Carrico's Favorite Story of 2024
Colorado Ranchers Deal With Challenges Caused by Wildlife, Including Wolves
Editor's Note:
As the year comes to a close, we've once again asked the DTN/Progressive Farmer reporting team to pick out the most significant, most fun, or otherwise their favorite, story of 2024. They range from solar events to seeing how seed corn is produced, political/policy coverage to wildfire impact, to including profiles of American farmers and ranchers who shared their marketing, production and even life choices with our writers. We hope you enjoy our writers' favorites, continuing the series with today's story by DTN Senior Livestock Editor Jennifer Carrico.
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REDFIELD, Iowa (DTN) -- Most cattle producers like to learn how to deal with raising livestock from their peers. When new situations arise, farmers and ranchers seem to take those challenges in stride and are resilient.
That is why I love this business so much.
For the past year, I have worked with Silver Spur Ranch Kiowa Creek division telling stories of how they run their ranch in east-central Colorado. Like many other cattle producers, they deal with the highs and lows of the industry.
In the latest story in the series, the ranch manager Decky Spiller told me about how they dealt with having a wolf on their ranch. Colorado voters passed a measure to bring wolves back to the state, but did this without realizing how it would affect ranchers.
I've been a cattle producer my entire life and haven't ever had to deal with a predator like a wolf or mountain lion. Hearing the story that unfolded that day on their ranch and what they have dealt with made this my favorite story of the year.
The story included how the ranch handles wolves, but also other wildlife concerns including mountain lions, elk, deer and pronghorn antelope.
It was one of the stories in the series we introduced this year called View From the Range, a spinoff from the View From the Cab series written by DTN's Senior Crops Editor Pamela Smith about what row-crop farmers deal with on their farms through a season.
You can see the whole story about wolves and other wildlife concerns at the ranch at https://www.dtnpf.com/…. The story includes links to the other stories I wrote in the VFTR series this season.
As a cattle producer, I can't imagine dealing with the challenges seen on this Colorado ranch, but it also gives cattlemen a chance to learn about what is important in other parts of the country.
It has been interesting to follow one cattle ranch throughout the year and I look forward to continuing this series in the coming year.
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For more in this Favorite Story series:
-- "Mental Health Stories Inspire Hope in Our Personal Struggles," https://www.dtnpf.com/…
Jennifer Carrico can be reached at jennifer.carrico@dtn.com
Follow her on social platform X @JennCattleGal
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