Editor’s note: This story is part of NWPB's efforts to report not just on problems, but on how our communities are seeking solutions. Want to see more stories like this? Let us know at [email protected].
The showroom at the Washington Cattlemen’s Association Convention & Tradeshow was bustling on a November afternoon. The keynote speech had just let out, and people shuffled from booth to booth, decked out in cowboy hats of all colors, warm winter vests and turquoise jewelry.
A few lingered at a small table near the glass windows of Wenatchee’s Convention Center. It was a booth you might not expect to find nestled among fencing, feed and animal health vendors: Audubon Washington.
With a glance, rancher Samantha Buma strolled up to the booth. “The bird people,” she said.
Bird species are on the decline across the U.S. for all different types of reasons – they’ve lost habitat. The climate is changing. Food sources are disappearing. But a new program in Washington hopes to create more habitat for birds, using ranches.
Buma works the Stayman Flats Ranch near Chelan, Washington, checking on the cattle and grass daily. She said the goal of studying the grass is to prevent overgrazing. Land is bread and butter to a rancher.
“You want the grass to be able to grow back,” she said
Grass and cattle aren’t all that Buma sees in the pasture. There are the usual avian suspects: eagles, owls, hawks. She said she’s not a professional at bird identification, but said there are tons of feathered friends on the ranch. Buma searched for the names of a few birds she’s seen.
“We call them camp robbers, those black and white birds that have really long tails. We have a lot of those,” Buma said. “We have killdeer, and we have a lot of those little birds that always run out in front of the road. What are they called? Quail.”
'Work with the land managers'
On the other side of the Washington Audubon table is Seth Hulett, the group’s senior program manager of the Columbia Plateau. Hulett is tasked with kicking off the program in Washington. Right now, he’s focusing on the Columbia Plateau, most of which is privately owned.
“If we're going to make a difference, we have to work with the land managers that are on the land, doing the work,” he said.
Hulett is outfitted with Audubon stickers, hats and metal cups to raffle away. He’s bending everyone’s ears about Audubon’s Conservation Ranching program.
“ What's good for birds is good for people,” Hulett said. “So if we're maintaining, enhancing, restoring habitats, that’s going to be good for everything: soil, water, birds, deer, cows, everything.”
The program will help ranchers certify their land as “bird friendly,” from pasture to plate, as Hulett is fond of saying.
“We can build habitats with grazing. We can utilize regenerative grazing management to create mosaics of habitat out there for birds,” he said.
Plus, he said, lots of ranchers are already doing just that. The thing is, not many consumers know.
Still, some ranchers at the convention noted people might have sticker fatigue: Will another sticker on your beef (or bison) actually help sales?
Hulett said he thinks the Audubon name recognition could help. In addition, he said, producers aren’t paying for the Audubon label. Unlike other certifications, Audubon covers the financial burden for ranchers.
In Washington, the program will focus on several priority bird species, including greater sage grouse, burrowing owls and ferruginous hawks.
Measurable, consistent conservation
Once a ranch agrees to participate in the program, Audubon will conduct bird and vegetation surveys. Then, they work with ranchers to come up with a customized, three-year management plan.
“This approach helps ensure conservation outcomes are measurable, consistent, and directly tied to the needs of birds that rely on working rangelands,” Hulett said.
In exchange, Audubon collects data about where and how birds are using the land.
“ I like to consider myself a cog in the wheel of conservation,” Hulett said. “Our ranchers come to me with questions. Then I try to find them solutions, whether it's through funding, or maybe we're able to provide plantings for shrubs or grasses to help complete a project.”
Management plans will help ranchers steer their cattle to pastures when birds don’t need that particular space. Take sage grouse. These funky-looking birds need a lot of land, especially on mating grounds called leks.
“ If a landowner is in an area where there are known sage grouse, we want to make sure we're not having the cows in there during the lekking season,” Hulett said.
Audubon will provide the people for the survey work. A third-party group, Food Alliance, will certify the land every year. Then, producers can put an “bird friendly”” sticker on their beef.
