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Photo courtesy Audubon
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Take Care of the Land and It Will Take Care of You: Yolo Land and Cattle Company
In the oak woodland foothills of the Willow Slough Watershed of northern California, Scott Stone and his family run a unique cattle operation that combines natural grass-finished beef production with tourism and wildlife habitat restoration. Working in partnership with Audubon California, Yolo Resource Conservation District and Farms Leadership, the Stones have overseen planting of native shrubs, perennial bunch grasses, and trees around their ponds and oak woodlands, which has created valuable wildlife habitat. They also use rotational grazing and prescribed burning to control weeds and brush, and solar pumps convey water for cattle away from ponds, which also helps to increase cattle growth.
With the California Rangeland Trust, the Stones are putting together a conservation easement to guarantee the ranch will never be subdivided, will remain in ranch land, and the restoration already practiced will be protected. Scott says it is a tricky balance between earning a living and conserving the land. Part of the answer is selling grass-finished, hormone- and antibiotic-free beef to informed consumers. To complete the picture and educate the public about beef and conservation, the Stones encourage visitors. Conservation does not come cheaply. Scott explains, “Conservation has taken a lot of time and money away from other projects, but we’re trying to leave this place better than we found it, and over the long run, stewardship increases the value of the ranch and makes it a better place for cattle, wildlife, and people.”
For more information see Yolo Land & Cattle, http://yololandandcattle.com. Audubon California's Landowner Stewardship Program works with farmers and ranchers in the Putah-Cache bio-region to restore and conserve native habitat in a manner compatible with local agriculture practices at a watershed scale. For more information contact Audubon California's Vance Russell, 5265 Putah Creek Road, Winters, CA, 95694, or see www.audubon.org/willow_slough. (Edited from original article by K. Laddish, Conservation Qtly 7: 1; http://www.yolorcd.org.)
To see more about Grazing, go to “Grazing for Biodiversity” Briefing Paper
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