Episode 601 - Ted Koch || Grasslands - Our Most Endangered Habitat

Summary

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The Origins Foundation Podcast

Episode 601: Ted Koch || Grasslands – Our Most Endangered Habitat

Date: October 21, 2025
Guest: Ted Koch, Executive Director, North American Grouse Partnership
Host: Mike Axelrod

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Episode Overview

This episode features a passionate and insightful conversation between host Mike Axelrod and Ted Koch, Executive Director of the North American Grouse Partnership and a retired endangered species biologist. The discussion dives deep into the critical state of North American grasslands—highlighting their status as the continent’s most endangered ecosystem, why grassland species like prairie grouse are declining, and what must change for effective conservation. The episode also critically examines the realities of private land stewardship, the failings of current conservation funding models, and pushes for pragmatic solutions drawing from both North American and international approaches.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Ted Koch’s Background and Passion for Grassland Conservation

• [04:13] Ted grew up in Connecticut, later moving West to fulfill his dream of working in wild landscapes.

• [04:40] Hunting and the outdoors became integral to his identity:

  “Heaven is 8am Sept. 20 on a hillside with the aspen turning gold and the bugle, the bulls bugling in the canyon below and the sun coming up over the mountains. That is my idea of heaven on earth.” — Ted Koch

• [10:39] Ted found his calling in prairie and sagebrush ecosystems, working on sage grouse and lesser prairie chicken conservation for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service prior to leading the Grouse Partnership.

Notable Quote

“I just keep ending up back in prairie landscapes. … Any hunter who’s ever spent time just realizes the magic of those landscapes and a prairie grouse.” — Ted Koch [11:32]

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Why Grasslands Matter and Their Uncertain Future

• Grasslands are the Most Threatened Ecosystem

  • [14:29] “Grasslands are the most threatened ecosystem on the continent and in the world today. Somebody’s got to (work on them).”
  • [15:03] 64% of North American grasslands have been lost; of what remains, 84% is privately owned.

• Species in Peril: Prairie Grouse and Habitat Loss

  • [15:16] Of the nine populations of prairie grouse once widespread, six are extinct or ESA-listed; the remaining three are declining.

“Shame on us hunters for letting that happen because they all used to be game birds.” — Ted Koch [16:07]

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The Core Threat: Habitat Loss and Fragmentation

• [16:18] Habitat loss & fragmentation are the #1 drivers of prairie grouse decline.
• [16:35] Host and guest explain leks—the unique prairie grouse mating grounds—and their dependence on large, connected tracts of grasslands.

Notable Explanation

“For prairie grouse to survive, you need multiple leks connected to each other across large landscapes surrounded by miles and miles of suitable nesting habitat. … Prairie grouse species are one of the most difficult species to try to reintroduce. … They’re a landscape scale species.” — Ted Koch [17:08]

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The Challenge of Private Land Ownership and the Conservation Model

• [15:14, 18:25] With 84% of grasslands on private property, conservation must pivot toward incentivizing private landowners.
• Ranching provides lower income than other land uses; current government programs (like Farm Bill cost-share) often leave landowners out-of-pocket for conservation actions.

Key Quote

“We haven’t figured out how to pay them to grow wildlife yet.” — Ted Koch [17:25]

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Pay-to-Play: The Debate over Hunting Leases and Conservation Funding

• [18:36 – 23:58] Host and guest wade into the controversial territory of hunting leases and pay-to-play conservation.
  • Hunting leases can incentivize habitat retention, especially for species like pronghorn and mule deer.
  • However, most grassland hunting leases currently tend to favor whitetail deer, whose habitat needs can be somewhat at odds with prairie grouse.

“The way that manifests right now in grasslands … ends up being a whitetail deer hunting lease model that does not favor prairie grouse.” — Ted Koch [20:16]

• Ted supports finding ways to pay landowners, either by adjusting North American models or borrowing from European and African models where appropriate.

Notable Exchange

“We can’t ask them to save an endangered species like the lesser prairie chicken out of the goodness of their heart. We gotta pay ’em to do it.” — Ted Koch [23:34]
“If you can come up with a better model… carbon credit scheme or a biodiversity scheme… so be it. But those three things (habitat protection, restoration, expansion) don’t exist right now.” — Mike Axelrod [24:01]

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Farm Bill Programs, Their Limits, and Alternative Funding Models

• [25:09 – 26:50] Current federal conservation programs reimburse only partial costs; ranchers foot the rest—this is seen as unsustainable.
  • Ted’s organization is pushing to pay landowners fair market value for conservation outcomes, not just for implementing practices.

“If we want somebody to save a species of wildlife … we got to pay for it. We can’t ask them to take it out of their own hide.” — Ted Koch [26:22]

• [28:03] Most grassland loss (~2M acres/year) is to woody encroachment (sometimes due to hunting leases for whitetail), energy development, or conversion to row-crop agriculture.

