hand.  The Colorado Beef Quality Assurance (“BQA”) Program is a program affiliated with and partially funded by CSU and the Colorado Beef Council.  Colorado BQA provides training and information to U.S. beef producers, such as the Eagle Rock Ranch, with respect to how good livestock husbandry techniques can be coupled with accepted scientific knowledge to raise cattle under optimum management conditions. BQA programs have evolved to include best practices around cattle handling, facility management, cattle transportation, good record keeping and protecting herd health, which all result in better outcomes for cattle and producers.   Colorado BQA has held training and certification seminars at the Eagle Rock Ranch and all ERR family and employees are BQA-certified.

10. Teller-Park Soil Conservation District - The Teller-Park Conservation District helps people to conserve land, water, forests, wildlife habitat, and related natural resources. Its mission to coordinate assistance from public, private, local, state, and federal resources to develop locally-driven solutions for natural resource concerns.  The TPCD works with such federal agencies such as the NRCS to help landowners with their conservation projects and it was with the NRCS that Eagle Rock Ranch completed one of its very first stream erosion control projects back in 2013.  Dave serves as a Supervisor on the TPCD governing board.

11. Neighbors – The Eagle Rock Ranch is fortunate to have numerous neighbors participating in conservation projects on their own and in conjunction with those initiated by the Ranch.  From encouraging beaver habitation to installing wildlife-friendly fencing, to removing old fencing, and leaving gates open in the winter, our neighbors help us help the wildlife and improve soil health in our area.

12. Mother Nature – William Wordsworth once said, “come forth into the light of things, and let nature be your teacher.”  At the Eagle Rock Ranch, we’ve learned a lot from Nature and have collaborated extensively with her.  A good rancher once said, “it’s good to have nature working for you.  She works at minimum wage and never takes a day off.”  Mother Nature has taught us to structure our calving season along the same lines as the native deer and elk.  She has taught us to refrain from artificial fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides – in return, she has given us award-winning hay.  Land Institute founder Wes Jackson argues that our best analysis of what our land ought to look like is to reference what it looked like several hundred or thousand years ago, before mankind began to alter the landscape.  In that sense, he advocates “measuring by nature.” And if that is the standard against which we must be measured, the British agricultural scientist Sir Albert Howard said (of the native forest) and Wes Jackson said (of the native prairie) that nature never farms without livestock of some sort.  Nature never wastes anything, but all is returned to the soil.  Wendell Berry says that, “without animals, something essential is removed from the minds of the farmers” and that the “proper role of animals in agriculture is to complete the ecological integrity of farms, and to produce food for humans from pastures – especially pastures on land that is mainly or entirely suitable only for grazing.”  We’ve learned from this to do the same here at the Eagle Rock Ranch and strive to thoughtfully integrate our livestock into the landscape to mimic the grazing of ungulates over the centuries and complete the ecological integrity of our ecosystem.