Member Renewals and SRM on Twitter

SRM is on Twitter, a website where users can "tweet" quick, 140 character max, sentences on a variety of subject matter. SRM will be using this social networking site as another tool to get as many rangeland-related reports and information to our members as possible. Follow us to find out all the important upcoming events at a glance.

Member renewals are in full swing! Be sure to renew so you don't miss out on the latest news in rangelands. Direct questions to the SRM business office phone: (785) 843-1234 and ask for "SRM." Or email: SRM@allenpress.com. If it is after hours, please reference "SRM" in the voicemail box and leave your contact information.

SRM Welcomes Maggie Haseman, SRM Summer Outreach Intern

Maggie Haseman, tired after a long hike to our campsite on a father-daughter backpacking trip to Crater Lake in July 2010

Hi SRM, my name is Maggie Haseman and I am the new Outreach Intern here at the SRM office in Wheatridge, Colorado.  I will be a senior at Colorado State University in the fall.  I am working toward a Bachelor of Science Degree in rangeland ecology with a concentration in restoration ecology and a minor in global environmental sustainability.  After I graduate, I want to get a Master’s Degree in ethnobotany, the study of the relationship between plants and humans.  Eventually I would also like to go to law school and study environmental law.

I have lived in colorful Colorado all my life and am currently living in Fort Collins, CO.  I enjoy many activities such as hiking in the beautiful Rocky Mountains and playing the ukulele.  I also play tennis, when I get the chance, and spend time playing cards or board games, and chatting with my friends and family.

I am a first-year SRM member and heartily enjoyed attending the SRM Annual Meeting in Billings last February, where I competed in the plant ID competition.  I am very happy to have the chance to get more involved in the society through this summer Internship Program.  You will hear from me often on the SRM Outreach Blog, Facebook page and LinkedIn group until August when I must go back to school.

As the Outreach Intern I have been working on various projects for SRM including helping with the details for the 2012 Annual Meeting in Spokane, Washington, and organizing a meeting contact list so that the Society can be more efficient and organized about contacting parites for news and events related to the Annual Meeting.  I plan on using my experience at SRM and my interests in both rangelands and ethnobotany to write a series of blog posts on the history of the American Great Plains.  I would like to look into the ways that humans have shaped the ranges and also how the ranges have shaped us.

Shining Horizons: Ranching for Resilience on Rocky Mountain Rangelands

A photography exhibit at Off the Beaten Path, Steamboat Springs, Colorado

May 2011

By Matt Barnes

Director, Colorado Section SRM

Photo by Matt Barnes

As a rangeland conservationist and ranch manager in western Colorado, I have the opportunity to live and work in a land of great beauty.  Indeed, the western landscape is what drew me to the rangeland profession in the first place.  Over the years, I’ve tried to capture a little bit of that beauty with my digital camera.  In the last year or so I’ve been doing a lot of ranch work, and since the ranching world tends to require long hours, I’ve often found myself working in photogenic places during the low-angle amber light of dawn and dusk, and many times I’ve realized that I was standing in a photograph, I just had to pull out my pocket digital, compose the shot, press the shutter button, and a great image was transferred from reality to pixels.

My photography has progressed from a pursuit of perfect, pristine landscapes to a documentation of living and working on the land.  What really excites me, as a land steward, as a writer and artist, and as a citizen, is harmony of humans with the rest of nature—not standing apart, either as directors or as leading actors in front of a static backdrop, but as an integral part of the greater whole:  a complex, self-organizing, adaptive system.

Photo by Matt Barnes

The American West is primarily a rangeland landscape, along with forested mountains and, in those few places that can be irrigated, grass meadows or small tracts of farmland.  But most of it is still rangeland, because it doesn’t make sense as farmland, ecologically or economically.  So, living on the land in most of the West means hunting and gathering, or the natural extensions of those life-ways: herding and gardening.  These activities, in and of themselves, are neither beneficial nor detrimental; their impact on the greater whole depends on how they are managed.  While in some places we are living with the legacy of poorly managed livestock grazing, there are many examples of livestock grazing where the health of the land is stable or improving. 