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Restoration, Management, and the Role of Ranchers

• [31:24] Historical prairies were maintained by fire; today, suppression leads to woody encroachment.
• Restoration of broken prairie is possible but slow and costly.
• The importance of mimicking historical grazing with modern ranching:

“Ranching done right can maintain and improve grassland health over time. Ranching done wrong doesn’t help anybody or any of those conservation services.” — Ted Koch [35:04]

• [36:03] Success example: The largest remaining population of lesser prairie chickens is on 35-year-old CRP (Conservation Reserve Program) lands in western Kansas—once farmland, now thriving restored grassland.

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Innovative Conservation Approaches and Systems Change

• [39:01 – 40:36] The Playa Lakes Joint Venture reverse auction model: Landowners bid competitively to provide habitat; payments are negotiated based on conservation outcomes, not flat rates.

“What a great model. … That not only saves migratory birds, but… improves water quality and water quantity because it increases infiltration to the aquifer. And… the landowner says they need to get paid to make it happen.” — Ted Koch [40:19]

• [41:25] The challenge: Scaling up these creative models while ensuring technical support and adequate compensation.

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Memorable Quotes & Moments

• On the urgency of grassland conservation:

  “Nobody wakes up every morning like we do thinking about how we’re going to save wild prairie grouse and grasslands.” — Ted Koch [43:42]

• On the American model versus alternatives:

  “Perhaps on private lands we need to adjust… and think more along the lines of the European model or the African model.” — Ted Koch [23:13]

• On restoration spirit:

  “You can do it. Takes a long time… but you can do it.” — Ted Koch [36:49]

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Important Timestamps

• 04:13 — Ted’s path to the West & passion for hunting
• 11:32 — Discovering the prairie’s magic; work on sage grouse
• 14:29 — Grasslands as most threatened ecosystem
• 15:16 — Alarming declines in prairie grouse populations
• 16:18 – 17:25 — The critical importance and challenge of habitat connectivity
• 22:13 – 24:01 — Honest debate on hunting leases/pay-to-play
• 25:09 – 26:50 — Shortcomings of current conservation funding structures
• 28:03 – 29:56 — Economic pressures: why grasslands are converted
• 31:24 – 36:49 — What works for restoration; role of fire, grazing, and long-term CRP
• 39:01 – 41:25 — Reverse auction/pay-for-performance conservation models
• 43:09 – 43:35 — Call to action: how listeners can support grassland restoration

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Resources and How to Get Involved

• North American Grouse Partnership:
  • Website: grousepartners.org
  • Donate, learn, and find out more about current projects; read about the Lesser Prairie Chicken Landowner Alliance.
• Contact:
  • Email via staff page or specific alliance resources listed on the website.

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Tone and Delivery

The conversation is frank, hopeful, and unflinchingly honest about failures and what needs to change. Both host and guest bounce between practical conservation details, hunting culture, economic realities, and deep personal roots in the wild. Ted’s passion is especially evident when he gets “fired up” about policies and the need for fundamental shifts in how conservation is funded.

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Conclusion:
This episode provides both practical insights and philosophical food for thought for hunters, conservationists, and anyone concerned about biodiversity. The urgent message: grasslands are at a tipping point, and only by innovating our models—especially around private land stewardship and true-cost conservation—can we hope to reverse the decline of prairie species and the habitats that sustain them.

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Transcript

[A]

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[B]

Ted Koch is the executive director of the North American Grouse Partnership. He's a retired endangered species biologist from the Fish and Wildlife Service and he joined the North American Grass Partnership, is an executive director a couple of years ago and started in 2019. This conversation between Ted and I is all about grouse, it's all about lesser prairie chickens, it's all about grasslands. It's all about just things that you know, maybe you don't get to think about on a day to day basis. Did you know that grasslands are the most endangered ecosystem in North America? I didn't. So have a listen. It's a short, sharp, intellectual, powerful conversation between Ted and I and I think you'll take a lot out of it. So there's a reason why I started Blood Origins and that reason is simple, is that I wanted to convey the truth about hunting. It brings awareness to, to non hunters that it's more than just killing animals. How do I start it?

[A]

Brittany?

[B]

My name.

[A]

Does my hair look okay?

[B]

My name is Mike Axelrod. Start again. Yeah, I hated it too. Braxton, you said something in the car to me. You said that you were living on borrowed time. There's a perception around who hunters are, what we're supposed to be. And a feminist that works for a non profit that is a hunter that has only eaten wild game for the last 20 years is likely not the thing that people think about when it comes to a hunter. So I don't want to get People mad. You know, like one of the biggest controversies right now in the social media space is people burning spots.

[A]

Burning up spots.

[B]

Yeah. So if you found this, like, like you said before we, I hit on, you're like, oh, I just found this brand new elk spot. Don't say where it is because people are going to be upset. They're like, Ted just told everybody about this paradise and he put it on the global stage. And we've got Australian hunters in here now and oh my God, you know.

