One of the simple pleasures of the Dakotas is being able to leave the pavement behind and detouring on the thousands of miles of backroads that our sparsely populated state has to offer. One of the more pleasant drives, in my opinion, is the 30 minutes of head clearing gravel roads it takes to arrive at the Cheyenne River Ranch in Southwest South Dakota. Depending on your chosen route, you’ll wind through open rolling grasslands, buttes lined with white badlands clays, or the cottonwood strewn Cheyenne River that gives the ranch its namesake. This past June, dozens of avian enthusiasts from around the region made the pilgrimage for the South Dakota Grasslands Coalition’s Annual Bird Tour hosted by the ranch.
The 36,000 acre ranch provide a variety of habitats for flora and fauna of the Great Plains. From west to east, heavily clayed mixed grass prairie bleeds into the sharp breaks of the Cheyenne River and transitions into the expansive Badlands on through the horizon. Looking to the west, the history filled Black Hills backdrops an already majestic setting. With the assistance of straw bale covered trailers, tour goers were treated to the sight of pronghorn, mule deer, prairie dogs, and an eclectic array of grassland obligate birds. Due to fortunate spring rains the prairies were green and vibrant with a flush of biennial yellow sweetclover that had taken advantage of the favorable spring conditions. Near the end of the field tour, the hay laden train was treated to a close vantage of the ranch’s large bison herd that makes up much of the core values of the O’Brien and Jones family.
The following day, attendees were treated to presentations and activities from various local conservation professionals. An afternoon rain forced the group inside one of the ranch’s animal handling facilities where Dan O’Brien told a captivating account of “The Last Ghost Dance,” performed by the Sioux on a nearby butte, visible from the ranch.
Throughout the tour, a bird list was tallied. In total 38 species were recorded. Dan is an avid falconer and was instrumental in peregrine falcon recovery efforts. During a stop at the O’brien home, Dan treated those interested to an up close in personal view of his pet falcons. To cap the event, the group was treated to lunch and dinner of Wild Idea grassfed bison featuring some of Jill O’brien’s own recipes.
Those with an ecologist’s mindset long to imagine landscapes filled with the sum of its parts. For those of grassland interests, a prairie isn’t quite complete without those large wooly ungulates that once roamed far and wide across North America’s middle parts. Dan O’Brien had that same dream when he started the ranch and the Wild Idea Buffalo Company in 1997. His career and training as a wildlife biologist inspired him to put those pieces back together as it had once been. Much of Dan and Jill O’Briens trials, tribulations, and stewardship efforts are captured in Dan’s writings.
Today much of the management of the ranch has been entrusted to Dan and Jill’s daughter Jillian and her husband Colton. The stewardship ethic that drives the management decisions of the ranch and the Wild Idea Buffalo Company has led to much adulation by the conservation community. The introductory use of mobile field harvest units on the Wild Idea brand is the gold standard of animal welfare practices in the meat industry. Animals never set foot in a trailer or feedlot.
Audubon Great Plains is proud to be a partner with Dan, Jill, Jillian, and Colton through The Audubon Conservation Ranching Initiative, and are very excited for what the future brings.
