Restoring dormant land to become a productive cattle operation began 11 years ago for first-generation, southern California rancher, John Austel. He operates 4J Horse and Livestock Co. with his family, and has used targeted grazing to clean up the 10,000-acre property, which used to be a Spanish land grant. After being used as a large-scale farming and ranching operation for many years, the property changed ownership several times before selling to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) and it was designated as the Rancho Jamul Ecological Reserve. The property, located in San Diego County, remained fallow for 25 years and burned twice during area wildfires in 2003 and 2007 before Austel began leasing it, restoring habitat and using cattle to mitigate wildfires.
“Targeted grazing, adaptive management, or prescribed grazing is a way to get these properties back into play, or at least get them managed,” Austel says. “A lot of grazing there was prime grazing that was not just good for livestock, but deer and other wildlife. A good percentage of it would turn into weeds after the wildfires.”
Austel began setting up a rotational grazing program.
“I don’t know if I’ll get 3" of rain, 6.5" of rain, or 25" of rain, which is the reality of ranching on rangelands,” he says. “This process of rest and rotation lets me adapt to what the range needs and still manage the condition of my cows.”
With the backing of Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), Austel restored the ranch infrastructure, which had burned along with the power lines to the wells. He replaced electric wells with solar wells using NRCS Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) funding. They broke the part of the property they currently graze into 24 different paddocks ranging from 40 to 700 acres, depending on the resource concerns they have.
“There’s a lot of terminology out there; targeted grazing is one of them,” Austel says. “I like to call it adaptive management. We’re adapting to whatever is on that particular property or resource concern.”
Using grazing to mitigate wildfires
Wildfires cost billions of dollars each year in suppression efforts and damage to property and economies. Austel would rather focus on proactive wildfire fuel reduction through grazing.
“It’s not that a paddock won’t catch fire,” he says. “It could catch fire still, but the flames are going to be four or five inches tall versus having standing dry vegetation that’s 2' to 3' tall and built up year after year after year. The flames will be 6' to 12' high. That’s been documented. The intensity of the wildfire is substantially different.”
It’s a win-win for everyone.
“The financial benefit comes for not just myself as a producer, but for my community, my county and my state from a safety and financial standpoint,” Austel says.
The Austel family set up a specific wildfire fuel removal grazing plan after almost getting burnt out in the Gate Fire in 2017.
“We had put in all this infrastructure and water sources, and I’m just watching this fire come right towards us, and it’s going to wipe us out,” he says. “We can’t just sit here and not do anything.”
The fire burned up to the two-lane road next to the ranch, and firefighters were able to put it out with hoses as that point, sparing the property. Afterward, Austel went to the captain and the local unit of CAL Fire at the time, and came up with a plan to graze around the wildfire prone areas.
“The areas that we graze in our priority area are just below million-dollar homes that are up on a hill,” Austel says. “Those people are elated that we’re there.”
Cattle are moved in for 30 days, and very little wildfire fuel is left, then the herd moves to another paddock.
“Sometimes we’re on horseback, cowboying the Western way, and we like that,” Austel says. “We love that lifestyle. Sometimes we just open a gate and call them, and they just come from one paddock to another.”
The efforts have been successful.
“Targeted grazing is an effective way of seriously removing a lot of wildfire fuel on a large landscape basis,” Austel says. “You’ve got the big girls coming in eating 25 lb. to 30 lb. a day of dry matter, and they will clean up something very, very quickly if you have it in a targeted area.”
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