[A]

But, but so much of the joy of elk hunting for me is finding a new, exciting, promising spot. I mean, telling people doesn't give them the benefit of any of that experience. So no way.

[B]

Ted Koch, welcome to the Bell Origins. Actually, no, the Origins foundation podcast. Now I, I, I'm even, you know, needing to fix my language in terms of our new name change. It's only been a week, so welcome, welcome. Excited to have you.

[A]

Thank you. Thank you so much for having me here. I'm excited to be here.

[B]

Ted, where's home are you? Obviously in an elk state.

[A]

Yeah. So I live in Idaho in the mountains an hour north of Boise. And you know, I grew up in Connecticut dreaming of living and working in the west and I have lived the dream. I retired now I have a post retirement job as the executive director of the North American Grass Partnership. But part of the reason I live here is because I knew, I always knew I wanted to live and work in the west and I learned to hunt. I did not grow up hunting. I taught myself how to hunt. I put myself through hunter's ed and my biggest passion in my life right now after my lovely wife is bow hunting Ellican September in the mountains of central Idaho. In fact, to me, heaven is 8am Sept. 20 on a hillside with the aspen turning gold and the bugle, the bulls bugling in the canyon below and the sun coming up over the mountains. That is my idea of heaven on earth. And that's coming up here.

[B]

Prior to last year, I wouldn't have been able to resonate with that. I'd never been elk hunting. I'd gone bell hunting elk once in New Mexico. It was super early, super hot, no bugles, but, and I don't let my, my, my hunting is very, very private because I'm very cognizant of perception in this industry, in this space. I'm the executive director, just like you are of a nonprofit. And I don't want people saying, oh, this guy's just hunting free over here or over there, you know, I do my hunting, I do it the way that I do it and. But last year I flew into Boise, Idaho.

[A]

Oh.

[B]

And I was fortunate enough to draw There was a 1 in 50,000 chance, a non resident tag in the Mount Emily unit in Oregon.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

It's an hour and a half outside of Boise in Oregon. Right. It's La Grande, Oregon.

[A]

Right, right.

[B]

And I was fortunate enough to have a good friend, Steve west, who allowed me on his private property, the Ponderosa. And it was Jurassic park for six days.

[A]

It is primal, isn't it?

[B]

Primal like just like in. And I've never, never experienced stuff like that. And we're not going to talk about this a lot today, but I had never experienced it and I've never experienced a elk bugling and them coming in and just getting in your face and bugling. And you know, the first elk I had was like a 370elk at 19, at 19 yards and I couldn't even thread an arrow through it. It was just crazy.

[A]

Yeah, man. I just. The two closest bulls I've killed in my life were at five yards and at four yards.

[B]

Oh my God.

[A]

I shoot traditional archery. That five yard ball, I didn't know how that was going to end. I didn't know if he was going to keep coming right at me and skewer me or you know, step five yards to my right, which is what he did.

[B]

Sheep as creepers.

[A]

It is so. Oh, I remember those emotions. Oh, it's gripping.

[B]

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[A]

Oh well. And actually I love every kind of hunting.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And fishing. Right. Yeah, bow hunting is really my passion. I, you know, I, so I mentioned I grew up in Connecticut, not in prairie country. My, I lived in Stanford, Connecticut. My dad took the train to Manhattan every day for 30 years and worked at a corporation in downtown New York City. And I just had this dream of living working in the west. I did it and then I remember early in my career I was working near Duchesne, Utah in April in the sagebrush sea. Just as the sagebrush is coming to life and the powerful smells, just after a rain, I went walking out in the sage and I'm like, this landscape is powerful. And ever since then I just keep ending up back in prairie landscapes. I ended up working on sage grouse conservation when I was an endangered species biologist working for the U.S. fish and Wildlife Service in Nevada. We worked on sage grouse and sagebrush steppe, that is sagebrush grassland conservation. I moved to with the Fish and Wild Service to New Mexico and oversaw a four state region and worked on trying to save lesser prairie chickens on the southwestern Great Plains. And that's really where my focus is today. So. So, yeah, and grouse hunting, sage grouse hunting. If you, if you haven't had a chance to hunt sage grouse, it's like, you know, hunting a 1/3 sized turkey bird out of the air is awesome.

[B]

Yeah, I've heard it's, it's magical. I've heard it's magical. I haven't done it. I'll have to come and do it with you. Okay. After this.

[A]

Absolutely, yeah.

[B]

We'll square it away. So is this what you do as a full time job now? The executive director of the North Grouse? I'm going to mess it up. North American Grouse Partnership.

