Jim Bill Anderson Interview, Part 1 of 2

DT: My names David Todd. I'm here for the Conservation History Association of Texas. It's October 8th, year 2002, we're in Canadian, Texas.

And we have the good fortune to be interviewing Jim Bill Anderson who is a rancher in this area. And has also been very involved in trying to reorient the city of Canadian and the surrounding community towards a more sustainable development direction.

And I wanted to thank you for taking the time to talk to us about your experiences.

JBA: You're welcome.

DT: We usually begin these interviews by talking about your early days, childhood days and where you might have first gotten exposed to the outdoors or interested in conservation. I was hoping you could share about that please.

JBA: Well I can't tell you when I got interested in conservation, I cannot remember not being interested in conservation. I didn't know what it was, I suppose.

I didn't know it was conservation but it's something you do. I mean it's part of your life. I I grew up, you know, out in the country about 30 miles from town and went to a one-room schoolhouse for first-six grades.

I think one thing looking back that was fortunate for me, one of the main things was we couldn't get television reception. And so I was, you know, unless it was, you know, six feet of snow or is dark, I was outside constantly, there wasn't any reason not to be.

And my mother honestly, oh I remember I had one illness for I had tonsils removed and she bought me a book with all the native local birds in it and so you had to identify them. So I'd sit out on the porch and identify birds and I mean she pushed me in that direction I guess somewhat too. Knowing me, I don't know but... (phone rings)

JBA: Anyway like I said I grew up on a ranch, you know, we ran cattle. I I suppose even though conservation wasn't a buzz word sustainability was important if you had a title or not I don't know. But it was important to be able to to make it through the dry stretches.

We technically have a drought here once a year. It may be in in the dormant season, you don't know it but you have one. And so it it was important to be able to maintain a good environment for the livestock 12 months out of the year so you didn't ever abuse anything or try to overuse it.

I don't know, its just always kind of been an interest of mine. I remember I was in boy scouts for four or five years and I got a conservation merit badge by taking old cedar posts and stopping washes where they wouldn't wash anymore and trapping sediment and those kinds of things.

It just seemed like the thing to do to me. It's easier for me to say why wouldn't you do it to as to why you'd do it. I, you know, I've always felt like it was it was a physically responsible thing to do, it's a morally responsible thing to do, it's, you know, I cant image not being concerned about your environment.

DT: You mentioned you mother as being one influence. Do you think that your father had some effect on you (inaudible)?

JBA: Oh yeah. He was my best friend. I was with him, you know, 14 hours a day. But my mother did things, you know, took me and I don't know, I've wondered why it's such a passion of mine. She taught me how to, you know, train horses, take care of sick cattle, you know, watch the grasses and that kind of thing.

She had the books on the on the animals and the and the prairie, you know, the grasses and the flowers and that kind of so that was always interest of mine.

Then one thing that was a big a probably was important to me looking back is when I was a freshman in high school; I worked at USDA Range Research Station just for a summer job. My dad always wanted me to go work someplace different. You know, I worked in a feedlot one summer.

I worked there I worked, you know, rather than just be out there with him all the time. And I don't know if that was to help me learn or to get me out of his way. But I there was a gentlemen named Pat Mackalmay, the Colonel they called him.

We met every morning. He was a retired Colonel and he never got over being a Colonel. We'd meet earlier every morning and we would review what we did yesterday and tell him what we were going to do today.

And after we got off work he'd make me go around and collect the different grasses and and make a book where you press them in a book. And then I'd have a test once a week on what they were. And it wasn't fun.

He was serious and he'd dress you down if you didn't do a good job. So looking back, it was a great service. I still keep up with him today. I really appreciate what he did for me. But then I think that was a major impact.

Not so you learned the different species, you learn when they peak protein-wise; you learn when you should rest them, when you should use them. I mean, you know, I just learned all those things.

And I was young enough I suppose it came kind of second nature for me. This part of my thought process without consciously doing it, you know, so I imagine he had a lot to do with it.

DT: You mentioned your education with the bird life and the vegetation in this area. Can you give us sort of an outline of what the sort of significant wildlife is in this area and some of the prairie ecosystems that you see here?

JBA: Well the prairie is uh is people are in the last three or four years beginning to understand that you hear the word mentioned a lot more. The prairie's just full of wildlife. It's it's full of a lot of interesting wildlife and and I've always thought the prairie to me more dynamic than the mountains or the coastlines.

And that seems to be where everybody goes to see wildlife. But you have your tall grass, short grass prairies. We were a midrange which is great. We have all the way from Buffalo Grass to Eastern Gamma and Big Blue Stem, you know, we have all varieties.

So and you have your prairie dog towns which, you know, they're quite a hub of activities. You have predators lurking around, coyotes and you have burrowing owls that live there, you have red tail hawks hoping catch a prairie dog not paying attention, you know, and, you know.

Then you have we have a very vibrant population of bobwhite quail, one of the few places left in the United States where it's as healthy as it is. And the prairie chickens are not declining here, they're actually stable to increasing in numbers in certain areas.

And that goes back to the conservation, you know, its just it's just a healthy thing to do economically, you know, morally, theologically, however you want to look at it it just is.

