At about 6,000 feet altitude, Big Hole Valley is vast, surrounded by mountain ranges, including the Anaconda Range to the east and the Bitterroot Range to the west. Early settlers called the wide-open basin “trou” (hole in French), later adopted by homesteaders and ranchers who settled there in the 1880s. Today, ranching remains the mainstay of the area’s economy with many cow-calf operations still running strong.

Five families who make up what’s known as the Big Hole Grazing Association are working to protect this land. Working in partnership with the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) and The Nature Conservancy (TNC), they’ve implemented a conservation easement and introduced sustainable practices to ensure its preservation for future generations.

Big Hole Valley Grazing Association

Multi-generational ranchers Dan High and his son, Colt High, have put time and effort into conserving their grazing land here and they are not alone. As part of the Big Hole Valley Grazing Association, they’ve jointly placed land into a conservation easement through an Agricultural Conservation Easement Program (ACEP) Agricultural Land Easements (ALE) contract. The easement, which covers nearly everything between the mountains on both sides of the Valley, means the land will remain in good standing for grazing, sustaining their individual cattle operations. It also provides instrumental big game migration corridors between the two mountain ranges.

Nearly all the members of Big Hole Valley operate in the same way—live offsite but come to the valley for its pastures. “When they formed in the 1960s, it was a group of ranchers from our area who all had the same need—summer pasture. No one rancher could afford to buy the land up here, but when they pooled together it made sense,” Colt High says. The Highs joined the Association in the ‘90s with dad, Dan High, recently finishing a term as president.

While the main driver is keeping agricultural land as agricultural land for future generations, by placing land into an easement, the Association can purchase additional properties to further protect the valley. This includes treed areas considered to be wildland urban interface. This means they can prevent development projects moving into at-risk areas while also being mindful of the forested landscape and the grazing acres they need to sustain their herds.

Working in partnership with the NRCS and TNC, the conservation easement process went smoothly and much quicker than the normal three to five years. They were able to put it into easement in just a year and a half.

“Here at Big Hole, this is a group of families—five different ranches that are part of the Association and they bring their cattle up from lower elevation for spring, summer, and fall grazing and then they go back to the lower country in the winter,” NRCS Assistant State Conservationist for Easement Programs, Justin Meissner explains.

The easement has positively affected the long-term vision and goals for the ranchers so far with their grazing, ensuring enough grass for their herds. For the Highs in particular, before they joined the Association, they’d run a smaller group of cattle or needed to find pasture in the open market to be able to summer their cattle. Being able to purchase shares at Big Hole allowed them to expand their herd because of the added forage base.

It’s also helping Big Hole Valley by improving the overall habitat not just for the families in the Association but for surrounding landowners, the livestock, and wildlife.

Building Trusts and Partnerships

TNC High Divide Headwaters Director, Jim Berkey, regularly helps Montana landowners like the Highs, working through the Big Hole Grazing Association, with land conservation. He considers partnerships with NRCS to be critical to making possible conservation easements like this one.

“We’re creating a cohesive and interconnected space for conservation to connect corridors like they have with Big Hole Valley and the surrounding land,” Berkey says.

Meissner explains the NRCS Agricultural Conservation Easement Program (ACEP) Agricultural Land Easements (ALE) provides funding for land trusts to purchase and hold conservation easements using Farm Bill funding to acquire the development rights for agricultural working lands.

“Without the Farm Bill we might be able to do one or two through private donations. The NRCS can provide funding to increase the scope and scale not just across the Midwest, but nationwide,” Berkey shares. “Without USDA assistance, we’d only be able to do a fraction of what we can do with them.”

According to Meissner, it’s hard to come up with how many acres have been put into easement in Montana. Through NRCS assistance, it’s about 40,000 acres a year. The need for that is increasing as ranches and farms are turning over to the next generation who are interested in easements to relieve debt while preserving the legacy of ranching in their family.

Benefits of the ALE for All

The Association is doing everything it can to keep the Big Hole Valley cohesive to prevent developments moving in and disturbing viable grazing acres and wildlife habitat. Entering into the ALE recently put the Association in a position to purchase additional property they refer to as “the Weiss Place.”