[A]

Yeah, that's my job now. I retired from the U.S. fish and Wildlife Service. That's actually during the first Trump administration. He said, who wants to retire early? I said, pick me. And interestingly so, I grew up in a very conservative Republican household in Connecticut, which is different than a conservative Republican household in, say, Idaho. But anyway, I remember thinking, I never want to work for that government. And my dad told me the story about why that's okay, because I knew I wanted to be a biologist and most of them work for the government. Like, how do I do this? So my dad said, it's okay. I said, all right, I'll work for the government for 10 years. So I got 10 years in and I have the golden handcuffs on you with the retirement system and everything. And so I said, okay. My first opportunity for early retirement, I'm going to retire. So I did. That was in 2018. And then the board of the Grouse Partnership called, said, hey, our executive director left. Do you want to apply for the position? Because they knew my track record and working to save prairie grouse, which is what the North American Grouse Partnership's all about. So do you want to apply for the job? And I thought, no. And here I am, because I realized, you know, if I didn't do it, who was right? I mean, prairies, you know, we call it flyover country and all that, but any hunter who's ever spent any time just realizes the magic of those landscapes and a prairie grouse. And the North American Grouse Partnership was actually founded by falconers. In fact, I don't know if you know the name Dr. Tom Cade. He was with the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. He and others founded the Peregrine Fund. And the day after peregrine falcons were removed from protections of the Endangered Species act back in 2000, he and his conservation champion heroes who recovered peregrine successfully and got them delisted, met in Tom Cade's basement in Boise, Idaho, near the World center for Birds of Prey and said, hey, prairie grouse are going down the tubes. Let's start an organization to fix that. And that was the North American Grouse Partnership, founded primarily by falconers and still today sustained a lot by falconers and falconry community because there's no more noble prey for a falconer than prairie grouse. So, I mean, waterfowl, there's lots of great prey items, but prairie grouse are kind of the elk, as Elgar to bowhunters, prairie grouse are the falconers.

[B]

So. Wow.

[A]

Yeah. And so that's kind of my background, how I got involved with all of this. And it's such an important cause because as you may know, grasslands are the most threatened ecosystem on the continent and in the world today. So somebody's got to.

[B]

84% has been lost in North America.

[A]

Actually, that it's the, the amount that's been lost is more like, say, 64%. Okay. The 84% number represents the proportion of remaining grasslands in private ownership.

[B]

Oh, yes, yes, yes, yes. So we've had a 60 plus percent loss and. But the current distribution existence of grasslands, 84% of it is actually on private ground.

[A]

That's right. And this is really important for us hunters to understand because we're all about public land, we can access it. You know, there's programs to access some private land. We take advantage of those primarily for bird hunting. But boy, if we hunters don't figure out how to up our game in the private lands conservation model, this most threatened ecosystem on the continent and the world, and our prairie grouse are going to continue to go down the tubes. And one other factoid here I'm going to report to your listeners. This isn't widely known yet, but of the nine prairie grouse populations Historically found in North America. So it includes different subgroups of sage grouse, greater prairie chickens, lesser prairie chickens and sharp tailed grouse. Okay. Total of nine different biological populations found historically. Six of those populations are either extinct or recognized under the Endangered Species act and the other three are declining. Well, shame on us hunters for letting that happen because they all used to be game birds.

[B]

And has the science and research determined that its habitat loss is the primary threat?

[A]

Habitat loss and fragmentation. So what's really interesting about prairie grouse, have you ever, have you seen videos or heard about or maybe seen prairie grouse on a lek?

[B]

On a lek? Yep. Yep. So explain a lek so people don't. If people don't understand what a lek is, explain what a lek is.

[A]

So you know when a bunch of 20 something year old guys go to a bar, that's a lek, that's an.

[B]

American, it's a human version of a lek. Yeah.

[A]

So Eleca is where all the, it's a, it's a historic strutting ground with lower grasses than elsewhere. The, the chickens, the, the hens like to lay their eggs in thicker grass, but the lower grass on their open ridge top, wind blown ridge top, the males will go and strut and the females will come in for miles around and they'll slowly, casually walk amidst all the strutting males. And then they finally tap one on the shoulder and say, you come with me. So they sneak off into the grass, do their thing and then the female goes, lays her eggs and raises young. So that's a lack. But what you need for prairie grouse to survive is you need multiple lacks connected to each other across large patches of landscape scape surrounded by miles and miles of suitable nesting habitat. You cannot just manufacture a population of prairie grouse out of thin air. In fact, prairie grouse species are one of the most difficult species to try to reintroduce. People have tried and tried and I guess I'm unfamiliar with any large scale, long term success in reintroducing prairie grouse. There might be one or two out there, but I know of a lot of efforts that have tried and failed. So they're a landscape scale species and we must maintain these intact landscapes to save them. 84% are on private land. Here's the other thing. Those 84% of private lands are almost all managed as range lands. Ranching pays less than any other form of land use. This is why grasslands are the most threatened ecosystem on the continent and in the world. Because ranching doesn't pay. And we haven't figured out how to pay them to grow wildlife yet. That's the North American Grouse Partnership.

[B]

What do you mean we haven't figured out how to pay to grow wildlife? No.

[A]

Well, we haven't.

