News - Press
07/13/2010
Where Guests Help Head ‘Em Up
Where Guests Help Head ‘Em Up
A LEISURELY dinner hour is drawing to a close at the J Bar L ranch in southwest Montana, and a party of guests is still abuzz with the excitement of the day. Eyes bright despite fatigue, they swap tales of how they’d spent the day herding cattle. A high point for some was a veterinary procedure in which cows were held immobile in a chute while a vet made an incision in a flank and reached in arm-deep to pull out the ovaries.
At the J Bar L, taking on the cowboy lifestyle isn’t an idle amusement. And for its guests, that is the key to its appeal: it’s a fully authentic livestock operation, where work comes first. “We don’t change our ranch operations to cater to guests,” said the ranch manager, Bryan Ulring. “We’ve got over 1,000 head of cattle. When we move them, it’s because we need to move them.”
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At the J Bar L, taking on the cowboy lifestyle isn’t an idle amusement. And for its guests, that is the key to its appeal: it’s a fully authentic livestock operation, where work comes first. “We don’t change our ranch operations to cater to guests,” said the ranch manager, Bryan Ulring. “We’ve got over 1,000 head of cattle. When we move them, it’s because we need to move them.”
Read More...
03/04/2010
Living in the New Wild West - Article by Todd Graham appearing in the Spring 2010 “PERC Reports”
Living in the New Wild West - Article by Todd Graham appearing in the Spring 2010 “PERC Reports”
E cological abundance. that’s not a pairing
of words you hear too often these days. it’s
more common to hear of ecological distress.
However, both opportunities and problems associ-
ated with great ecological abundance may be seen
in Montana’s Madison Valley. Lying just northwest
of Yellowstone National Park, the Madison presents
an eyeful. Vast herds of elk, pronghorn, and deer,
along with migrating waterfowl and raptors fre-
quent the area. With ungulates come the predators.
Wolves, grizzly bears, black bears, mountain lions,
and wolverines all call the Madison home. As winter
drives big game animals from the high elevations
of Yellowstone and neighboring forest service lands,
they migrate to the valley floor and find forage and
cover on private lands.
Madison Valley ranchers are well aware of this
abundance. The immense elk herds graze forage re-
served for cattle and push through freshly mended
fences like a snowplow through a drift. Throw the
wolf and its killing of cattle into the mix, and you
find conflict. By definition, these factors make wild-
life a liability to landowners who secure a living run-
ning livestock.
As it turns out, land management practices
that grow high quality grass for cows are the same
practices that provide high quality wildlife habitat.
ranchers are doing elk a favor and are helping to
keep the Madison Valley an ecological jewel. Fortu-
nately, valley ranchers enjoy seeing wildlife. Watch-
ing a large elk herd move across the open landscape
can be breathtaking—an experience one can’t find in many other places. But ranchers don’t enjoy car-
rying the financial hardship that abundant wildlife
brings. Seeking change, ranchers began talking about
these issues.
How could they turn this ecological abundance
into something other than financial hardship? in
their meetings, the idea of forming a tourism com-
pany surfaced. Madison Valley Expeditions, LLC
(MVE) was born.
MVE escorts guests to private ranches where
they participate in a wide variety of activities. A
typical wintertime wildlife viewing tour begins on a
ranch with huge, open spaces where large elk herds
roam and wolves may be glimpsed. Then, the conver-
sation shifts to agriculture and how that industry fits
amidst ecological abundance. Agriculture is still the
financial backbone of many ranches, but the open
spaces and wildlife are what draw people’s attention.
Balancing these needs is the job of the resource stew-
ard. The day ends with guests working through a case
study. if they were ranch owners and wolves were
killing their cows, how would they best manage this
difficult situation?
For their efforts, ranchers are compensated by
MVE based on the number of visitor-days they host.
The more guests, the longer the visit, the more they
get paid. ranchers produce publicly valued open
spaces and habitat, and MVE handles administration,
financing, and marketing of the business. Economy
of scale allows for minimal business overheads, while
guests have access to multiple ranches and hundreds
of thousands of acres of wild things in wild places.
With this compensation model, ranchers have an in-
centive, not only to maintain open spaces and manage their
lands well, but also to create additional guest experiences
on their properties such as bird watching, hiking, biking,
horseback riding, cross country skiing, or exploring ar-
cheological sites. in this way, guests experience the New
Wild West in ways not available to them otherwise.