“You can’t see it from here, but you can see there’s some other small acreage houses being built in the distance and that’s what was going to happen with that place,” Dan High says of the property’s locational importance.

The plan was to put an easement on low production ground and acquire more productive ground that was irrigated to produce more grass and increase the number of animal unit months on the property. 

Explaining the rationale leading up to the purchase Dan High recalls thinking, “We need this. We need to get it done now. There's an island in the middle of us. And it was an opportunity we didn’t think was gonna hold up very long. There were several people lined up to buy it.”

Reflecting on the impact of that decision, he adds, “Purchasing the Weiss Place, we are not strapped for our grass like we used to be.  We used to run it right and tight to the end. We probably had more cattle than we had grass.” As a result, they’d had to come out earlier or take a reduction in numbers.

On top of that, members of the Association faced other challenges. “Throw in a drought year and you’ve got even more inconsistencies,” Colt High says. “It’s more consistent here than a lot of our home bases are, so that’s the value to it. And now by having more grass and more acres it gives us more freedom.”

Beyond grazing, keeping urban sprawl out of an area that experiences wildfire is another reason the easement is important to the valley. Aerial imagery from 1950 to 2007 revealed 400 acres of the property that used to be sage brush rangeland has been encroached by trees. “We’re talking to them about working with us to do selective cutting to bring it back to grass land and reduce the threat of wildland urban interface threat,” Berkey says. He shares that over the last 150 years, people haven’t let fire take its natural course and as a result, there are more trees and smaller trees that have expanded beyond the normal boundaries. “We're losing grass. We’re losing productivity. We’re losing a lot of wildlife habitat and resilience because of a lack of fire as a disturbance agent. So now when it burns it’s out of control.”

Conservation Efforts at Big Hole Valley

As a primarily working cattle ranch, it’s important to the Highs to balance agricultural activities with conservation efforts. Doing so is as beneficial to their operation as it is to the land.  
“Dan and Colt are really the tip of the spear from my perspective with the Big Hole Grazing Association because they are the most interested in exploring how they can do better, not only to improve production, but also improve the range for wildlife,” Berkey says, adding they were interested in conservation practices before the easement even came up.

“We would love to be able to help them with that kind of exploration. It takes willingness to take that risk so it’s a great match. We’re pooling together funds to be able to help and try to see if it works with other tools to help them more creatively graze so they can improve their bottom line and the resources for the wildlife,” Berkey says.

The Association is working with NRCS, TNC, and Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks replacing old fencing with wildlife-friendly fencing, making irrigation improvements to keep water in the Big Hole for the fluvial grayling, and grazing rotations to benefit sage grouse and curlew. They’re also working on a stock water project to put in water wells in the uplands, so cattle won’t have to travel into the riparian areas. They will also be improving the fisheries, wildlife habitat, and all that goes with it.

Investing in the Future of the Valley

“Conservation easements are meant to keep ag families on the land contributing to the tax base and put kids in schools. Not to be a set aside program that idles land,” Meissner says. “Big Hole Grazing Association and other landowners who have decided to put easements on their property—it’s a good place for other NRCS Farm Bill programs to then come in and fund infrastructure like stock water pipelines, tanks, fences, and timber thinning because the land will always be in agriculture and there’s no risk of subdivision, so those investments last forever.”

Looking ahead, the Highs are hopeful Big Hole Valley will be in good shape for grazing for future generations considering the conservation efforts and initiatives undertaken. And while they’re currently focused on their existing land, the Association plans to buy additional property to continue to piece the properties together, according to Dan High.

“For us, it’s security. Grass for our cow herd. There’s a financial security that comes with that. The Big Hole Valley is unique because it has a different climate from what our own ranch is and it doesn’t seem to be as susceptible to drought—there’s always grass,” he says. “Oftentimes our conservation efforts are to benefit the livestock, but they also benefit the wildlife. It’s making sure that urban interface doesn't expand. And that’s a big motivation for doing this.”

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