These examples of land stewardship for resilience are the heart of the next West, the agrarian West, and a few of them are featured in an exhibit of my best photographs, on display this month at Off the Beaten Path in Steamboat Springs, Colorado.

Photo by Matt Barnes

The exhibit is subtitled “ranching for resilience” because the best stewards recognize that they are part of a greater whole, and they manage for its resilience: the capacity of the system to withstand disturbance and retain or resume its essential structure and function.  Resilience goes beyond equilibrium concepts of sustainable yield of any product or even optimization of competing land uses, to embrace a non-equilibrium world.  In the long run, nothing can be sustained in perpetuity because the system is always evolving; the ultimate unforeseen consequence of our success is that we create a new reality to which we must then adapt, or be replaced.  To surpass sustainability, the goal of land management should be to maintain or enhance the resilience of systems in desirable states, and to find and capitalize on opportunities to improve the functioning of systems in undesirable states. In so doing, stewards strive to create harmony in landscapes of great beauty.

My photographs are an attempt to capture a little bit of this dynamic world of rangeland stewardship.  This exhibit is an opportunity to share a glimpse of this land of beauty with others, especially those who do not have the opportunity to live it every day.  If you are in Steamboat Springs this month, I hope you will stop by Off the Beaten Path and have a look.

Photo by Matt Barnes

Editor’s note:  Matt Barnes, CPRM, is Director (2010-2011) of the Colorado Section SRM, and serves the SRM on the Rangelands Editorial Board and the Applied Science Task Force.  He is owner of Shining Horizons Land Management, and manages the Howell Ranch near Cimarron, Colorado, from May-October.  You can follow his blog and see more of his photographs at www.ShiningHorizons.com.

 

Save the Date: Ecological Site Description Training Workshops

Ecological Site Description (ESD) Training Workshops

Society for Range Management (SRM) has been moving forward with the planning of additional ESD training workshops following the successful Pilot Interagency Range ESD Workshop in November 2010. We are excited to announce that three regional based efforts are currently under development.

The following information is intended to briefly update interested parties on these upcoming workshops. More information on agendas and accommodations will be forthcoming in the near future. Website information updated regularly. Registration will be on a first-come first-served basis and should be live no later than end-of-June 2011.

Please note that the workshop under planning for Reno, NV - August 2-4, 2011 - is now RESCHEDULED for June 2012.

Details for a second workshop scheduled for August 23-25, 2011 in Cheyenne WY are provided below.

Also note that a third workshop is under planning for Florida in early November 2011. 

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INTERAGENCY ECOLOGICAL SITE APPLICATIONS WORKSHOP
Cheyenne WY/Nunn CO
23-25 August 2011

• Will be held at the Shortgrass Steppe Research and Interpretation Center (SGS-RIC) in Nunn, CO on the Central Plains Experimental Range (CPER)
  (http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?llr=zv8995dab&et=1105506999202&s=136&e=001Fp7e1oEulIXm2QZbs3YFa_o2lSiC7ETBqaufWQ8raJmKyd3pw81s5y20N7wgSEk25ypYV0P6CXxA_2mF8hy7dKHk_LCJKBn4ESBneu43aO8m6kHA9SHueVN9O7Y_x3GH) and at the High Plains Grasslands Research Station in Cheyenne, WY (http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?llr=zv8995dab&et=1105506999202&s=136&e=001Fp7e1oEulIXm3QlPQnhFIDfZO4L1Q28r9NB_3u6xz6TPZwnQU_-n8wmO3tHyIVuJIl8bVBGEAr88g5d718f3dzZVx8ChUa6Sr7NqN6WcPqQTWghdYAs_fA==).
• Will be open for registration to anyone that is interested and will allow a maximum of 40 participants. 
• Will encompass 3 days (includes time in the field each day) with content tailored to take advantage of local conditions and issues.
• Registration:
• $150 for employees of sponsoring agencies (ARS, BLM, NRCS)
• $150 for current Society for Range Management members
• $200 for all others
  Other sponsoring agencies/groups may be added in time, so please check the ESD website for current information prior to registering. Due to the remote location of this workshop, registration will include all training materials, field trip transportation and most meals including 3 breakfasts, 2 lunches and 2 dinners.
• Will feature KEYNOTE speaker Dr. Bill Lauenroth, Univ. of Wyoming, on Great Plains Rangeland Ecosystems.
• Will discuss the importance of ESDs to agency needs and field operations. 
• Will aim to establish team-building between participants and introduce them to the local experts who will be able to assist them in the future when developing projects and working with ESDs.
• Will illustrate the current state of collaboration in ESD implementation (in that area) as well as act as a launching pad for additional collaborative efforts.
   

