Alaska

Cattle Herds on Remote Alaska Islands Face Threat

Fri, 20 Nov 2020 05:37:48 GMT

Source: Associated Press

There are herds of cattle on a pair of remote Alaska islands that have survived for decades despite any number of threats to their existence.

The animals have been abandoned. They’ve been forced to adapt to brutal winters. And they go for months at a time eating little more than seaweed that washes ashore.

But today, the resilient cows face a threat from those who say the herds are battering the habitat of native wildlife such as seabirds and salmon.

“The cattle are really doing a number,” said Patrick Saltonstall, an archaeologist who works in the area. “In some parts, the creeks aren’t even creeks anymore. They’re just like quicksand. They’ve just been pulverized, pounded into nothing.”

Federal wildlife managers have asked this month for public comment as they seek to remove nearly 1,000 animals from the uninhabited, isolated islands in southwest Alaska.

“The purpose is to stop the grazing on these two islands,” said biologist Steve Ebbert with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service at the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge. “We know we have a problem.”

The deadline to submit ideas for what to do with the herds is Jan. 31, with public meetings scheduled for Monday in Homer and Jan. 7 in Kodiak. The public will have additional opportunity to comment later as final plans are developed.

Ebbert said some ideas submitted already include killing the cattle and salvaging the meat, removing or sterilizing the animals or introducing predators such as bears and wolves.

Cattle were first brought to Chirikof Island, which is about 400 miles from Anchorage, in the late 1880s to provide beef for whaling crews and fox traders. They arrived on Wosnesenski Island, almost 600 miles from the state’s largest city, in the late 1930s, brought by a family that moved on decades ago.

There are now about 750 cattle on Chirikof and another 200 on Wosnesenski. Over the years, adventuresome ranchers added a variety of beef and dairy breeds to Chirikof, resulting in the sturdy hybrid found there today.

The last rancher to try a hand with the herd was Tim Jacobson, a cowboy who a decade ago planned to sell the cattle as range-fed beef or superior breeding stock. But the challenge was always getting the animals off an island with no natural harbors in a region plagued by harsh weather and unpredictable winds.

Jacobson managed to barge out about 40 head of cattle. But he failed to pay for various services from Kodiak Island 80 miles to the north, such as cattle transport and supplying supplemental feed, according to a lawsuit filed against him. Jacobson was a no-show at his 2005 trial, and he has since vanished.

With his departure, the federal government was left without someone to carry out its long anticipated plans to remove the cows from Chirikof.

If the Chirikof cows could be managed there would be no problem, but that’s probably never going to happen again given the location, according to Saltonstall, curator of archaeology at the Alutiiq Museum in Kodiak.

Saltonstall was among researchers who spent time on Chirikof last summer for various studies, including documentation of archaeological sites from prehistoric human populations that once lived there. He said the cattle have damaged archaeological sites. Some areas are so overgrazed, he said, that there is no grass to hold down the sand, which blows away, leaving bare rock in places.

Another researcher on the summer team was Jack Withrow, an ornithologist who looked at Chirikof’s bird populations. There are fewer birds on Chirikof than on nearby islands, a fact likely related to the presence of the cattle and a population on non-native arctic foxes, said Withrow, collection manager for the bird department at the University of Alaska Museum of the North in Fairbanks.

Ebbert, the federal biologist, says restoring the environment means removing both non-native species, starting with cattle since they are the more destructive force, mowing down beach rye and other grasses.

Withrow agrees that cattle herds are problem, saying without them “it would be closer to its natural state. In the absence of cows and foxes, some bird populations would probably increase.”

What Can $1.6 Billion Mega Millions Lottery Buy Farmers and Ranchers?

Fri, 13 Nov 2020 02:23:35 GMT

Despite having just a 1 in 302.6 million chance of winning the record-high Mega Millions lottery, farmers and ranchers are dreaming big on what they could buy with the winnings .

The possibilities are nearly endless with the value now at $1.6 billion. A sprawling ranch. A fleet of new tractors. Several boat loads of soybeans. A few thousand cattle. You name it, you can probably buy it.