And diversity is real important in my business, you know, if you have one crop that you sell once a year, it doesn't always sell for the right price when you have to deliver it. And, you know, I've enjoyed the flexibility of having some birders come, a few hunters come.

You know, cattle wings sell over a 60, 70-day period instead of a two-week period cause we have plenty we have a good home for them. You know, its just it just is an all around I can't think of the right word it's just something that I don't think I'd be here if I hadn't learned to do it.

You know, to have a broad based, diverse income and ranching that we can do several different things I lost my train of thought go ahead.

DT: Mr. Anderson, the last few minutes you talked about the diversity that you see in the natural ecosystems that you see around here, whether it's the vegetation or the wildlife and you've also talked about the diversity in your business,

whether it's being in the cattle business or being in the nature tourism business or hunting business. Can you describe each of those and how they overlap?

JBA: Well I don't know how you delineate really because I've never seen the conflict between nature tourism and cattle production and, you know, I've had the opportunity to meet with several groups because they've been interested in what we've done around Canadian.

And you walk in it always reminds me of high school dance junior high dance, you had the boys on one side and the girls on the other and I just I don't get the separation myself, I just don't.

I mean, if your motivation was just purely profit, if it had nothing to do with maintaining ecosystems or, you know, vibrant wild animal population, native animal populations, it still is the thing to do.

As our lifestyle becomes, you know, more and more unique or endangered sometimes, I've found that that people are just as interested in what I do on a daily basis or how I make a living or what my family does as they are observing the different birds or hunting a deer.

And so it all just meshes really well and it it's just another reward for good land stewardship practices. You know, if you've overgrazed your land and you've ruined the habitat for certain species, you know,

not only will you lower your gains on your per head, per day per on your cattle cause of not enough forage but you've also lost an opportunity to charge somebody to come observe these native species and their habitat.

And so it all just meshes, you know, it's hard for me I've never understood they're very complementary, I've never understood any conflict, I haven't, between ranching, cattle production and the nature tourism.

DT: Maybe you can just expound your your cattle business for us and how you operate that over the course of the years?

JBA: Well our operation is what you would call a stocker operation. We buy light-weight calves, you know, 3 to 325 pounds from East Texas, sometimes the Dakotas, depends on the opportunity of what's happening in those different regions.

And we bring them in in the fall, give them all their basic, you know, inoculations, vaccines and things. And then we'll winter them, supplement their feed in the winter and then summer them.

And we'll put 450, 475 pound on them in about 10, 11 months. And there again, that's way I like the maintaining a healthy ranch because I alluded earlier to we have technically in a drought here about once a year.

And so if you have healthy range with vibrant root systems and a wide variety of plant species, you can always make it through those time periods. And the worse thing to happen to you is if you say you were overgrazing

and at the end of May it hadn't rained like you thought it should and you had to sell your cattle and they were light and you had all your expenses in them, I mean that's a sure case for losing money.

If that's not a problem, you go right on through the summer oftentimes, for instance this year our July which should not be was actually more productive and wetter than May. And so you have an opportunity to catch all the seasons.

And then your your gains your annual gains just don't fluctuate much. You know, I've been doing this for 30 years and and, you know, our annual gains just don't fluctuate much because we always have a little cushion.

DT: How do you figure out what your carrying capacity is? What your stocking rate would be?

JBA: Well it's you I go back to pounds per acre. If you're bringing in something weighing 300 pounds, obviously you can give him less acreage than you can if you brought something weighing 500 pounds. A lot of it's there's rules of thumb for this part of the world, you you know,

you can get from about anybody, a lot of its just experience. And we weigh I go to a lot of trouble probably we weigh each pasture individually. And and we sort of all cattle for size when they come in the fall. And they'll vary if the average purchase price was $325 they'll they'll range from 275 to 375 in weight.

So we sort them all for size. Well put the the lighter, smaller cattle in the less productive pastures. And that comes from knowing your your grasses and your soils. You know, you have a good idea what that pasture will do. And it'll change a lot in three or four miles.

It will, the productivity of the of rangeland. And so we'll put the lightweight calves in less productive pastures, we'll put heavy weight ones in the more productive, which, you know, is more pounds per acre and it all it averages out over a course of a year. And and, you know, just experience I suppose.

And if you've done something that long like in the fall I'll do an inventory and and or late summer and start making a decision as kind of how were going to stock and and what pastures the lightweight calves are going in, which ones the heavyweight calves will go in for the winter.

DT: Do you rotate among pastures?

JBA: Yeah we do. We don't do intensive rotation. I personally am not a fan of that. We do, do rotation yes. The the intensity rotation I think maybe they have a place somewhere without naming the guru of intensive rotations,

I think some of that's almost evangelical as much as as good stewardship or, you know, range management. But anyway, yes we do. We we over the years we've segregated out our uplands from lowlands. We you know your lowlands where you have sub irrigated meadows that (?) we fenced all those out.

And we'll use them at their peak growing season, the peak time and and rest the uplands and and then when it's time, well take them off the the sub-irrigated meadows or the low ones and put them back up in the upland pastures.