For registration and lodging questions, please contact:
Aleta Rudeen
SRM Director of Outreach and Leadership Development
arudeen@ranglands.org
(303) 720-2715

For all other questions, please contact:
Linda Coates-Markle
BLM Liaison to SRM
lcmarkle@rangelands.org
(303) 986-3309

2011 SRM Fly-In, Washington D.C.

Guest post by Gary Frasier, SRM First Vice President

2011 Fly-In

Washington D.C.

SUMMARY REPORT


2-5 May 2011 

Participants: 

Jack Alexander, SRM President

Gary Frasier, SRM 1^st Vice President 

Wally Butler, SRM 2^nd Vice President

Aleta Rudeen, SRM Director of Outreach and Leadership Development 

Kimberly Haile, SRM Young Professional

Jess Peterson, SRM Executive Vice President

Kelly Fogarty, SRM Washington D.C. Liaison 

The Society for Range Management (SRM) executive committee travels to Washington D.C. each year.  The purpose of this trip is to converse with SRMs partners about current and past projects and to identify their current training needs and how SRM can help them meet those needs and maintain its role as an professional society for its members.

The Spring, 2011 Washington Fly-In consisted of two full days of short meetings with various Federal Agencies, (Bureau of Land Management, Natural Resources Conservation Service, U.S. Forest Service, and US Department of Agriculture officials), Sister Societies (The Wildlife Society, American Fisheries Society, Society of American Foresters), and commodity organizations (Public Lands Council, American Sheep Industry).  There was also a Reception by Western Skies Strategies (Jess Peterson) and a 2011 American Lamb BBQ hosted by the American Sheep Industry.

Under the leadership of SRM President Jack Alexander, discussions with each group centered on the Ecological Site Description Workshops facilitated by SRM, Training and Certification opportunities, and Native Range Forums, past and upcoming. 

We were well received by all groups. SRM is perceived as a credible science-based organization.  The discussions were very open with the dialog directed toward how we could all work more closely to achieve the goals of proper management of natural resources, especially during these times of reduced budgets. 

The Fly-In was considered a successful activity of getting to better know the “Washington Scene” and to expose the various groups we met with to SRM’s goals and objectives.

Upcoming Conferences of Interest

Two upcoming conferences that might be of interest to SRM members:

Grasslands in a Global Context

When: September 12-14, 2011
Where: Kansas State University
Abstract Deadline: poster abstracts due by June 1, 2011
About: excerpt from the website "...The conference strives to develop a current, comparative synthesis of grassland/savanna ecosystems within a global framework. With the development of Konza Prairie as a global research platform in grassland studies coinciding with the benchmark 30th and 40th year anniversaries of our research station and LTER program, the stage is set for a synthesis of past, ongoing and new research results in the context of global understanding of grassland systems. This synthesis is aimed at identifying generalities in the structure and function of grassland and savanna ecosystems around the globe, recognizing continental level differences of critical importance, while identifying significant research gaps that can drive future studies. In short, we hope that this conference will develop a critical synthesis..."
Website: http://www.dce.k-state.edu/conf/grassland/

Synergy in the Technical Development of Agriculture and Food Industry

When: October 9-15, 2011
Where: GÖDÖLLŐ, Hungary
Abstract Deadline: abstracts due by May 23, 2011
About: excerpt from the website "...The conference deals with the up-to date questions of the solar, geothermal, wind, biomass energy, heat pumps, and hybrid power plants of regenerative energies. Besides of the above mentioned actual questions and research results of the environmental industry, logistics, precision farming, furthermore issues of computer aided engineering, production systems, project management also will be discussed...."
Website: http://synergy.szie.hu/news.php

International Rangeland Congress and Tours, Argentina

Guest Post by Joe Wagner, PNW Section of SRM

South Patagonia PreCongress Tour

El Calafate Moreno Glacier

The Pre-Congress Technical Tour started in El Calafate (State of Santa Cruz), where we spent two days.  El Calafate is located on the largest lake in Argentina.  This is a glacial lake and the Moreno Glacier is at the head of the lake.  The Moreno Glacier face is 300 feet high and it was calving at the late summer date we visited.  This glacier is part of the third largest ice field in the world – only behind Antartica & Greenland.