[B]

That's easy.

[A]

Well, how so?

[B]

Okay, here's a controversial question. I'd love to understand your position on it. Let's say you are one of these private landowners. You have prairie on your property. Associated with that prairie comes things like pronghorn mule deer. Super valuable for somebody like me or like you or anybody who's like, I want to hunt those. Okay. There are now exchanges, land exchanges, private land lease models like Land Trust, who say, I'll. We'll enter into a contract agreement with farmer X. You, Ted, and you'll say, I have antelope hunting on my property, and it's worth 500 bucks a day, 800 bucks a day. And so an exchange is built between. And it's a connecting landscape between you, Ted, the landowner, and me, Robbie the hunter. That certainly is a value proposition to proposing wildlife stays on your property. Wouldn't you agree?

[A]

Absolutely. And if that manifested at scale on grasslands, that would be awesome. And I'm sure that does exist in some pockets somewhere. But you know, the way that manifests right now in grasslands, Robbie, is for whitetail deer hunting. And whitetails like a little bit of woody encroachment. They like the drainages to fill in with tall brush. Prairie grouse. If you get two more than 2% of the landscape with woody vegetation greater than 2 meters in height. Two yards in height, the prairie grouse start to leave. But the white tail. Yeah, 2%, but the whitetails really start to fill in. Okay.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Yeah. So the way that. To the extent that model is present, that opportunity presents itself in these landscapes, Robbie, it ends up being a whitetail deer hunting lease model that does not favor prairie grouse. So mule deer pronghorn would be a better tool. And I'm not sure why that hasn't manifested more consistently across a broader landscape. But you're right. I mean, that's a great idea. That's a great way to do it. I'll just tell you that our experience so far in these landscapes is that's not yet happening, Certainly at least not at a scale big enough to be meaningful or even visible.

[B]

Yeah, I'll. I'll. I'll definitely put you in. Once we get off this, I'll put you in contact with Nick at Land Trust. He's the CEO of Land Trust. There May be an opportunity there to connect landowners that you know, to do that. Trees now, go ahead.

[A]

So for that to work though, the landowner must be incentivized to maintain habitat that favors prairie grouse.

[B]

Correct.

[A]

So pronghorn would work. Mule deer might work anyway. But that's great. Thank you. Thank you, appreciate it.

[B]

No, and, and it's interesting that in our hunting community, and again, I love your reaction to this. In our hunting community, there is pushback to that model.

[A]

Pay to play. Yeah.

[B]

Because it's a pay to play model. It's a, it's antithetical to the North American wildlife model. It's also reducing opportunity of the door knocker to get access onto somebody's private ground. And I've always been of the position that is, it's private, it's value add. And in today's society, as you said, ranching is something that is not cutting. It's, it's not, you know, paying the money in the bank. It's not paying the bills anymore. So he needs other things to help pay the bills so that that land stays in the habitat that it, that it has.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Otherwise it's going to get subdivided into little rochets. It's going to, you know, whatever energy. Exactly.

[A]

Farmed agriculture are the, the two biggest. And woody encroachment. Those are the three biggest threats.

[B]

Yeah. So I don't know why people have an issue with it. They do.

[A]

Well, that's so you wonder my reaction. So I.

[B]

Here it is.

[A]

So I agree. This is the conservative, the political conservative in me that I was raised to be. My father would be proud of me right now. These people own the land. They love the land, they love wildlife, they love prairie grass. But we can't ask them to save an endangered species like the lesser prairie chicken out of the goodness of their heart. We gotta pay em to do it. And by the way, 11 years ago you could hunt lesser prairie chickens and today you can't. Why? Because we hunters let them get listed, get so bad off that they got listed under the sa. We have got to embrace a new model going forward, Roddy. And what's really fun, you know, you're from, from South Africa, is that correct? And so I just had somebody email me the other day, North American Grouse Partnership member saying perhaps on private lands we need to adjust the North American model of wildlife conservation and think more along the lines of the European model or the African model. So here you are saying the same thing to me. Man, that's really hitting home for me.

[B]

Well, and it's not about fencing it out. Right. You're not fencing the public resource away from the public. But what you're saying is we value you as a farmer, you as a rancher, you as a landowner, we support you in trying to maintain the habitat that you have.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

And we understand that they are, there are bills associated with that cause and we are trying to incentivize a mechanism by which we're not trying to make a huge for profit scheme here. And if there are profits associated with it, so be it. But the ultimate goal here is habitat being protected at a minimum, habitat being restored as step number two, and habitat being expanded in step number three. And if you have those three things in place and somebody's paying you to do it through a private land leasing hunting model, great. If you can come up with a better model, a better scheme that is a carbon credit scheme or a biodiversity scheme, or a sage grouse protection scheme that, you know, you should reach out to your, your brothers at the, you know, the Koch brothers, and say, hey, I've got a scheme for you, I've got a scheme for you in which you can be more environmentally sustainable. So be it. But those three things don't exist right now.