And that by doing that, we've increased our carrying capacity by about 40 percent which has made a lot of difference. Because your overhead didn't really change much, your fixed cost.

DT: Are all your pastures native unimproved grasses or (inaudible)?

JBA: Yes I took some old wheat fields I took some old wheat fields and planted them to some exotic grasses, old world bluestems primarily to use in this complementary rotation is what the technical name is of the system I was describe to you by using the sub-irrigated meadows.

You can also do that with exotic grass or introduced grass. But I just I just use them a complement to the native range.

DT: Do you find that you need any other inputs? Do you bring fertilizer into (inaudible)?

JBA: No we bring we we fertilize the exotic grasses once in the spring. I keep I'm not very intensive on inputs. You know, I don't like a lot of equipment. I don't like a lot of things that require money to keep going, you know. We just have the bare necessities with that.

Mainly we try I mean my goal is to to cooperate with what we're given here, you know more than trying to be too intensive in trying to force the land to produce something it's not supposed to be doing, you know. And I just look at long term.

I mean yes, if I instead of giving them 10 acres, gave them 7 acres a head next year, I could do that for a year or two and yes it would be more profitable but then what do you do? You depleted your resource and if it didn't rain, you'd have to sell early. You know, I just look at long term sustainability.

DT: You said that you had drought conditions at least once a year. (inaudible)

JBA: Well that's what the scientists tell me, you know.

DT: Well how do you how do you give yourself some insurance? How do you plan around drought?

JBA: Well you I guess you just I don't like the word assume but you do assume that at some point during the year, you're going to need to have enough old forage or enough cushion there that you can make it through without a problem without, you know, over grazing without straining your resources.

One way you can plan for a drought is to change your species composition. You can go from constant over grazing where you've reduced the rangeland to Buffalo Grass and Gramma Grass that has oh 8 or 9-foot root system.

You can in you can change your species composition where you have your Buffalo and the Gramma, which is a good grass. But also your Little Blue, Big Blue Switch and Indian will come in that can sometimes go down to 15 or 16-foot depth with the root systems.

Well that's a pretty good insurance right there. You know, I mean long-term relentless drought nobody can do anything about. But these two and three-month drought yeah you can manage through those. And and the biggest help I've had is by changing with rotations

and and the complementary rest thing I mentioned while ago complementary rotation I mentioned it just a change of species composition of the rangeland.

You know, some of these forages go from producing 7, 800 pounds of dry matter per acre; some plants will produce up to 1200 pounds dry matter per acre. So you try and encourage those.

DT: You mentioned that that you've been able to increase the carrying capacity by about 40% through some of your changes and the way you you manage. It sounds like your emphasis has been more on changing the way you manage and use your land

rather than the the amount of or the kind of inputs that you put into it. Is that fair?

JBA: Oh absolutely. Yes that's very fair because that requires less cash outlay. That requires more time and and it requires studying, you know, what you have before you but it doesn't require large cash outlay. And I'm in for that.

DT: Do you do you find that the way you operate your ranch and cattle operation differs significantly from either the way it was done 50 years ago or from the way some of your neighbors operate?

JBA: Oh absolutely. I mean my granddad who was a good rancher and really more successful than I am I suppose some of its due to timing, some of it was due to to business astuteness. But well I relate that when people say something about ranching not having changed.

I said well to me it would be like having surgery without anesthetic. I mean we've come just that far. It's just you have to recognize it and you have to go to the trouble of seeing what's out there and you have to learn, you know, what people are doing and how they're doing it.

But yes, we have a lot more tools at our disposal. I mean a lot of it's just the the simple education as to, you know, some of these grazing systems I talked about, you know. That wasn't there.

Nobody talked about that. Nobody did that, you know, when I was in college or high school too much. So we've had a we've had a lot of help from some of these range research stations and and people like that.

DT: If you go back 100 years I understand that that particularly a lot of the brittle ecosystems and the drier places were I think by current standards significantly over grazed. Why do you think why they they over-estimated what the land could could carry?

JBA: Well to me I've I've thought about that. I think that's probably fairly simple because they came into an area that hadn't been grazed either by, you know, elk or some buffalo or, you know, bison. And for a few years it could carry what they were doing.

It's a lack of education, there's a lack of technical expertise, there's a lack of knowledge. That's simply what it was. They they were the first ones there and they were feeling their way. And they didn't have a extension service to run to talk to, you know.

And and then there's some, of course, there's over grazing today, some of it's trying to pay the the monthly bills. People were just, you know, they these some of these places have have been divided up through inheritance to the point they really cannot sustain a family but that's what they want to do

and they're trying to make it work and they think if they can run a few more cattle, maybe that will makes ends meet. That's a short term it might work. Long term it absolutely will not without a doubt.

And it's sad but that's that what you get into economic forces is a lot of it now because we do have the the technical expertise available to us that we didn't have when people first arrived with livestock.

DT: You said that there were some problems with carrying out the I guess aggressive use of the land over the long term. Can you describe what happens if you're exceeding the carrying capacity of the land over 10 years or 20 years? What what have you seen happen around here at least?

JBA: Well the the main thing they do is is they change the complete species composition, your variety of grasses. Your your tall grasses have what I call a cutoff point which is some of these grasses six or eight inches above the ground where they leaf out.