The 1st thing I noticed riding in from the airport was a roadside fence line contrast.  There was a lot of what I thought was a grey shrub and very little in the surrounding pastures.  This area was heavily sheeped in the past.  Checked with the tour guide and found out what I thought was a shrub was a large bushy Senecio.  The two main grasses were Fescue and Stipa.

Third Day we traveled by bus to Rio Gallegos to catch a flight to Tierra del Fuego area.  We visited an area at the east end of Lake Argentino, where grazing/wood cutting exposed the silty/sandy glacial soils to wind erosion.  They planted Elymus and shrubs to hold the soils in place.  It is still grazed to some extent.  We also observed heavy grazing and light grazing on a riparian/wetland areas (mallines = meadows where water is near the surface).  We visited a sheep Experimental area, where they were testing different grazing systems.  I learned about ground shrubs that the sheep use.  I casually looked at the plant they were talking about and initially thought it was a healthy cryptogam, however it did have a woody stem to it.  Inside the exclosure it was about 5/6 inches high after 5 years of rest.

Ushuaia Tierra del Fuego

We landed in Ushuaia that calls itself “City at the end of the world”, approximately 69 degrees south.  Of the Equator.  City is located on the Beagle Channel, where Charles Darwin spent time.  Historically, the Native Americans did not wear clothes; only seal skin capes (brrr!!).  The women were responsible for collecting mollusks.  They smeared seal fat on their bodies to insulate against the frigid waters.  The biggest resource problem I saw in Tierra del Fuego Park involved beaver.  They were introduced in 1943 to enhance the fur trade.  The fur trade fizzled and now they are running wild with no natural predators.  They are doing a job on standing trees as well as flooding out trees in the bottom lands.  Great Sea food in Ushuaia.

Rosario International Rangeland Congress

Rosario is a city of under one million people, in the State of Santa Fe.  It is a very clean city.  There are several stray dogs per block that laze about and help keep the food items out of the gutters.  The dogs don’t belong to anybody, but are fed, watered and tolerated by folks.  The only time I saw folks harass the dogs was when shop keepers shooed them out of the entrance to stores, when they flopped down.  It was amazing to see so many nice condition Ford Falcons from the 1960s driving around.  The Parana River flows through Rosario and fish dinners were great.

The IRC had about 500 people in attendance from 40 to 50 countries.  There were close to 700 papers/posters, 3 pre-congress tours and 3 mid-congress tours.  Proceedings will soon be available on the IRC website at http://www.rangelandcongress.com/ and available at catrina.batello@fao.org at no cost.  The next Congress will be in India in 2015.  I went on the Parana River Island mid-congress tour.  The river was in a low flood stage and most of the cattle had already been ferried across the river to areas west of Rosario.  However, it was interesting to see cows and calves swimming and some cows swimming and grazing at the same time.  I asked about caimans bothering the cattle (local ones are smaller than those in Amazon Basin) – wild pigs are more of a threat to calves.  The ranchers burn their lands by themselves every Fall, so they can find the cattle as the vegetation gets pretty thick and high otherwise.  The Poster I found the most interesting was from Israel, using goats to create fire breaks around forested areas.  I asked about the bad fire in their forest last summer and he said the crown fire dropped to the ground when it hit the goat grazed area. 

Iguazu Waterfalls Bariloche.

I made two trips after the congress.  Iguazu Waterfalls (state of Misiones) are way up north on the Brazil Argentina border.  One of the falls is horse shoe shaped at the head of a large canyon called the “Devils Throat.”  There are several falls on the Brazilian side and a long series of falls on the Argentina side.  This waterfall was as spectacular as Niagra Falls and Victoria Falls and the geology of the long canyon and rim made this a huge area.