[A]

That's right. And we're trying to work to change that. So, Robbie, are you familiar here in the States with the farm bill and title one, which is the conservation title of the farm bill?

[B]

Yep. CRP, WRPs, WIPs programs. Yeah, all those things.

[A]

Yep, that's right. So. So every year Americans appropriate billions of dollars to conserve agricultural lands. And yet still, grasslands are the most threatened ecosystem on the continent of the world. And the main reason it is, is because all of those programs are administered as cost share programs. So they go to Mr. Rancher and they say, Mr. Rancher, we'll give you 75% of the cost of the conservation practice if you pay the other 25% to implement it. And these ranchers who really want to keep their ranch and ranching and save wildlife because they're humans like the rest of us, they, they take that bait. But again, ranching pays less than any other form of land use, and then they just spend 25% more out of their own pocket to conserve wildlife, that's a failing mob. The evidence demonstrates that's not working. If we want somebody to save a species of wildlife, if we want somebody to save lesser prairie chickens, which is an endangered species, or was till recently, we got to pay for it. We can't ask them to take it out of their own hide. We got to pay for it. And so what the Grouse Partnership is doing is coming up with a model whereby using Farm Bill Conservation Title program funds, we pay these ranchers fair market value for their conservation services. And what that means is the rancher gets to pay a negotiated price to produce an outcome instead of a fixed price to implement a practice that may or may not move the needle. So that's exactly what we're working for.

[B]

Is that something that you are working to get into the farm bill right now, or is it now already in the farm bill? Because I know budget discussions are about to come up. Right?

[A]

Yeah. So great question. My answer is I don't know. Now, fortunately, I work with a lot of smart people who know way more about the farm bill than me. I'm a retired federal endangered species biologist, worked on the farm bill. It's a. They've been in place since 1985. I don't even try to keep up. But the. The point, My answer is we think a lot of this could be done administratively. Some of it may require tweaks to the existing program. But the bottom line here is if we don't pay what it costs for these conservation leader landowners to conserve these habitats, they will be. If not them, then when they die, their children will sell out to the energy developer or the adjacent farmer who will break that prairie and turn it into marginal farm ground, where they only get a crop out two out of every five years, but they get a federal subsidy the other three years. And that's what's beating us. That's what's beating grasslands right now. So we're in the midst of trying to figure that out. Great question.

[B]

What is the general habitat conversion to. If you know, you. In the email that you sent me, it was like, hey, you know, we're losing 2 million acres per year in the Great Plains. What is the major land use that it is converting to?

[A]

So the top three are woodland encroachment, many times facilitated by the landowner because they can sell a hunting leash for whitetails, energy development, solar, wind, transmission, oil and gas, and farming of marginal grounds. So let's say you have a patch of ground and this happens to somebody. So we help stand up a group called the Lesser Prairie Chicken Landowner Alliance. Their mission is to save ranching, rural communities, water and wildlife, and, oh, by the way, delist less, repair chickens from the Endangered Species act when we. When we're successful. And I have a couple ranchers say, you know, I have, you know, people coming to me all the time saying, hey, you got 10,000 acres of ground. We could break out 5,000 acres of that tomorrow. And you double your income over using it as ranch land just by getting paid government subsidies to grow corn or soybeans. And they don't even have to grow the corn or soybeans. All they have to do is plant it. If it grows and they harvest it and sell it, they get paid that way. If it doesn't, they get the subsidy. So right now, our own very own fire bill programs incentivize breaking out prairie because you can double your money by doing it over ranching. So the only reason it's a tough.

[B]

Field to climb, man, it is.

[A]

And the only reason these lands stay and ranching is because these people love the land and they love ranching and they love the ranching lifestyle. How long can we count on that as a conservation model? That isn't even holding water today. It's not even holding water today, and it's going to hold even less water tomorrow. Yeah, I'm getting fired up here, man.

[B]

No, that's fine. I appreciate you getting fired up. It is, it's. It is a, you know, you would, you would wish in the, in the, in the best case world that we could live in that those subsidies would be the opposite, right? Yeah. We're going to subsidize you for keeping grasslands.

[A]

That's exactly right. Why are we doing that? Why aren't we? And, but here's the. Here's one reason we're not the ranchers. Sometimes it's the same person. I got members of the LES Prairie Chicken Lander alliance that are both farmers and ranchers. I'll notice this one guy who's got 10,000 acres, half the farm has the ranch. He puts his farmer hat on. Thank you for the subsidy. He takes his farmer hat off, puts his rancher hat on. I don't want subsidies. I don't want to get paid a subsidy to be a rancher. But I have important conservation services on my land, like clean air, clean water, healthy soils, healthy vegetation, wildlife, carbon storage, and grassroots pay me for that. Americans want all of those things. You negotiate a deal with me and I'll sell you my conservation services. Ain't no subsidies happening here. So the ranchers themselves don't even want to talk about subsidies or cost shares or incentives. They want to get paid fair market value for their conservation services on their land.