We’ve gathered up some ideas as to what producers could buy. The majority of lottery winners take the lump sum, valued at $904 million for a cash-out, and taxes still have to be taken out. That leaves between $489.8 million to $569.5 million depending on what state you live in , so we’ll just say you have $500 million to play with.

Here is what winning Mega Millions could buy you in agriculture:

58.2 Million Bushels of Soybeans

^{Farm Journal}

Soybeans have taken a hit in value this year after retaliatory tariffs were put in place by China. If a farmer had storage in place they might want to sit on some beans and wait for the market to rally again when the trade tension with China has eased. At 11 am CDT on Oct. 22, November futures for soybeans were trading at $8.59/bushel, which means a total of 58,207,217 bushels of beans could be bought. With that amount of beans it would account 1.2% of all soybean production with an estimated 4.69 billion bushels projected by USDA .

The World’s Largest Cattle Feeder, Plus Half the Cattle to Restock the Yards

^{Wyatt Bechtel}

This year the world’s largest cattle feeder, Five Rivers Cattle Feeding, was sold by JBS USA to Pinnacle Asset Management, L.P. The sale was for a reported $200 million and included 11 feedlots located across Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas. The feedlots have an estimated one-time capacity of 980,000 head, so with the remaining money a person could buy a few cattle to halfway restock the feedlots. After looking at auction reports from USDA across the country, there were 138 head of Medium-Large #1-2 heifers that sold in various Tennessee livestock markets for $124.93/cwt during the Oct. 20 report . At that price rate 490,000 heifers could be bought with approximately $15 million remaining to truck the cattle home. Hopefully you can hit the $620 million Powerball to pay for feed and any treatment costs.

200 Million Gallons of Milk

^{Farm Journal}

Dairy farmers have been struggling with another year of low milk prices and to help bring awareness to the problem the #10GallonChallenge was started . The social media campaign involves purchasing 10 gallon jugs of milk and then donating the milk to local food pantries. USDA calculates a gallon of milk costs $2.49 across the entire country , so that would mean you could buy 200,803,212 gallons of milk. That’s more than 20 million 10 gallon challenges worth of milk.

16,666 Acres of Almond Groves in California

^{David Paul Morris/Bloomberg}

Almonds have been growing in popularity among growers in California with acreage rising 7% from 2016 to 2017 . The high value cash crop should continue to have decent returns and land prices suggest that an average rate of $30,000/acre could purchase almond land in California. At that suggested rate your almond groves would be 16,666 acres in size. Hopefully you won’t need any help “milking” your almonds .

7,296 Used John Deere 9410 Combines

^{Machinery Pete}

A recent find by Machinery Pete was the sale of a John Deere 9410 Maximizer with 2,520 engine hours in Spencerville, Ontario. The combine brought $89,000 CAD for the final sale price, which converted in U.S. dollars = $68,530 at a Canadian to U.S. dollar exchange rate of .77. That’s the highest auction price for that type of combine in six years. If you were to buy as many John Deere 9410 Combines as possible it would come to 7,296 machines with your lottery winnings. Could be the start of a pretty large custom harvesting fleet.

8 Million Shares in Tyson Foods

^Google

Tyson Foods, Inc., the largest publicly traded meat packer in the U.S., was on a boom at the end of 2017 following a meteoric rise since 2008 . Stock prices for the company peaked at $83.56 on Dec. 5, 2017. Prices have since fallen to $62.05 per share of Tyson at 1 pm CDT on Oct. 22, but it is still a good investment with the world’s growing need for animal protein. A total of 8,058,017 shares in Tyson could be purchased at current values.

Hawaiian and Alaskan Island Ranches, Plus a Few Thousand Acres in Texas

^{Molokai Ranch}

There are plenty of multi-million dollar ranches for sale across the U.S., including T. Boone Pickens’ sprawling 64,809 acre Texas Panhandle property . We thought we’d save some money by not purchasing the oil tycoon’s $250 million ranch and opt for some smaller ranches in Texas, which would leave enough for a tropical island ranch in Hawaii and a slightly colder location in Alaska.

The 55,575 acre Molokai Ranch on the Hawaiian island of Molokai with an asking price of $260 million would top the purchase list. Then we’d line up the 500,000-acre Bering Pacific Ranches located on Alaska’s Aleutian Islands for only $19.9 million.