“ (People will know) it's going to be raised humanely, it's going to be raised a certain way, and that all its whole life, it is supporting bird habitat,” Hulett said.
However, it’s not so easy.
Heading west
The Audubon Conservation Ranching program was originally designed in 2017 for ranches in the Midwest, where landscapes consist of plains and grasslands. There’s also not as much public grazing land there as in the Northwest.
“A farmer in the Midwest may have their cows on the same hundred acres all year round, where a cattle rancher here in eastern Washington may be on their property for the spring and then send their cows up to the mountains in the summer, bringing them back in the fall,” Hulett said. “We're utilizing more public land here in the West on larger-scale properties.”
In 2019, Audubon decided to tack on a Western wing of the program in California, which has grazing conditions that are more similar to those in the Northwest.
Matt Allshouse now runs California’s Conservation Ranching program, based at Bobcat Ranch, almost an hour west of Sacramento, the state’s capital. The ranch is a demonstration project for Audubon, showing how grazing and improving bird habitat go hand-in-hand, or better yet, hoof-in-claw.
At first, Allshouse said he was in Hulett’s position: the only person in charge of signing people up to the program.
“ What I realized over time is it wasn't a matter of formality to certify somebody. It involved a lot of relationship building,” Allshouse said.
It takes time to build trust, he said. Word of mouth was his best friend.
“ We had to develop almost a request for proposals and a ranking system for people that wanted to sign up because we had so many people interested,” he said.
Things have slowed down a bit now, but Allshouse said the California program is at capacity. As of 2025, 11 ranches have enrolled in California’s program, totaling about 175,000 acres.
Now, Allshouse said his biggest wish is for more money to hire people to do more fieldwork. Monitoring the land is the most expensive part of the program – and the hardest part to fund, he said.
The Conservation Ranching program is funded differently in each state. In Washington, the work is covered by grants. California gets most of its funds from the state.
'For life and for biodiversity'
Central California rancher Sallie Calhoun signed up for the program as soon as she heard about it. Calhoun owns the 7,600-acre Paicines Ranch, which got certified this past year.
“We are managing for life and for biodiversity in every decision that we make,” she said.
That includes the over 200 different bird species they already know about on the ranch. Audubon’s third-party baseline survey will help the ranch’s monitoring efforts, she said. She hopes Audubon birders can also help search for notoriously tricky-to-spot northern harrier nests in the spring.
“We want to show that you can raise cattle and still have a lot of birds,” she said.
Still, Calhoun said, there are some hiccups. For one thing, the climate at Paicines Ranch is very specific, and the program’s original grazing recommendations didn’t really fit. So, she said, they’re working on better ideas that will work for this type of climate.
But, she said, those issues will iron out.
“ As long as you have a little bit of patience for paperwork, it's a really good thing to do because it will get people on your land who can help you achieve your goals,” Calhoun said.
Audubon has started gathering data, called a bird-friendliness index, that shows birds actually are increasing on ranches in the program. The higher the index for a particular property, the greater the biodiversity is.
Now, according to Audubon, the program has ranches certified in 15 states, covering more than 4 million acres of land.
Searching for support
In Washington, Hulett is still working to drum up support. At the Cattlemen’s convention, a couple of ranchers hurried to Hulett’s booth, asking to sign up as soon as possible, but they’re on the west side of the state. That’s too far from Hulett’s current focus area.
Then, he saw a pair of faces he recognized. Ranchers near Ellensburg he’s spoken to before. Ryan Stingley ushered his father, Russ, up to the booth.
“There's a possibility we're going to become Audubon certified grazers. I bet you never thought we were going to say that,” Ryan Stingley said.
All three men laughed, but Hulett didn’t miss a beat.
“I think it's a program that will fit your operation, and that's the whole point, right?” he replied, continuing on with his pitch.
“ I have no objections with this,” Russ Stingley nodded.
A quick handshake, and the father and son walked away. Hulett buzzed with energy.
“That could be the first ranch to sign up in Washington,” he said with a Cheshire Cat grin. “Hopefully, we are going to start to see more bird numbers and more diversity in the birds.”
