As you might guess from its name, Deseret Land and Livestock isn’t just about raising cattle. Though they do run a lot of cattle on their 200,000 acres in the northeast corner of Utah. But they manage the grazing of the 4,500 mother cows and 4,000 yearlings so that they also constantly improve the land that provides habitat for herds of elk and deer, and a wide variety of birds and other wildlife. In fact, each year they support 10,000 large game animals and a multitude of other wildlife with the forage produced on the ranch.
As Rick Danvir says, “That’s how we make our money and growing elk, deer and pronghorn. The Cooperative Wildlife Management Unit program in Utah allows land owners that work hard to create habitat for wildlife also provides them with some permits to sell to hunters. One third of the ranch’s income is from hunting, birding, and fishing.
In this 6 minute video you’ll visit the ranch and see what they’ve been doing to create environmental and economic diversity. Rick Danvir, the ranch’s wildlife manager, also talks about how ranchers might be able to do something similar on a smaller scale working with their public land base. We hope you’ll be inspired to think about what you could do on your own place.