This would leave another $220 million for more ranch land so we’ll put a bid of $52 million on the 37,759 acre KC7 Ranch near Balmorhea, Texas . Add on the similarly priced KB Carter Ranch for $51 million puts 15,000 acres of east Texas property in the portfolio. The Northrup Pipe Creek Ranch for $49.95 million, the Sulphur Bluff Ranch for $43,940,500, the Circle J&B Ranch for $12.5 million and the Wagon Wheel Ranch for $8.8 million would help make up the rest of the ranch holdings in Texas.

Overall the newly formed Mega Millions Ranch would have 633,506 acres total in three states, with a total of 77,931 acres located on six separate Texas properties. There would still be about $2.2 million left to purchase something else. We’d recommend a plane to get between all those ranches, maybe this Cessna Grand Caravan EX could do the trick.

What would you spend your winnings on? Would you buy land, cattle, machinery or a new shop? Would you retire from farming and live off the interest? Let us know in the comments.

Alaskan Rancher Claims to Have Lost 30 Cattle from Kodiak Bear Attacks

Fri, 13 Nov 2020 02:23:35 GMT

A rancher on Kodiak Island in Alaska says that bears have killed at least 30 cattle this year from his cow-calf herd.

Rancher Chris Flickinger tells the Kodiak Daily Mirror that bear activity has picked up on the local roads and he is finding more garbage spread out and broken fences. Cattle losses on Flickinger’s ranch are higher than normal with bears killing a cow, a bull and two calves in just the past two weeks. The most recent cattle deaths occurred near Pasagshak, on the eastern edge of the island.

“It’s hugely significant,” Flickinger says. “It’s definitely a pretty big loss.”

Flickinger values his bulls at $1,500 and that some cows are worth up to $2,000. He estimates that approximately 30 cattle have been killed by bears so far this year.

Non-lethal deterrents have been used by Flickinger to scare bears. However, last year he was forced to shoot a bear. Alaskan law does permit bears to be killed if it is the last resort for “defense of your life or property.”

Alaska’s Department of Fish and Game advises people who have livestock or property damaged by bears to report the problem to the agency.

Kodiak Island is the largest island in Alaska and is located 30 miles from the mainland and roughly 250 miles southwest of Anchorage. The island is home to the Kodiak bear, which is one of the largest species of bears in the world with males growing up to 10 feet tall when standing on their hind legs while weighing 1,500 lb. There are approximately 3,500 Kodiak bears on the island, according to the Department of Fish and Game . The bears have a stocking density of about 0.7 bears per square mile on the island.

State Looks to Sell Southcentral Alaska Meat Plant

Fri, 13 Nov 2020 02:17:05 GMT

The state is seeking a new owner for the only federally approved slaughterhouse in southcentral Alaska, as funding for the facility could run out this year due to legislative budget cuts.

The state Board of Agriculture and Conservation has issued a request for proposals to lease and operate the state-funded Mt. McKinley Meat and Sausage Plant in Palmer. The proposed lease arrangement also includes an option to purchase the facility, The Alaska Public Radio Network reports (http://bit.ly/27cr9lR).

Elizabeth Bluemink, spokeswoman for Alaska Department of Natural Resources, said there is $2.05 million in this year’s budget for the plant.

“DNR’s budget has mostly been settled, it still could be reopened. Currently, the status is that we have intent language that has been approved for the Mt. McKinley Meat and Sausage plant as well as a funding level that would carry us through the upcoming fiscal year,” Bluemink said.

Mt. McKinley is the only slaughterhouse in the area where livestock producers can obtain a U.S. Department of Agriculture stamp of approval, allowing meat to be sold commercially.

Bluemink said one-time increment funding is being considered so the meat plant can operate while lease negotiations take place.

The Board of Agriculture and Conservation is looking to put the meat packing plant under private ownership as long as it continues to operate as a slaughterhouse. The board is accepting proposals through July 11.

Previous efforts to privatize the meat plant took place in 2000, 2002 and 2006, but no proposals were approved at those times.

Mt. McKinley has lost an average of $110,000 each year for a decade except for 2014, when it earned $155,000 in profits.