And once you take a plant below that for more than a couple growing seasons, it'll die cause there's not photosynthesis and the root system depletes and dies. And so they take out their their 12 or 14 hundred pound dry matter per acre producers

and they replace them with 7 or 800 pound because your low growing grasses have such low cutoff point, its really hard to take them out, I mean animals cannot graze them or they can but it'd have to be abusive more than just over grazing to do that. So they're able to survive and they take over.

And then you get you get introduced to things like threons and and drop seeds and stuff that cattle really don't nature will cover the ground with something. But some of those things cattle won't even graze unless they're just to the point of starvation, you know.

So that you the main thing that happens is you completely change the species composition and you cut the productivity of of the range. It's a self-fulfilling process.

It's sad but the more you try to squeeze out of it past a certain point, the less you'll get in production and it just before you know it, you're to the point that that land produces half of what it did, rangeland.

DT: Well do you think it's this historic land use pattern that's contributed to a lot of ranchers having trouble economically?

JBA: Well it's a combination. It's not that simple. It's a combination of bad weather patterns, it's a combination of ignorance, it's a combination of of markets. You know if everyone markets.

I mean it's hard to plan for a cattle market to crash cause the government decided to drop, you know, millions of pounds of dairy beef on the market or or a west coast dock strike or, you know, those kinds of things, not much you can do about.

And and it's just not it's not a very profitable business you know, it it's a lifestyle and a business, you know, and and if you try to make it much more than that, it won't sustain itself. That's that's why I like the diversity it can become a profitable business and I believe thoroughly I believe,

sincerely I do I mean for instance last year we grossed more income from hunting, birding, nature tourism, you know, excuse me, netted more income than we did off of livestock. That's easy to do because you don't have any inputs. It's already there. There's no expenses.

You know, you don't have to buy more cattle, you don't have to buy more feed, you know don't have to hire more labor, its' just there and it needs to be captured.

DT: We're going back to the cattle business since I have read and I don't know if this is accurate but that there are very, very few full time cattle operators now. Most people have got a part time job somewhere else that brings in some cash

and simultaneously about 90% of cattle operations at least in our part of the country lose money. And and yet people try and persist in the business. Can you try and go into a little bit more detail. I mean is it is it the combination of the, you know, Cargills and the Archer Daniels the, you know,

the control over commodity prices or is it is it GATT, world trade counseling or that were getting lot of foreign beef coming in what what do you think it is that's making it such a tough business to survive in?

JBA: Well I personally think one of the most one of the hardest things to overcome which they've done some work on that now has been inheritance taxes.

DT: In what way?

JBA: Well these large ranches you can and and they've made some allowances for this, they've they've started appraising the Ag use things a lot you know, well we had for instance a man in Kansas he he started out his father left him he he got scraps from restaurants, fed pigs, took care of his family while he was in high school.

I mean he worked all his life, ended up being worth two or three million dollars. And a lot of it was just land he'd bought and land appreciation and before they changed some of the tax laws, when he died they had to sell it all off, not all, I'm sorry, half of it to pay inheritance taxes

because you can be land rich and if they appraise it at some development value, very few a lot of these ranchers are land rich but very cash poor. You know, and their main assets are land.

If the government comes in and wants 40-50% inheritance taxes when they don't have the money to do that. And you break up these places or you reduce them in size to where they're not an economic unit anymore and that to me has been a major problem (?).

DT: Can you maybe give us an example of the difference between development development values of some of these ranches and what their Ag value (inaudible)

JBA: Well I could, yeah I of course there's well I can use him as an example, they had some farm land next to a town in Kansas that had been farming and wanted to continue to farm but there was a apartment complex within 200 yards of it

that they appraised it at three or four times what it was worth as a farm and you had to pay taxes on that. Is is that answer your question or you talking about specific numbers in this part of the world?

DT: No that helps. Tell me about general trends and pressures on ranchers.

JBA: I, you know, and and I we have to blame ourselves a lot, we just can't blame, you know, Archer Daniels. And, you know, a lot of these well-meaning programs for farmers. In the long run I mean it's nice because it keeps food on the table and that's very important but in the long run you built up you build up these huge search surpluses of grains and and powdered milk and well

I mean that's a cap on the market how can it ever go up if you've got five years worth of production stored somewhere, you know, you've got those kinds of problems and and I don't know what the answer is. I do think that and it's just a natural course of things if if you have a economic unit of a ranch

and say it's 20 sections and two generations, each person's probably got two or three I mean then what do you do? So it it ebbs and flows, I don't know.

DT: I guess one of the other ways that that ranchers at least in Texas have have supported themselves for the last 40, 50 years is through oil and gas leasing

JBA: Oh Absolutely.

DT: and in some parts of the state it seems that, you know, those royalties and bonus payments and so on are are declining. Is that the case here and is that pretty much the squeeze on ranchers?

JBA: Well there's not a squeeze right here really to be honest on on the majority of people because of the natural gas production and that in turn, is why we still have large, you know, units,

you know, ranches from 20 to 60, 80 sections because they've been able to make it through some of the economic stressful times with supplemental income from gas leases or mineral income. And, of course that's one thing that's motivated me on the nature tourism is it's finite.

