Photos courtesy Alderspring Ranch.
Story by Julie Marshall
If you’re a rancher in Colorado feeling wary about wolves, Glenn Elzinga understands you’re thinking about losing cattle and whether the state with its compensation plan is just blowing smoke.
Elzinga has been in your muddy boots.
Decades ago, the feds restored wolves to where he runs Black Angus cattle on 50,000 acres of wild public rangeland in central Idaho’s Rocky Mountains.
He wasn’t happy about it.
His story of successful coexistence with wolves is not all rainbows and butterflies, but it’s honest, and set to bring Colorado a good chance of civil conversation and a way forward for ranchers to feel confident and in charge of a profitable future as they coexist with ecologically valuable wolves.
This coming Monday, January 27, Elzinga, owner and operator of Alderspring Ranch, is scheduled to speak at the Glenwood Springs library at 5:30pm… and answer questions about how he’s profitably selling organic grass-fed cattle, for decades, while coexisting with about 1,500 wolves.
“I don’t know how it will go, but I hope the cowboys will come,” Elzinga tells me. “All I want is to crack the door open to this conversation. Because like it or not, wolves are here and not going away.”
Elzinga recalls how it felt at the beginning of wolf restoration.
“I remember seeing a crate marked ‘female’ and I looked in to see a wolf staring right back at me. I whispered to her, ‘Are you going to change everything in my life?’ ”
That wolf symbolized big changes ahead, but not the way this rancher thought.
At first, there were serious losses and wolves illegally shot dead, although not by Elzinga or his crews. The ranching community knew who did it and where the bodies were dumped, and no one was talking.
Elzinga thought about quitting, until stumbling upon a method for success steeped in cowboy tradition, called range riding.
Range riders stick with the herd for protection. It’s not work for the timid, on horseback through unrelenting heat, wind, rain and snow, sleeping outdoors.
With range riding, Alderspring Ranch has not lost one ranch animal to wolves in over a decade, and its operators have never had to kill any wolf for depredation.
Their range practices — along with wolves — have improved riparian, fish and sage-grouse habitat. The number of his cattle has doubled.
Success comes down to three things: An economically sustainable operation, ecological goals with sound stewardship for protecting wildlife, while training a new generation in the science and art of stewarding the lands.
Elzinga’s “seven gritty daughters,” as he likes to say, are among his best range riders. Interestingly, most applicants are women.
The Alderspring crews have watched wolves feasting on elk uphill from cattle without incident. When wolves den, interactions are always possible with cattle. Which is why the ranch only hires the best range riders, people of good character, not necessarily skilled with herding, but who can think on their feet, and strategize how to best coexist with wolves, without lethal interactions on both sides.
Crews function as a team, with camaraderie knowing they are figuring out together how to keep the herd protected. And the cattle need to be comfortable with the humans who care for them. “If those humans are at odds, the animals sense it. I’ve seen it,” Elzinga says.
Good range riders are acutely aware how to approach cattle as well as and how to maintain the health of the rangelands and the species that share the landscape.
Range riders are successful when they attend the herd, camping alongside cattle as they are penned at night, with electrified fencing. Animals are safe, without stress from herders or predators.
The herding, or range riding even works in really thick “black” timber.
“When we’re in there, we’ll have 400 head going across it, grazing, and maybe you’ll only be able to see four steers and no other riders. We’ll talk or call out, so the other riders and cattle know our whereabouts. This effectively keeps the herd bunched, grazing and moving as a unit,” Elzinga explains.
Colorado is now signing up range riders of its own to patrol the rangelands. We even have more potential range riders than wolves on the ground.
It’s just one of many non-lethal measures being put in place for successful coexistence.
On January 27, 5:30 to 7:30pm at the Glenwood Springs Branch Library the public is invited to attend a discussion about fostering peaceful coexistence between humans, livestock and wolves with Glenn Elzinga of Alderspring Ranch, and Suzanne Asha Stone of the International Wildlife Coexistence Network. Please contact Delia Malone for details: Deliamalone@earthlink.net
Julie Marshall is a Colorado native and director for Western wildlife conservation and ecology at Animal Wellness Action and the Center for a Humane Economy. She can be reached at julie@centerforahumaneeconomy.org