Last spring, the U.S. Department of the Interior published a proposal with the potential to shift priorities on 245 million acres of public land managed by the Bureau of Land Management. A public comment period yielded thousands of substantive comments for the BLM to consider.

The use of virtual fence technology using GPS collars with the ability to provide audio and electrical cues may offer an economical management tool to strategically graze areas based on specific land and livestock management objectives.

The list of notable weather events in 2023 is long and varied — from drought conditions in parts of the Midwest, to extreme flooding in portions of New England, to smoky skies from Canadian wildfires.

A multiyear study involving University of Idaho researchers has found that allowing late-fall and winter grazing on rangeland heavily infested with invasive medusahead grass could provide extra forage for cattlemen while reducing wildfire fuel.

Rangeland scientists at the Eastern Oregon Agricultural Research Center (EOARC) tested whether virtual fencing could prevent cattle from grazing recently burned areas within sagebrush steppe pastures.

Dad made a turn on the hillside and looked back to see a fire starting from where he had just driven.

Cheatgrass, an invasive annual grass that has invaded vast swaths of Western rangelands, is responsible for much of the increasing wildfire danger in the Intermountain West. However, scientists at the University of Nevada – Reno have discovered that fire danger can be reduced through the application of targeted cattle grazing in the dormant growing season by attracting the cattle with stations containing protein feed supplements.

“A family of teachers.”
That’s how Jill Flynn refers to her brood, who together own and operate Hidden Hollow Hideaway Cattle & Guest Ranch in the hills just outside Townsend, Montana, overlooking the Missouri River. Perhaps no one is more representative of that designation than Jill’s late husband, Kelly.

With four Bureau of Land Management (BLM) district offices and 12 field offices, the BLM manages nearly 12 million acres of public lands in Idaho, nearly one-fourth of the state’s total land area.