The next trip was to Bariloche (State of Rio Negro) about midway in the country, but on the west side near the Andes mountain range.  The area was settled by Swiss and German pioneers. The architecture with the Andes backdrop made one feel that they might have been in the Alps.  Cathederal Hill is probably the only major ski area in South America.  The rainfall in Bariloche was 1,000 millimeters near the mountains and going 35 km east and it drops to 500 mm and continues drop to about 250 mm as you go east until the Atlantic Ocean influence raises the rainfall.  I was able to visit the San Ramon Estancia (Ranch) in the 500 mm zone and there were many conifers growing, all introduced from Europe, Australia and North America.  The Ranch produced cattle that grazed the meadows and sheep that grazed the upland steppe.  The ranch was 250,000 hectares in size.  The entire ranch and buildings were burned in a wildfire in 1996 and the manager said vegetation was still recovering in certain areas.  I thought I was standing in grass in a rest pasture, but was I wrong.  It was a Stipa that came half way up my calf and neither cattle nor sheep will graze it.  The trees that they were selectively logging had ½ to ¾ inch growth rings present from about 40 year old trees.  The introduced Red Deer grow some tremendous racks 2 ½ to3 feet wide with 16 points on some.

Beautiful, unpalatable stipa

 Argentina has the highest per capita meat consumption in the world – 75 kg/person.  We ate well and a high protein diet it was great!!

No College Students Were Harmed in the Making of this Post

...though you're not alone if this image makes you nervous:

The "before" photo - note the sad face

Saturday, April 16, marked the first annual SRM Office Beautification Day.  Landscaping at the SRM headquarters office in Wheat Ridge, Colorado has fallen into disrepair in recent years.  The paint on the SRM sign was peeling, bushes around the buildings were dead and dying, stepping stones were sunken and crooked, and the "garden" beds were in desperate need of a good mulching.

Getting started...

So, on a beautiful, 70 degree Saturday last week, the Colorado State University and University of Wyoming Range Clubs convened at the SRM office to prune, plant, paint, mulch, and beautify.  In exchange, SRM sponsored a donation to each club, a pizza lunch, and apple turnovers from Executive Vice President Jess Peterson's favorite nearby shop.  Not only did students contribute to the overall beauty of the SRM office, but also had the opportunity to network between clubs and chat over the phone with SRM President, Jack Alexander.

Does anyone else find this a bit precarious?

All shrubs, grasses and forbs that went in to the new landscaping were native to Colorado.  SRM would like to extend a huge 'thank you' to Kristin Oles and the CSU Range Club for donating many of the plants.

EVP Jess Peterson never thought he would
need to purchase sagebrush

The new garden beds now include the following:

• big sagebrush (Artemisia tridentata)
• bluebunch wheatgrass (Pseudoroegneria spicata)
• columbine (Aquilegia L.)
• mountain pepperweed (Lepidium montanum)
• strawberry/scarlet hedgehog cactus (Echinocereus coccineus)
• golden tickseed (Coreopsis tinctoria)
• lupine (Lupinus argenteus)
• blackeyed susan (Rudbeckia hirta)
• primrose (Oenothera pallida)
• aspen fleabane (Erigeron speciosus)
• purple prairie clover (Dalea purpurea)
• mule-ears (Wyethia amplexicaulis)
• prairie junegrass (Koeleria macrantha)
• broom snakeweed (Gutierrezia sarothrae)
• tanseyleaf tansyaster (Machaeranthera tanacetifolia)
• shrubby cinquefoil (Potentilla fruticosa)
• and some Bromus tectorum (just joking!!)

As a result of the Beautification Day, the SRM office has new mulch and edging, all plants are not only alive, but also native to Colorado, and the SRM sign has new paint and looks fantastic.  The day was a huge success, everyone had a good time, and we already have ideas for the next round of projects.

On behalf of the Society for Range Management we would like to thank the CSU and UW range clubs and all 15 students that spent their Saturday helping out at their professional society: Maggie Haseman, Kristin Oles, Baili Foster, Bailey Terry, Kelly Wotkyns, John Wagner, Mandy O'Donnell, Colleen Buck, Sydney Burek, Sarah Griffith, Emily Wotkyns, Haley Lockwood, and Ryder Simeniuk.  And a special thank you to club members Robert Emanuel (CSU) and Katie Schade (UW) for helping to coordinate this event!

