When the cows don’t come home
The effects of the pine beetle on northern ranching
As the mountain pine beetle continues its relentless consumption of British Columbia’s lodgepole pine forests, the province’s cattle ranchers add themselves to the ranks of the afflicted.
“Most people think of the effects on the forest industry. They don’t think of ranching having been impacted by the beetle,” Elaine Stovin of the BC Cattlemen’s Association said. “Most of the beetle-affected areas have range tenures in them.”
The beetles are changing the dynamics of those tenures. More sunlight filters through the dying canopy of tall pines, good for regeneration of the young forests starting to grow beneath them, but bad for the ranchers whose cattle are wandering away from their designated pastures in search of new ones.
“Cattle use public lands, in some areas more than others, and when these animals are put out onto what we call Crown range, they follow a management plan.”
“Not all pastures are flat grasslands. There are naturally occurring open ranges around wetlands or meadows, where the plant community would then transition from grassland to open forest to closed forest to dense forest.”
Grass doesn’t grow in dense forest and without grass there is nothing to interest cattle, providing what Stovin says is “a natural range barrier.”
“It’s important for the animals to stay on the pasture rotation that has been planned for them; plus the rancher wants to make sure they all come home.”
Before the cattle are moved onto their summer range, ranchers, timber licensees and people from the Ministry of Forests sit down and discuss their individual plans. The rancher knows which blocks will be cut or planted, where new gaps in the natural range barrier might occur, and loggers know where the cattle will be and where existing fences and natural barriers need to be protected.
The number of animals on a tenure varies “from 50 to 400-500 head, or cow/calf pairs. There’s quite a variety of ranch sizes that make use of crown range.”
“Some ranchers have tenures close to home so they can move them on horseback and some people have to trailer them out to summer range and then trailer them back. For the most part, people do it on horseback, with the use of four or five good dogs. Some use ATVs. I know a few people who made the switch because the children moved off the farm…just the husband and wife and maybe one hired hand. That’s not enough to move 250 head of animals.”
“Some people share pasture…a community system…and when they round up it’s quite a big event. People from each ranch have to be there to sort the cattle and identify if there’s any missing. For the next week or so they continue to search common places, like watering holes and salt block areas where the animals may hang out.”
The animals begin to “drift” to lower pastures as cold weather ends the growing season, usually October in the south, and from late August through September in the north. “They are very much creatures of habit and the mature cows that have been out on the range year after year know it’s time to move down.”
“If cattle are able to escape into other cut-blocks and onto other networks of roads, it can cause problems in finding them. Some people end up renting helicopters just to track down the rest of their herd, which is costly.”Ranchers anticipated serious headaches resulting from the loss of natural barriers, both through the death of so many mature trees and from increased harvesting activity. They knew many miles of new fences would be needed.
“Through our land stewardship program we worked with the province to secure federal funding that was available for the mountain pine beetle mitigation program.” The program provides funding, at least until 2008, to help deflect the significant financial and labour burdens those new fences incur.
Out of the devastation caused by the beetle, opportunities may arise. “We think there may be areas, like around grasslands or natural openings that have seen a lot of forest encroachment, that when harvested might not be reforested, providing more grazing opportunities for people in the ranching industry to apply for grazing tenures.”
“You would have the opportunity to expand your herd but you would also have to make sure that you have enough of a land base at home to provide stored feed for that number of animals. You can’t just double your herd because you take on a grazing lease.”
“I think being out on the summer range is a wonderful opportunity that not every ranch operation has in other provinces. It’s a wonderful thing to have the healthy mother and calf out on the green pasture, converting that grass into protein.”
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