I mean people don't want to think about it but it is. It depletes every day and so I would like to see us build a a economic base that will allow some of these people to continue to stay on the land and keep large units and and which are great habitat for most of these prairie species.

They don't do well when you cut them up in small areas and and one guy overgrazes, one doesn't, you checkerboard the land and, you know, they just don't. So I think with nature tourism, which is sustainable or even some, you know, who knows where that will go, some offshoots of that.

It would enable us to to keep some of these these prairie habitats intact and and to make a good enough living that people can continue to do what they're doing without mineral income.

And so I thought we'd start now and 20 years from now when the the depletion has has taken it toll on some people, you know, there'll be something else out there.

DT: I'm still trying to understand some of the stresses that you're seeing on towns like Canadian or or ranch like ranchland like that surrounds Canadian. Maybe you can help me understand what's happening with another kind of business in in this area, which I think is the railroad industry. Has that changed much is that declined much and

JBA: I cant

DT: ' drive some people out of work?

JBA: I don't know. I cant answer that. I don't know anything about the railroad industry. I know they're double tracking the trains through here.

There will be one 15 minutes so they're still doing some business. That a lot of these economic pressures are I still say we're to blame for a lot of them ourselves.

We can blame ourselves partially for a lot of these things because people don't want to change and they don't want to adapt and they want to do it the same way they did two two generations ago. And they just don't want to explore new ways of doing things;

they won't try something different. You know everybody likes to complain about Wal-Mart. Well I have a friend that's in a business that has several retail stores and he says I can compete with Wal-Mart.

DT: He can.

JBA: He can. You know, and and one way he does it's not all price, it's service. You know, you walk into one of these small stores and you say I need this certain kind of battery for this whatever and they'll say oh, we don't have it, you know, next time you're in Amarillo, get it.

Do you do that or you say I'm out right now but I'll have it in three days. You know that's the things he's told me. And and he's he's grown and and done well. So some of it's we could look to ourselves, not all of it but some of it with the failure to adapt or failure to innovate, you know.

DT: Well do you find that that most of the kids who who go to high school here stay here or do they leave?

JBA: They'd love to stay here. They would. And that's another reason I keep going back to nature tourism but that's one of my pets. That provides not only income for people in the country but that provides a large amount of economic activity in stores hotels, motels, you know, things in town also.

And I I just I can see that eventually, you know, somebody with the right imagination taking it to another level, you know, and some young person. And yes they love it here, they love it's I mean people say well you don't live in the real world and I say I know that and that's just fine with me.

I mean I don't apologize for that. I see nothing wrong with that. The the kids like Canadian. It's a great place. They're nurtured, you know, they get a good education, they have a lot of fun, they come back when they can, as soon as they can.

DT: And what is it that keeps them from staying here?

JBA: Well jobs is a lot of it.

DT: There just aren't jobs?

JBA: Well not enough to, you know, and that's the thing that is in EDC we look at all the time is what can we do on EDC, what can we do that would be sustainable that and we but we're a little bit different I think here we don't we always consider maybe the impact,

not just economically, but environmentally and culturally, you know. That's we look at that too when we evaluate things.

DT: You do some of these problems that sort of brought on by our own unwillingness to try new things and and I was wondering if you could, if you can mention some of the traditional kinds of options that EDCs economic development councils have considered that in your view may not be sustainable over the long haul.

Then there's some of these communities I think have looked at having prisons or boots camps or chemical plants, can you talk about some of those CAFOs?

JBA: Well we we looked at some of those things really hard maybe with a prejudice as to why we shouldn't do it, but we found that especially with some of your your corporate, you know, your pig farms and some of the packing plants and things go along with that.

By the time some of these communities had given their tax breaks to get to get them to come and then they had to add, you know, more maybe more school buildings, at least more teachers, more police, bigger jail, you know, all the things that go along with that, it was a net loss and we really didn't see the reason to do that.

And we still have a good tax base here and we're trying to take advantage of that and do some things that maybe take not get the the point of desperation where you go inviting people in just to keep the school open, maybe thinking ahead 20, 30 years.

DT: Are you seeing some of the neighboring towns in this sort of Hobson's choice where they've got two bad options, you know, let's close down the school and invite in a development that they don't really want?

JBA: Am I seeing that?

DT: Yes. JBA: Oh absolutely. Yeah, there's a town 30 minutes from here that's been actively recruiting pig farms. You know, then you get this big controversy, some of the local landowners don't want them there cause of the pollution and the groundwater and these things and and the something as simple as the smell I guess.

But you can see why the mayor and two or three of his councilmen are doing it because if they don't, the school is within three students of closing the next year or something like that, you know. It didn't come to pass. They they got them influx of small influx of students from another industry.

Some parents moved close by and they're going to school there but they was within a year of closing. And so yeah they will do things that, you know, that aren't long term good I don't think.

DW: I'm just curious when small town American and its (inaudible) Music Man where the guys comes to town try to sell them on something new.

I'm wondering if you (?) extremes to find (inaudible) hog CAFO puts on when they're coming to your town to try and sell you on this idea, kind of a smokescreen or (inaudible) they assume that people are naive?

