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February 16, 2001

By Dale Rollins
Extension Wildlife Specialist

I often use the metaphor of a camouflaged cowboy hat to illustrate the perspectives of a rancher's needs when trying to balance wildlife and livestock needs. It's a proper thinking cap when evaluating the relative and absolute value of some "range homonyms."

Remember from your elementary English that homonyms are words that sound the same, but have different meanings? "Hear" and "here" are good examples in the classroom. "Ragweed" and "ragweed" are good examples on the back forty. The two may sound the same, but they have very different "meanings" depending on what type of hat you're wearing.

"Ragweed" heard through the ears underneath a Stetson means "less grass." Spray a western ragweed site with 2, 4-D in early May and you can grow nearly a pound of grass for every pound of ragweed controlled. That's a good trade if your primary harvester is a black baldy. (Note: the idea that "one pound of ragweed equals a pound of grass" has been disputed by recent research at Oklahoma State University, which documented a much lower "grass return" from spraying western ragweed.)

But through ears adorned with a camouflaged cap, "ragweed" means "more quail." Seeds of ragweed are the Number 1 food in the winter diet of bobwhites across Texas and Oklahoma. That's an important consideration if your primary harvester is a bobwhite.

Camouflaged cowboy hats are not a "one size fits all" item. They can, and should be, tailored to individual situations depending on the land-owner's personal goals.

At one end of the continuum (let's assign it a label of "1"), the cowboy hat is spotless. There's not even a sweat stain that might be mistaken for camouflage. Wildlife aren't a management concern, and in fact, may be viewed with disdain because of the company (e.g., hunters), they attract. Category 1 hats are most common on ranchers whose land has been paid off a long time ago, and where "deep-rooted legumes" (oil and gas wells) are abundant.

At the other end of the Stetson spectrum (we'll call it 10), the hat is totally camouflaged. Don't try to lease this guy's grass for grazing unless you can convince him that it will improve his deer or quail habitat. He's probably a "new" rancher who resides at least 250 miles away in a place where the traffic will make your stomach queasy. He's a good stockman all right, but his idea of stock is Microsoft and Yahoo, not black baldies.

Now, let's examine some intermediates. A "3" on our scale tolerates hunters but still views them with a bit of resentment. They are viewed as necessary evils if he wants to maintain his true love in life, ranching. A "7," on the other hand, recognizes that cattle may be a cost-effective habitat management tool, but they still complicate his deer management (e.g., he has to fence off his food plots for livestock). Then there's the poor ol' "5." He's stuck in the middle trying to equalize the two enterprises as if he was on a teeter-totter. He is cognizant that a change on one side will require action on the other to equalize the situation.

At a field day last year in Breckenridge, I used the camouflage hat continuum to gauge the audience's motivation for land management. I placed a Stetson at one end of the table and a camouflaged cap at the other. Then I walked slowly from the "1" to the "10" end of the table. I asked those present to raise a hand as I moved past their "situation." Probably 70 percent of the hands were raised at "5" with the remainder distributed in a classical bell-shaped curve. Conclusion: the proper attire for the day was a camouflaged cowboy hat.

The "normally distributed" audience was perfect for my main message of the day. Whether one's interest revolves around cows or quail, steers or deer, the basics remain the same. The essence of range management distills down to two axioms: (1) know your plants; and (2) know how to manipulate them. The first underscores that you know (and can identify) which plants are requisites for your chosen target species of animal(s), while the second recognizes the four basic tools of the range manager (axe, plow, cow and fire).

Indeed, the hat makes the man. And just as we shape our hats to get the brim, crease or crown just right, so also does our hat shape how we look at resources and the endpoint to which they are managed. Having worked as an Extension Range Specialist in Oklahoma for four years, and now as an Extension wildlife specialist in Texas for the last 13 years, I've had the pleasure of working with landowners ranging from 0.1 to 9.99 on the Stetson continuum. And once they commit to where they are on the continuum and where they want to be in 10 years, it is a relatively straightforward process to get there. That is, as long as one guy is calling the shots.

Often I work with a ranch where there are two or more "hats" vying for control. Let's say there's a ranch manager (he's a 1 or 2) and the family hires a wildlife consultant (he's a 9) to make recommendations for increasing quail and deer numbers. Head-on collisions are inevitable under this scenario. When our consultant recommends disking irregularly shaped areas in February to promote forb production for quail, the cattle person laughs and denounces the folly by proclaiming, "How silly; the weeds will just take over." in the words of Cool Hand Luke, "What we have here is a failure to communicate."

While I learn a lot from 1's and 9's, I really appreciate the 5's. I'll submit Forrest Armke, manager of the Ford Ranch near Brady, as an example. He runs cattle, Angora goats, deer hunters, quail hunters, turkey hunters and dove hunters adeptly, and with a minimum of labor considering the ranch is about 32,000 acres in size. His Stetson is well camouflaged. He understands that for every action there is a series of reactions, some apparent and some not. I believe Forrest would concur that a synonym for "multiple use management" is "compromise."

Rural land prices in Texas are at record highs. Wildlife-related recreation is one of the most important factors fueling the new boom. Such trends may call for some camouflage on your hat if you wish to protect your land value. And, if the last 10 years are a herald of things to come, it could be a fast horse you're thrust upon.

If that's the case, hold on to your hat.