Cowboying, for coexistence? That’s the question posed by researchers in a recently published study on range riding. It’s a decades-old practice of monitoring livestock and deterring predators on horseback. Ada Smith is the study’s lead author.
"Range riding is not just a wildlife management tool that can be defined in one way," Smith says. "It's a community based approach to coexistence that looks different in different contexts."
Smith and her coauthors interviewed range riders from three different areas in Montana – the Blackfoot River valley, the Big Hole, and Tom Miner Basin.
"They represent some of the first range riding programs in the U.S.," Smith says. "So, understanding how they work and how they've evolved could inform efforts across the West."
But despite the practice being around for so long, there’s relatively little research on how range riding works. In a West that’s rapidly changing, range riders fill a role similar to the cowboys of old, Smith says.
"It has the potential for co-benefits, as we call them, beyond just conflict reduction. Things like the ability for those riders to be out monitoring cattle, monitoring for wildlife, as well, relationship building within the communities, and so on."
Through the interviews, researchers learned that range riding varies by location. For example, Tom Miner Basin’s proximity to Yellowstone means that range riders encounter dense grizzly populations. Taylor Kwait conducted the interviews.
"They were realistic about the fact that folks are ranching adjacent to Yellowstone, and there are grizzly bears here, so there is going to be depredation," she says.
Kwait says those range riders recognize they can work to track down carcasses quickly after animals die, to be eligible for state compensation.
One of the biggest challenges range riding faces is consistent funding. And the success of the practice is part of its problem, Smith says.
"When you prevent livestock depredations from happening, it can look like nothing happened at all."
Ultimately Smith and Kwait hope this research will spur broader work spanning multiple states.
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Grizzly bear populations across the state are growing, as is talk about how to minimize human-bear conflict. A Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks report…