JBA: Right. Well they they go with the job thing first (inaudible)

JBA: Actually I've not experienced that because we contacted them and told them not to not to contact us. So we took kind of a direct proactive approach on that. Because it just doesn't it doesn't do for the quality of life that that we're that we want to try to sustain or or, you know, to increase for some folks.

It it doesn't work for what we want to do here. Now maybe sometime down the line, you know, we will have been wrong, those of us who took that position and some they can change it. But and not only does it not work physically so many times, you get this big division in your community,

you know, between the pros and the ones for and the ones against these things. And and that takes away opportunities that you might have to do something together on down the line, you know. I'm real proud of our community here we we've got great cooperation between the city and county government.

And and, I mean, we're getting a Main Street project where they're going to restore Main Street with a brick-like material, they can't use bricks anymore to slick I suppose, but and bury the utilities and put up antique lighting. And that all became and we fought it out with a lot of town around the state over that.

And that all came about because you had people in the city government, county government, local individuals working together and pulling hard, you know, we took quite a contingency down and put on quite a dog and pony show as you say.

And so those kind of things where everybody's pulling together and and have pride and and also well I think be economically positive thing to do. Get our Main Street restored and have little shops and create some retail business, you know, that people want to see.

DT: Well, maybe you can give us a full view of how you you helped build this consensus and you know the process you went through to try and bring about more interest in nature tourism, how did you do that?

JBA: Well, you know I oh gee I don't know, 15 years ago went to a couple of the banks, talked to people in the chamber, which at that time our chamber wasn't very well-funded, you know, it was mainly we were selling raffle tickets all the time to pay the directors salary.

You know, but with this idea of having nature photography workshops and doing some of these things and everybody was for it but it just wasn't it wouldn't get anywhere it wasn't going anywhere. And then you know I'd get busy and come back six months later and it was right where it was,

it just wasn't happening. And then we we started our EDC; we looked at two or three things on that before I was involved.

DT: What sort of things did you look at?

JBA: Well actually the reason I got involved I hope I regret say this someday is is the EDC was just getting started. And these are people who were looking (?) options it's, a lot of thing the communities were doing.

They were doing the best they at the time that they could do they're they were thought their options presented to them and I think one they were talking about bringing a incinerator that burned used oil filters. And I heard about it and read about it and I went to my commissioner

I said and the the EDC Director that they hired was really pushing this. And I said I want the EDC. I said we got to, you know, I want this deal stopped actually what I said was I want this guy run out of town but I probably shouldn't (inaudible).

But anyway so I got involved and we started pushing the nature tourism thing and the and the director who's a very dynamic intelligent lady, I mean I would have never been able to do any of this by myself, that was already a proven fact I tried it, it had gone nowhere.

She liked the idea and started working with Texas Parks and Wildlife, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, just on and on and on, The Rocky Mountain Birding Observatory. And she really got it going and then it's outgrown me.

I mean she's taken it to a whole other level. But as it began to happen and this I can't explain why we got the support we got because they really went out on a limb. Nobody else was doing this but our commissioners, County Commissioners gave us money to do it with, to pursue this and and

make trips, to meet with these people and bring people in here and entertain them and and so so yeah initially I wanted to see it happen but it took a lot of people for it to happen.

DT: Did you see much hesitation, reluctance on a part landowners or the city leaders

JBA: No.

DT: that you had to persuade?

JBA: Not really. City leaders maybe a little, county commissioners, two thirds of them wanted to try it initially. It was all timing. Several years ago with a group of commissioners we had at that time, it'd a gone nowhere but we'd we had some turnover we had some new guys in there

and people that that were willing to look at all kinds of options. Their whole life didn't center around the next motor grader they bought I mean that is I shouldn't say that. It was a paradigm shift in the commissioners court. It was and it's all timing. I don't know why.

We were just fortunate, you know, I don't know if it's providential or it's luck or what but there were very few naysayers. Some people were held back to see what happened but not outspoken opposition. Our local paper that it heard the editor she was all for it, that was very good.

And so it it (inaudible) the economic Director she said I said this kind of makes you nervous when people start doing some of the things you want them to do, she said makes you nervous if it doesn't work. All you got to do is go back to work. I lose my job.

You know, so it was there was, you know, it was a little nerve wracking at first, you know it was anxious moments. When somebody went out and borrowed money for a bed and breakfast cause they'd heard that tourists were coming cause you're promoting it you go whoa, you know, I hope it works.

Cause they're taking a leap of faith and gives you some anxious moments. But so far so good. It's actually increasing and growing. It's gained some momentum now and I can't I can't imagine somebody I don't think I think it'd be hard pressed to find somebody against it now.

DT: One thing that that I was impressed by was that it seems your nature tourism venture requires the buy-in from a lot of private landowners

JBA: You bet.

DT: who are we going to have to allow a lot more private access by the public to their private lands and that's a big change culturally. And I was wondering how you manage to make that happen?

JBA: I suppose its a timing thing. I can't take credit for making anything happen. And and there are enough of us around here who actually make a living agriculture that we're always looking for something to do that's complementary to what we're already doing.

