Passport to Texas

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Just west of Fort Worth, Bear Creek Ranch employs old school grazing practices.

12-What we do here at Bear Creek Ranch is we have a native prairie, and we apply a process of where we take the cattle, and graze them in a way that mimics the way the bison grazed the prairie.

Robert Potts is President of Dixon Water Foundation, which operates the ranch.

06-[MOO] They go where the grass is fresh, they move, and then they don’t come back to the place that they are today for a long time.

This type of management has enhanced wildlife on the ranch. And Texas Parks and Wildlife Wildlife Biologist Nathan Rains says, it is one reason why Bear Creek Ranch is a Lone Star Land Steward Award winner.

18-By allowing rest in these pastures and their unique grazing program you get residual grasses and that provides nesting cover and habitat for species like Bobwhite quail and other grassland birds that are declining.

Texas once had 20 million acres of tall grass prairies; because of development and agricultural uses, less than one percent of the original prairie ecosystem remains.

10-In an area like this, on the periphery of the Dallas Fort Worth Metroplex–in an urbanized environment–it’s really neat and encouraging to see ranches like this that are dedicated to preserving tall grass prairies.

Learn more about Bear Creek Ranch in a segment next week on the PBS Texas Parks and Wildlife TV series. Check your local listings.

For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.