[B]

So what does the future look like in terms of restoration or reclamation of grasslands? It sounds like in a woody encroachment scenario, it's you know, a mulching head that's mulching down wood and letting grasslands, you know, regenerate themselves.

[A]

Yeah. So here's a question to ask. What happened a hundred years ago, what maintained the prairies? And that very simply is fire. We suppress fire today. Woody encroachment ensues unless you work against it. So, yeah, you can mulch it, you can burn it. The trick is, whatever you do, you mulch it or burn it, you need to burn it again five years later and then 20 years later, and you need to do that to maintain it. But restoring land, restoring prairie that's been broken is very difficult and expensive. Some say you can't do it at all. You can never get that native species assemblage back. But if you have, you don't think.

[B]

It'S in the seed bed.

[A]

It is. And I think over time that you really can get that back over many decades. You're right, Robbie. But it's just in the nearer term, it's very difficult to do it. Like, when you're trying to save an endangered species, waiting three decades is pretty unrewarding for turning the corner.

[B]

And also as the executive director, to tell your board, hey, in three decades, we're going to. I promise that's when the turning point's going to happen. Stick with me.

[A]

But, but here's an interesting factoid. And again, we're really focused on lesser prairie chickens because they're on the tip of the spear right now, the nine populations of prairie grouse.

[B]

So where do lesser chicken. Lesser chickens. Lesser prairie chickens live?

[A]

Southwestern Great Plains. So that's western Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, eastern New Mexico, southeastern Colorado, at all.

[B]

Right.

[A]

What's that?

[B]

You cannot hunt them at all.

[A]

Eleven years ago you could. Today you can't.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

I was actually at a Kansas backcountry hunters and anglers meeting earlier this year, and there's, I don't know, 150 people in the room. I said, has anybody here ever hunted lesser prairie chickens? Five people raised their hand. Five people there had shot lesser prairie chickens that, you know, were since listed under the Endangered Species Act.

[B]

When were they listed under ESA originally?

[A]

It was, I guess, 11 years ago, 2014. Okay, okay. And then they were delisted on a technical process issue by a court, relisted like three years ago. And it just delisted again yesterday on a technical process issue by the court.

[B]

Who's, who's, who's challenging the courts on these technical listings?

[A]

Oil and gas, I think, pays for most of it, and it leads a lot but you've got, you know, conservative Republican state governors who say, yes, going to regulate my ag community out of existence, that sort of thing. That's the, that's the beauty of the courage of the vision of Alaska Prairie Tech and Landowner alliance is they have concerns about endangered species outregulation, but they're more concerned about a positive, proactive vision for saving grasslands in the southwestern Great Plains. And for that, the North American Grouse Partnership is all in on supporting them.

[B]

So what are they doing to increase habitat, increase numbers?

[A]

Well, they're doing all they can as individual land managers and then they're also participating in programs to do so where people are able to bring enough money to the table to pay fair market value for conservation services. And they, and they even participated in these cost share programs. But as I mentioned, that's not sustainable because it doesn't even pay 100%, much less a profit for them to conserve.

[B]

Can you give me some insight into, if we were to restore grassland, what are the types of management that you need to do it? Is it, is it till work? Is it forestry mulch head work? Is it fire? What is it?

[A]

Yeah, so to restore, is that what you're asking?

[B]

Yeah, restore, enhance, yeah.

[A]

So, so job one is to save the prairies we've got left because that's the cheapest and easiest thing to do. But, but then to restore habitat, particularly where you need connectivity or, you know, you've got a good core area but you need to add to it, you can do that by planting native species and then grazing it appropriately, which means for the first several years after you plant it, probably not grazing it, but then grazing it in a manner that mimics historical grazing. So in the southwestern Great Plains, you know, there's less precipitation, you had bison come through, but less frequently and intensively. And so for livestock operators, if they can mimic that, these grasslands all relied on grazing to one extent, or probably most vast majority of grasslands in the world relied on grazing to some extent or another to remain healthy grasslands. And so that's where ranching comes in. Ranching done right can maintain and improve grassland health over time. Ranching done wrong doesn't help anybody or any of those conservation services.

[B]

Right, Right.

[A]

So, so one other interesting story about this, the largest remaining population of lesser prairie chickens left on the face of the earth is on 35 year old conservation reserve program lands in western Kansas. Which means 36 years ago it was not lesser prairie chicken habitat, it was broken out farmland. And so all that was restored and eventually the chickens got the memo and came back and now it's providing great chicken habitat. So it definitely can be done. Takes a long time. It depends on the context. I mean, if you have huge continuous swaths of ground that have been taken out of prairie, that's probably a lot harder than if you have patches here or there amidst existing native prairie. But you can do it.

[B]

So that place, that example that you just gave us, are they doing well in that place?

