As wildfires scorch the West, Eastern Oregon ranchers deal with major losses

Aug 9, 2024
It’s been a big fire season so far across the West, including in Oregon where more than 1.2 million acres have burned this season. On the eastern side of the state, the fires have left many cattle displaced or dead, leaving ranchers with significant losses.
Jared Smull points out burned land at the beginning of the drive into Rye Valley, where he and his family grazed their cattle for many years before the Durkee Fire on July 31. The Smull family lost thousands of acres of grazeable land in the fire.
Anna Lueck/OPB

She's a cattle rancher and he loves to cook. Together, they opened a steakhouse.

Jun 17, 2024
The Trasks recently opened JT's Steakhouse, a farm-to-table restaurant in Ely, Nevada.
Terrill and Jess Trask recently opened JT's Steakhouse in Ely, Nevada.
Courtesy Jess and Terrill Trask

Family ties, history connect rancher with troublesome wild mustangs

Nov 16, 2023
In Nevada, cattle and wild horses sometimes compete for food because they graze the same land. That creates challenges for some ranchers, but that doesn't mean they want the horses gone.
Rancher Will DeLong’s cows compete with wild horses for limited grass in the arid countryside. He’d like to see them “managed to the right numbers.”
Ashley Ahearn

For Western ranchers, harsh weather has meant brutal losses during prime calving season

May 4, 2023
Because calves are born wet they have to get dry, get a drink of milk, and warm up quickly. And the brutal weather has made that tough.
A herd moves slowly with their new calves in snowy conditions in April in Wallowa County, Oregon.
Courtesy of Angie Nash

"It’s going to cost us a pile": Livestock producers in West pinched by extreme winter weather

Apr 20, 2023
Livestock producers were hit so hard by winter weather that the federal government offered relief funding to producers in a few Western states. But some ranchers are still waiting for that option.
A truck pours feed into a trough for a herd of cattle at Snyder Livestock Company outside of Yerington, Nevada, on March 9.
Kaleb Roedel/Mountain West News Bureau

How might the beef industry diversify in the U.S.?

Mar 22, 2022
One rancher in the Pacific Northwest built her own supply chain to control how her cows get to market.
Cory Carman loads a saddle into a trailer at Carman Ranch in Wallowa, Oregon.
Ashley Ahearn

For public good, not for profit.

Montana inmates learn job and life skills while raising cattle on prison ranch

Feb 7, 2018
But food coming from a prison isn't necessarily a selling point.
An inmate attaches milkers to cows' teats.
Eve Abrams/Marketplace

Texas cattle ranchers, dependent on Mexican trade, keep an eye on NAFTA

May 3, 2017
Cattlemen's trade group is lobbying hard to make sure the White House knows what's at stake.
Coleman Locke, president of J.D. Hudgins Inc., and one of his Brahman bulls.
Andrew Schneider

Today's cattle business is way more than cowboys

Dec 7, 2015
Successful cattle ranchers these days need a lot of market knowledge.