Featured

Experience From the High Deserts of Texas to the Rocky Mountain West.

For 20 years, our family owned and managed Circle Ranch, 32,000 acres of high desert located in the Sierra Diablo Mountains of far-West Texas. Our goal? Leaving the land more diverse, and therefore healthier, than we found it.

Elk Removals Featured

Are Elk Native to Texas--Historical and Archaeological Evidence for the Natural Occurence of Elk in Texas

This paper began as an effort to persuade Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD) to cease its efforts to eradicate elk on the state lands which it manages in far-West Texas. Our assumption was that TPWD was acting out of a sincere misunderstanding of science, which could be corrected.

Wild Horse Fire Brigade

Southern California Burns Again: The 2018 Warning Agencies Ignored

In 2018, William E. Simpson II warned that declining herbivore populations and accumulating vegetation could worsen wildfire risks. He revisits that warning and makes the case for testing wild horses as part of fuel management.

Wild Horse Fire Brigade

Landscape-Scale Ecological Benefits of Properly Managed Free-Roaming Wild Horses in Appropriate Wilderness Ecosystems An Empirical and Scientific Synthesis Mini-Dissertation

Drawing on more than a decade of field observation and supporting scientific literature, this paper examines how properly managed free-roaming wild horses may reduce wildfire fuels, disperse seeds, preserve genetic diversity, and contribute to landscape-scale ecological function.

Water & Watersheds

Walk the Stream After Rain

A practical post-storm stream walk can reveal bank instability, incision, bare approaches, sediment movement and places where water loses energy.

Wildlife Management

When More Trees Mean Less Habitat

Trees are not always a sign of recovery. In grasslands and sagebrush country, woody encroachment can reduce forage, water and wildlife habitat.

Grazing

Grazing, Fuel, and Fire: The Missing Conditions in a Simple Story

Targeted grazing can alter fine fuels, but weather, timing, animal behavior and ecological tradeoffs determine whether it changes fire risk.

Habitat Restoration

The Best Monitoring Program Starts With a Decision

A new USGS framework shows why restoration programs should decide what information will change management before collecting more data.

Newsletter

Restoring Biodiversity - 10/20/2026

This week’s edition asks a practical question with wide consequences: how should land, wildlife, fire, and conservation programs be judged when labels and intentions are easier to measure than results

Livestock & Grazing

Grazing Is a Management Decision, Not a Verdict

New rangeland research shows why grazing outcomes depend on stocking, recovery, weather and site conditions—not labels alone.

Rangeland Science

Build a Photo Point That Can Tell You Something

A fixed photo point will not explain everything happening on a range. It can show whether the land is changing—if the method is repeatable.

Elk

The Texas Elk Dispute Was Never Just About Elk

A long-running dispute over Texas elk offers a durable lesson: when a label controls management, the evidence behind it deserves examination.

Conservation

What Conservation Incentives Can—and Cannot—Buy

Voluntary conservation programs can protect soil, water, habitat and working farms—but enrollment is an input, not an ecological outcome.

Restoring Biodiversity - 10/13/2026

This week’s edition asks a practical conservation question in many forms: what actually restores ecological function on the ground—and how should we know when a favored idea is working?

prescribed fire

Prescribed Fire Finally Earned Hazard Pay. Capacity Is the Next Test.

A new federal pay rule corrects an old imbalance for prescribed-fire crews. Whether it produces more safe burning still has to be measured.

Land Stewardship

A Landscape Is Never Unmanaged

Land is always responding to weather, animals, fire, water and human decisions. Stewardship begins when responsibility for the outcome becomes explicit.

Wildlife & Biodiversity

An Unlikely Friendship? A Wild Horse Meets a Squirrel

An unexpected encounter between a wild horse and a squirrel offers a charming glimpse of curiosity and play in the natural world.

Wild Horse Fire Brigade

American Wild Horses: Fifty-Five Years Of Removals, Gelding, And Pesticide Contraception Have Cut Genetic Flow In BLM Wild-Horse Herds

After 55 years of federal wild-horse management, what has happened to the genetic diversity of America's free-roaming herds? William E. Simpson II examines the evidence.

Watershed Health

Before You Move Dirt, Read the Water

Before reshaping a dry landscape, understand where water flows, where soil is exposed, and what the land is already telling you.

Grasslands

What Old Grassland Stories Still Teach Us About Restoring Land

Two grassland stories point to a larger lesson: restoration succeeds when soil cover, water, grazing pressure, recovery, wildlife and economics are judged together.

Wildlife Management

When Coexistence Stops Working: A Threshold Test for Predator Management

A new urban-coyote framework asks a broader wildlife-management question: What behavior should trigger education, deterrence, investigation or targeted removal?

Grazing

Llamas Once Roamed North America. Could They Help Restore It Again?

Llamas helped rebuild soil and vegetation below a retreating glacier in Peru. Their deeper history makes the experiment even more interesting.

Newsletter

Restoring Biodiversity — 10/6/2026

Excerpt: Wild pollinators need more than hives. Bats need more than caves. Bison can reshape spring itself—and wildlife recovery depends on seeing the whole landscape.

bees

A Hive Count Is Not a Measure of Pollinator Health

Managed honeybees can be replaced, divided and moved. Wild pollinators cannot. If we want more bees, we must first restore the plants and nesting places that sustain them.

Bison

Bison Do Not Simply Follow Spring. They Help Create It.

In Yellowstone, bison do more than follow nutritious new grass. By moving, grazing and returning, they can keep parts of the landscape green.