Helping maintain and preserve rangelands and inform the ranchers and professionals who manage them, Tip Hudson, WSU associate professor of rangeland and livestock management and director of Kittitas County Extension, recently launched a new podcast, “Art of Range.” The podcast is produced by Washington State University Extension in cooperation with the Society for Range Management.
Seeking to provide education through conversation with national experts on managing and conserving rangelands—the grasslands, forest lands and prairies that support grazing—Hudson began the podcast last fall, posting new episodes every two weeks.
“Healthy land, healthy animals, and healthy communities are inextricably linked,” says Hudson. “My goal with this podcast is to help people produce food and fiber on naturally-occurring plant communities in ways that promote sound ecology and economy.”
Interviewing experts such as Ken Tate, Endowed Rangeland Watershed Science Specialist at the University of California-Davis; Fred Provenza, animal behaviorist researcher emeritus at Utah State University; Karen Launchbaugh, Director of the University of Idaho Rangeland Center; Nathan Sayre, author of the book “The Politics of Scale: a History of Rangeland Science”; and Jack Southworth, award-winning rancher in eastern Oregon, Hudson explores the interplay of animals and environment, invasive grass management, ranch resiliency, grazing philosophies, and challenges to public lands grazing.
“Range management is both art and science,” Hudson states. “Sustainable, rangeland-based ranching is important to society as one of our only methods of food and fiber production that relies on native or naturalized ecosystems with minimal costs from petroleum-based fuels and products.”
* The Art of Range podcast is available through iTunes and Stitcher. Learn more and join the conversation at the Art of Range website, artofrange.com.