Check out the sweet shirts AND smiling faces!

Spring Cleaning: Reminders, Updates, and Events

Greetings SRMers!  Here are a few upcoming events and deadlines relevant to you:

• Applications for the SRM paid summer Internship Program are due this Friday, April 15.  Additional information and application instructions can be found on the SRM employment page.
• It's time to start thinking about the 2012 Annual Meeting in Spokane, Washington!
• Applications for symposia, special sessions, forums, and workshops are due by Saturday, May 7.  Click here for application information and forms.
• Meeting room requests for the 2012 meeting are due by Wednesday, June1.  You must have your request in to the Spokane planning committee for your event to be included in the Annual Meeting program.  Click here for the room request form.
• SRM is now on LinkedIn!  This is a SRM members-only group - sign in or sign up and start getting connected to other SRM members.
• Calling all sections: help us keep the www.rangelands.org website updated and encourage participation in your section events by sending us your summer tour and fall meeting information at your earliest convenience.  Send meeting information to Ann Tanaka and Vicky Trujillo.
• The SRM Board of Directors Washington DC fly-in is scheduled for May 2 - 5, 2011.  Stay tuned for details from their trip.
• Join us for the SRM Action Update Call, this Thursday, April 14 at 11:00am MDT.  This is your opportunity to ask questions and find out the latest in the Society.  This call is open to anyone that would like to join.  Dial: 1-213-416-6650, Access Code: 012010#

In other news, this Saturday, April 16, marks the first ever SRM Office Beautification Day!  We will be hosting the University of Wyoming and Colorado State University range clubs onsite for an office overhaul.  Activities include planting, mulching, and general sprucing of the SRM office, not to mention an excellent opportunity for networking between clubs.  Many thanks to both range clubs for their participation and stay tuned for details and highlights.

Katelyn Schade (UW Range Club) and Robert Emanual (CSU Range Club) met with Jess Peterson and Aleta Rudeen to plan the SRM Office Beautification Day Projects last week

We're not kidding - we have our work cut out for us this weekend!  More before and after photos to come...

Our Juniper Story is Told

Click here to watch this excellent video about western juniper and featuring SRM members Doc and Connie Hatfield, Dr. John Buckhouse, Tim Deboodt, Michael Fisher and Hugh Barrett
 

Guest Post by Hugh Barrett, SRM Pacific Northwest Section 

Following a friend’s communication with Oregon Public Broadcasting inquiring about their interest in doing a program on western juniper in Oregon, I received a call from Vince Patton, Producer of Oregon Field Guide – OPB’s popular weekly outdoor program. He told me that during his trips to eastern Oregon he’d always wondered why “ranchers were cutting all that juniper”. As we talked, Vince seemed increasingly interested in producing a segment for the program.  Subsequently, I sent an email to Vince that contained links to several publications on western juniper and the names and contact information for several scientists, ranchers and others who also are deeply involved in the juniper issue.

During several phone conversations I had with Vince over the next few months, I laid out the story of juniper in the inter-mountain environment. His interest grew as I described the steps and mis-steps leading to the rapid expansion of juniper’s range; its impacts on the sagebrush biome; and, its influence on watershed function and western aridity. On a windy mixed rain-and-snow afternoon about three months after our original phone conversation, we met in Doc and Connie Hatfield’s living room at their High Desert Ranch near Brothers, Oregon. Fortifying ourselves against the cold with bowls of hot chili and warm corn bread, we planned the process for the next two days filming.

That’s how it all came together. I hope the program speaks for itself.

 Click here to watch the video

50 acre juniper control/watershed repair project in Klamath County, Oregon (before treatment)

Project area in 2007 after treatment conducted in 2006.  Broadcast seeding with "Whitmar" bluebunch wheatgrass, antelope bitterbrush, basin wildrye (in swales and drainages) and big sagebrush.  Cut trees were skidded off the hillside (for use as firewood and lumber).  Anticipated hydrologic response: 15 acre feet per year of water retained.