Private Land, Public Good, Texas-style

BAYSIDE, Texas – If the Fennessey Ranch were in British Columbia, it would have been taken over by the Land Conservancy or the Nature Conservancy, or maybe even by some level of government. After all, it’s a high-profile demonstration conservation project, and high-profile demonstration conservation projects are the province of non-profit environmental organizations, if not the Crown itself.

But this is Texas, and the very thought of such a project being in public hands is anathema to Sally Crofutt, the ranch’s general manager.

“In Texas,” says Crofutt, “if you waited for philanthropy to preserve the environment, it just wouldn’t happen.”

So the Fennessey Ranch is privately owned, just as it has been for the past 170 years, and it’s run to make a profit, just as it has been for the past 170 years. The demonstration part of its conservation mission is, more than anything else, to prove to other ranchers and land-owners that it is in fact possible to make a profit while keeping intact the large tracts of ranchland so essential to Texas’s biodiversity.

The Fennessey Ranch is just 179 miles (288 kilometres) from the city of Houston, less than three hours drive on the Texas freeways, where 120 kph is the normal driving speed. Houston is now the fourth largest urban centre in the U.S. with Greater Houston’s population estimated at 4.7 million and sprawling further into the countryside every day.

The price of growth

The rate of growth, Crofutt says, means ranchers are being approached every day by developers who are interested in subdividing the historic large parcels of Texas land into subdivisions of five- or 10-acre hobby farms, much sought after as escapes from the city by those who can afford it. It’s always a tempting offer to ranchers suffering the vagaries of the beef market – the prices offered for the land are often more than they’ve been able to make in decades of ranching.

“But five or 10 acres won’t support the bobcats or the javelinas or a lot of the birds,” notes Crofutt. “They need the huge territories they’ve traditionally had.”

Complicating the situation in Texas is the huge percentage of the land in the state that is privately owned. Unlike B.C., where huge tracts of land are at least in Crown hands, available for timber harvesting but also for establishing a new park or reserve should the government of the day choose, more than 90 per cent of the state of Texas is under private ownership. It’s an historical anomaly, dating back to the end of the Mexican-American War when returning soldiers were all given large outright grants of land in return for their military service. But, as Crofutt notes, it makes it all the more important that ranch owners be persuaded to preserve their lands – there are simply no other means of preservation available.’

Crofutt’s job, then, is to find ways for a ranch to make money rather than just raising beef cattle in a bad market – ways to make enough money that ranchers can resist the developers’ blandishments. And her list of lucrative options is growing every week.

Texas tea always helps

She’s the first to admit that the Fennessey has one advantage that not all ranches have – a usable amount of oil and natural gas under the earth’s crust. A visitor to the ranch sees small oil derricks scattered throughout its 4,000 acres. The royalties bring in steady, year-round income, notes Crofutt – never a huge amount but always a cushion to support the other endeavours. The ranch insists, however, that the oil companies use environmentally sound procedures, and except for the towers themselves, their work is scarcely noticeable on the ranch.

The ranch also still maintains its herd of beef cattle, also managed to a high environmental standard. The cattle aren’t, for instance, allowed to graze right down to the banks of the Mission River, which borders the ranch on three sides. Crofutt explains that if you allow cattle to go right down to the river’s edge, their hoofs will wear away the grass and plants on the bank, and erosion will soon become a problem. So Fennessey’s cows have man-made ponds where they can drink, with water being pumped into the ponds if necessary during the dry season.

A ranch for the birds

Crofutt’s greatest enthusiasm, however, is reserved for the numerous projects she has begun in the area of eco-tourism. This, she points out, is one of the most rapidly-growing parts of the tourism market, and can be done with no or little harm to the ecology.

Bird-watching is one of the biggest parts of this operation. The ranch is in an area known as the Texas Coastal Bend, one of the best places in North America to see birds, especially in winter and spring. In the wetlands along the Mission River, birders may spot species rarely seen outside of Mexico, such as the secretive Green Kingfisher.  The ranch offers special one-day tours providing expert guides who can identify birds by their songs without even seeing them. Later in the year, programs are offered to watch hawks and to see hundreds of hummingbirds moving through the ranch on their southern migration. A recent new partnership with another nature tour company allows keen birders to go out on a boat to see Whooping Cranes and other water birds for half the day, then spend the other half at the ranch.

Photography safaris are another specialty with specially built blinds to allow the photographers unprecedented access to the wildlife without disturbing it. Top wildlife photographers are invited to the ranch to provide instruction.

For those with a slightly different view of the wildlife, there are opportunities for bass fishing in the lake, and even hunting for the deer that would otherwise threaten to overrun the property. Crofutt’s latest venture is astronomy evenings when telescopes are set up and astronomers help visitors pick out stars, constellations and planets in the wide-open Texas skies.

Crofutt is delighted to say that Fennessey is no longer the only ranch conducting such eco-tourism ventures. Several more are now taking steps in the same direction.

“This is the way of the future,” she says. “It has to be. It’s the only way we’re going to preserve what we have.”

Barbara McLintock is a contributing editor to The Tyee.