Madison Valley Expeditions likely cannot have enough
economic impact to offset the losses ranchers incur from
elk grazing their grass or wolves running weight off their
cattle, but it can help. on the day an excited rancher calls
and wants us to bring eager guests out because he’s seen
wolves and elk on his place is the day we make wildlife an
asset and take a giant leap toward preserving the wildness
of the Madison Valley.
More online at www.madisonvalleyexpeditions.com
TOdd GRAHAM is manager of Madison Valley Expeditions, a
newly formed tourism company based in Ennis, Montana.
He also provides ranchland management consulting services
to landowners across the West.
He can be reached at todd@mvexpeditions.com.
of words you hear too often these days. it’s
more common to hear of ecological distress.
However, both opportunities and problems associ-
ated with great ecological abundance may be seen
in Montana’s Madison Valley. Lying just northwest
of Yellowstone National Park, the Madison presents
an eyeful. Vast herds of elk, pronghorn, and deer,
along with migrating waterfowl and raptors fre-
quent the area. With ungulates come the predators.
Wolves, grizzly bears, black bears, mountain lions,
and wolverines all call the Madison home. As winter
drives big game animals from the high elevations
of Yellowstone and neighboring forest service lands,
they migrate to the valley floor and find forage and
cover on private lands.
Madison Valley ranchers are well aware of this
abundance. The immense elk herds graze forage re-
served for cattle and push through freshly mended
fences like a snowplow through a drift. Throw the
wolf and its killing of cattle into the mix, and you
find conflict. By definition, these factors make wild-
life a liability to landowners who secure a living run-
ning livestock.
As it turns out, land management practices
that grow high quality grass for cows are the same
practices that provide high quality wildlife habitat.
ranchers are doing elk a favor and are helping to
keep the Madison Valley an ecological jewel. Fortu-
nately, valley ranchers enjoy seeing wildlife. Watch-
ing a large elk herd move across the open landscape
can be breathtaking—an experience one can’t find in many other places. But ranchers don’t enjoy car-
rying the financial hardship that abundant wildlife
brings. Seeking change, ranchers began talking about
these issues.
How could they turn this ecological abundance
into something other than financial hardship? in
their meetings, the idea of forming a tourism com-
pany surfaced. Madison Valley Expeditions, LLC
(MVE) was born.
MVE escorts guests to private ranches where
they participate in a wide variety of activities. A
typical wintertime wildlife viewing tour begins on a
ranch with huge, open spaces where large elk herds
roam and wolves may be glimpsed. Then, the conver-
sation shifts to agriculture and how that industry fits
amidst ecological abundance. Agriculture is still the
financial backbone of many ranches, but the open
spaces and wildlife are what draw people’s attention.
Balancing these needs is the job of the resource stew-
ard. The day ends with guests working through a case
study. if they were ranch owners and wolves were
killing their cows, how would they best manage this
difficult situation?
For their efforts, ranchers are compensated by
MVE based on the number of visitor-days they host.
The more guests, the longer the visit, the more they
get paid. ranchers produce publicly valued open
spaces and habitat, and MVE handles administration,
financing, and marketing of the business. Economy
of scale allows for minimal business overheads, while
guests have access to multiple ranches and hundreds
of thousands of acres of wild things in wild places.
With this compensation model, ranchers have an in-
centive, not only to maintain open spaces and manage their
lands well, but also to create additional guest experiences
on their properties such as bird watching, hiking, biking,
horseback riding, cross country skiing, or exploring ar-
cheological sites. in this way, guests experience the New
Wild West in ways not available to them otherwise.
Madison Valley Expeditions likely cannot have enough
economic impact to offset the losses ranchers incur from
elk grazing their grass or wolves running weight off their
cattle, but it can help. on the day an excited rancher calls
and wants us to bring eager guests out because he’s seen
wolves and elk on his place is the day we make wildlife an
asset and take a giant leap toward preserving the wildness
of the Madison Valley.
More online at www.madisonvalleyexpeditions.com
TOdd GRAHAM is manager of Madison Valley Expeditions, a
newly formed tourism company based in Ennis, Montana.
He also provides ranchland management consulting services
to landowners across the West.
He can be reached at todd@mvexpeditions.com.
06/22/2009
Bozeman Daily Chronicle - Business to Business
Bozeman Daily Chronicle - Business to Business
Madison Valley Expeditions was recently featured on the front page of the Bozeman Daily Chronicle's Business to Business section. Article by Susan Ewing
Download the full story here (PDF)
Download the full story here (PDF)