There are a few people who won't do it initially because they have enough income from outside sources, natural, you know, gas mainly but then they're not resisting it either. You know, so they're doing their part too I say. I don't know why.

Because I've gone to other communities, I've talked to other people and their first response is well what if they find endangered species and they take our ranch away from us? I mean you get that kind of thing just time after time. And we didn't get that here.

I mean one of our early meetings we were overwhelmed, we expected 15 people and I think was 70 people there or something unbelievable thing. There's now five over 500 people involved in our I say have made contact with or involved in some way with our our little non-profit Texas Prairie Rivers Organization we started.

So I don't know, timing it's got to be timing.

DT: You mentioned that sometimes you've been approached by landowners who feel like if they they give access and people see endangered species that somehow the Fish and Wildlife Service and (inaudible) come in and shut them down, take away their land.

I guess I'd have two questions, one is where do they get that impression and second how do you respond to that?

JBA: Well they get the impression because U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on some public lands has taken some pretty harsh steps. They went in initially and it depends on the administration and the the head of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service at the time.

You know, it depends on the people. But they have done some heavy-handed things on public lands, created a lot of controversy. But to really have an impact, if they sincerely want to have an impact on a certain species or a whole ecosystem, you have to work with private landowners.

You can't go into a well Texas is what 97 percent private land. Or they've even discovered states like New Mexico has a lot of a public lands to make an impact. You can't go in and alter or try to change a small area that's surrounded by land that's not being managed for that same species, it just won't work.

I mean one natural disaster, one drought, one fire, it's over with, you know, you have to have a large contiguous area of land. So what I'm getting around to is the Fish and Wildlife Service of course has limits on what they can do on private land. And they've also had an attitude shift.

I think they've found that by working with the private landowners, both sides find out the other ones not near as bad as they thought initially. And it benefits private landowners a lot of ways and it and it helps them achieve their goals on some of these species they're trying to protect or recover.

So there's been an attitude change. There's been a change to the point there's you if you go into a contract now with the Fish and Wildlife Service, they have a thing they call assurances on these some of these contracts. Yeah we'll help you with cross fencing or water development and so you can improve your ranch, improve the habitat,

but while we're out there, if we stumble onto something else or something else comes up, we won't touch it, we can't bring it up, we can't pursue it. So they assure you that if you cooperate with them, they'll only work on what you initially set out to do. And so a lot of it they deserve, a lot of it they don't, you know, both sides.

But we actually and this is probably I don't know some people thought we were insane, we actually lobbied to get an an official wildlife person stationed here in Canadian. So there you go. I don't know why. It's been approached that a way and I hope we don't regret it, I don't think we will.

He's been a great asset on a lot of these things we're trying to do, these programs and things we're trying to tap into to improve the as I said earlier, there's no delineation or separation between improving habitat for cattle, improving pounds per beef pounds of beef per acre you can produce and improving habitat.

They all go hand in hand. And and so it's been a very positive thing I think.

DT: Can you give some examples some of the positive things you think that Texas Prairie Rivers Group has done or the EDC towards promoting both the economic development and the nature tourism in the area?

JBA: Well of course we've been trying to promote economic development through nature tourism. So I guess we've had a two or three birding festivals in the spring that they brought quite a few people in.

We've made we've got the town on the map largely by our budget wasn't big enough to do high-dollar advertising and that kind of thing. But we've had writers from Houston, Dallas, out of state newspaper and and magazine art writers from some free lance, invited them here entertained them, showed them around, you know,

cause we happen to feel like if, once you come to Canadian and and see what's here, if you're interested in the prairie ecosystems, then you'll want to come back. So I guess our our EDC and our Texas Prairie Texas Prairie Rivers is non-profit and so we've received grants for education.

We're approaching nature tourism as an industry and also as a chance for education. We've hosted groups. We've there's been a movie or that's not right, a documentary partially produced here for school children all over the United States about the prairie.

So I guess our non-profit has received grants and and financial and staff assistance to help promote these things. Now EDC continues to put money into it. And provide staff support, you know. There's actually somebody who a rancher like myself who doesn't want to sit down and and put together some kind of presentation or write letters.

They'll they'll help you with that kind of thing and get it done. And web page development, you know, they we've got a young man who believes in what we're doing to the point that he moved here from from Austin to start a consulting business. And so that, you know, that's and he's busy he's he's doing well.

Not just Canadian, we've we've really promoted this regional concept very strongly with Wheeler County to our south, Roberts County to our west, Lipscomb County to our north we've tried to cooperate and coordinate, you know, five to six counties. Four of them have actually joined now.

Miami, the small town to our west has actually passed passed a half-cent tax sales tax and hired a EDC Director and they're working with this this young man who's a consultant on nature tourism and cultural tourism. And this is a town who passed a half-cent sales tax several years ago but couldn't decide what to do with it.

I mean you can't unless you're a certain size have a certain infrastructure, you can't recruit light industry or small, you know, telemarketers whatever you want to do you just can't do it. And they didn't know where to go with it.

And now they've taken up with the cultural and nature tourism thing and and doing quite well, made a lot of strides in a few months.

DT: Well when people come here are they they interested in going birding, bicycling, riding what do they typically do?

JBA: Well of course I've been mainly involved with the birding cause we have a large population of lesser prairie chickens. And we have several prairie dog hounds that we've allowed to to exist. And so that's mainly what I've done. We have we have hunting.

We've redone the old bridge, put a wooden deck on it that crosses Canadian River and made a walking bridge out of it, which is really a pretty thing to do in the spring and the fall. The river runs under it. You can see different things.

You can see deer and turkey and then the of course the leaves go start changing colors in the fall it's a pretty place to be and people really enjoy that. There's biking people bike from Canadian we're going to make a complete the loop where you can get across the highway at some point without encountering traffic

and you can you can bike across the bridge, get on the Lake Marvin Drive and bike out through, you know, along the river in the meadows and the wooded areas. So we're trying to encourage all aspects.

We naturally, the prairie chicken was an easy thing to start with cause there's very few places left in the world where you can go and see 30 or 40 different lecks or booming grounds for prairie chickens in the morning if you wanted to or over a two- or three-day period. So we took that because it was easiest.

But then we've had help from the Audubon Society who's who's come in and done Christmas Bird counts, identified different species. And we're fortunate here; I mean the Eastern Western flyways overlap so you can get Eastern and Western Birds.

You can see you can come to Canadian and see or this region and see several species that are thought of as being Eastern or Western. And so that's, you know, that's that was dropped in our lap. But we're trying to capitalize on it.

DT: You mentioned that watching these lesser prairie chickens on their booming grounds is is is one appeal and that hunting is is something else. Can you describe what some of those experiences are like for people who come here? What's it like to watch bird boom or what are some of your hunting favorite hunting experiences?

JBA: Well the the experience of watching prairie chicken boom if you've never done it it's a lot of fun; it's quite entertaining. I've done it all my life and I still get excited when I when I see them.

And then when you have somebody from Houston who moved there from Milwaukee with some large insurance company come and then well that's happened. They get so excited I just get even more excited so I, you know, I don't know.

That's a very positive thing and and it's fun to interact with these people. You gain an appreciation of what you have that you were taking for granted. You also get ideas on how to I ask them to critique me, you know, what we should do different, what they like to see.

We get a lot of ideas in on on what we can do better and and improve our our nature tourism efforts. The hunting people, hunting's changed a lot. I used to I didn't I'm really not much of a hunter, I didn't really let people go hunting much say 15, 20 years ago because

I explored it but I ran into these people that you drive around, show them the property and talking to them and trying to get a feel for them and everything that moved they wanted to shoot at. And and so I didn't do it. Hunting now is the people at least the people I deal with who hunt on us,

uh, when they actually do harvest an animal, they're disappointed because it's over with. I mean they have they can't be out on the prairie. They can't be sleeping on a ranch, they can't be seeing the stars at night, you know, they can't be watching the deer and and seeing them where they travel and all the things, you know,

they've changed a lot, the people I deal with. It's, you know, of course society looks at it a lot different too I guess. But I actually enjoy being with them. You know, because they enjoy the whole experience.

DT: Do you act as their guide?

JBA: No I don't. What I do is meet and get comfortable with people that I can let go on their own. And so therefore I try to encourage a relationship where I have the same people come back year after year. You know, and I've I've had success with that. And they like it.

If they're responsible people, hunters, they like being able to go where they want to, when they want to, you know, and it's not a problem for me because they are responsible.

DT: Is most of the hunting for white tail deer or do you also get wild turkey hunts or

JBA: Well we have

DT: quail?

JBA: we have Bobwhite Quail that we lease hunting for. We have white tail deer and we have turkey. And that that's really and and dove, we have good dove hunting in here when they come through in the in the fall.

DT: Is there a sandhill crane migration through here?

JBA: No not here. I mean, they come by, no we don't. I would like to get to the point where the hunting is is supplementary to the birding and and, you know, the experiential things. And one thing we've we've found that I would have never thought of is the people that love to see the stars because the sky is black.

There's not any light pollution here at night of course, you know, and they they just excited about how clear the stars are and how how clear the sky is and how bright the stars are. That kind of thing.

DT: And and the people who come here for that sort of thing are they are they nature students or, you know, they they astronomy buffs or they the sort of people just who enjoy a black sky and and the feel of seeing these these stars?

JBA: Well the bulk of them have been people who just want to come experience it. They're not hardcore, you know, astronomers or birders. Some are. I prefer the people that want to go to the museum, who want to see the stars, who want to see the birds, who want I enjoy them a lot more.

We've had some hardcore birders. They come in when we had a gentlemen fly in from from Maine. He had a list, a life list, and he needed to see a (?) and he got in here at midnight. My wife took him out the next morning and and 30 minutes had taken the pictures all he wanted, 30 minutes he's back in the airport.

I mean heading for the airport in Amarillo to leave again. I thought, you know, I didn't get much out of that. I mean he paid just like everybody else but I enjoy the ones who come and stay two or three days. And actually enjoy walking down a brick street or sitting on a bench on Main Street, you know,

and just kind of soaking up the the slower pace and and the the lifestyle. That's what that's who I try to pursue. (misc.) [End of Reel 2226]