[A]

They're doing, dispersing as they're doing as well as any part as they are in any other part of their range. Yes. Okay. Yeah, it's very, it's successful. And so one idea here for Americans to ask Congress and the Trump administration is, hey, 35 year old CRP in western Kansas. Can't we just do that again?

[B]

Right.

[A]

I mean, it worked 35 years ago. Would it work today? Absolutely it would. So then the next question is, well, what's stopping us? Well, there's a couple of things.

[B]

Are there no CRPs, big long term CRP contracts in the farm bill anymore?

[A]

Oh, yeah, there are. But here's the deal. There's currently acreage caps for crp, so you can't expand very much. There's adjusted gross income caps. So these landowners with large land holdings like 10,000 acres are often excluded from participating. You'd need to double or triple the payment rate per acre from today's values in order to make it like it was 35 years ago. And you'd need to double or triple the number of U.S. department of Agriculture staff to be able to provide the technical assistance to put it on the ground. So moving these caps, paying a lot more per acre and vastly increasing the federal workforce are all kind of non starters right now? Right. And that's fine because we have other ways we can do this as well.

[B]

So in, in your opinion, if those are all non starters, like, what is it like, what is the fear to put like, okay, Robbie, here as the executive director of the North American Grass Partnership, this is the thing that we are, you know, you may not be putting all your eggs in one basket, but this is the basket that has a lot of eggs in it that we're championing.

[A]

Yeah. So, so we moved. Need to move beyond paying a fixed. The landowner a fixed price for a practice at a cost share where the landowner has to pitch in to paying a negotiated price for a contract to produce successful outcomes. Okay, and now there's successful conservation outcomes. Yes. Yeah.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

Yeah. So here's a couple of examples. The Playa Lakes Joint Venture program in the southwestern Great Plains has obtained a CRP SAFE grant. That's State Acres for Wildlife Conservation Reserve, USDA Conservation Reserve, State Acres for Wildlife Grant to protect Playa Lakes for migratory birds. What they've done very innovatively and successfully is they have said, okay, all you farmers in this county that have Playa Lakes tell us how much you want to get paid to not farm your playa lake and to leave a buffer of X number of feet around it. Then every landowner in the county is empowered to one, ignore the opportunity, or two, say, okay, I've got these playa lakes that I want to put in, but not those, and here's how much I want you to pay me per acre. Then the Playa Lakes Joint Venture program gets all these reverse auction bids from landowners, and they say, well, this landowner has the best playa lakes, but they want so much per acre. This one doesn't have the best, but they want very little. And these are the ones on the sweet spot where they're not the best, but they're pretty good. And they want a lower price. And this is the best deal to the American public. And so we're going to go with you. So that's a really innovative way to pay fair market value to farmers for conservation. That not only saves migratory birds, but the main point is it improves water quality and water quantity because it increases infiltration to the aquifer. And so you get all of these conservation benefits at a price that is negotiated, that the landowner says they need to get paid to make it happen. What a great model. That's just one example.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. The trick is, it's a great model, but how, you know, we need to get them paid.

[A]

Yeah. So we just need. We need to grow that. So that's one of our examples. We're saying, well, let's do this right now. The other problem with that model is the federal government says, okay, apply Life's joint venture. You go ahead and implement that, but you got to pay to administer the own program. You know, 50% out of your pocket to administer the whole program. So then PLJV has to go around fundraising saying, please pay us so we can do this great innovative program, and they deserve to get paid. But right now, USDA doesn't have the staff to implement their own programs. They should be paying 100%. They should be paying Playa Lake Strain Venture 100% to implement that program for them as a contractor, because that's another challenge. We just can't. We'll never grow to scale if we don't pay what it costs to implement the program.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. The North American Grass Partnership is based in Boise with you, or is it based somewhere else?

[A]

Nope, it's here with me. Yeah. Okay. Okay.

[B]

Where can people find more information about the North American Grouse partnership?

[A]

So grouse partners.org please visit our website. We also have a page in there dedicated to the less breaching landowner alliance. We are a small but mighty 501C3, and we really need to grow ourselves now because we're engaging with ranchers in the northern Great Plains who also want to get paid fair market value for conservation services. And to the extent we can grow ourselves quickly, we can expand this out and finally get critical rat mass. Ranchers acknowledge they suck at organizing themselves and they'd rather be with our cows instead of people. So the role that the Grouse Partnership is playing is we're saying, hey, we need you to be successful. We're going to help you organize and say what you need to be successful. So if you go to grousepartners.org, you can donate. And we really need to grow ourselves big and fast to pursue this innovative private lands conservation model. And you can learn more about that model at the Lesser Prairie Chicken Land Reliance page on our [e-mail] yeah, and.

[B]

I would highly recommend people go to grouspartners.org and go to the staff page and you can see Ted Koh in his finest outdoor gear. Looks like you've got. You've got a face mask that I use all the time around your neck. It looks like you're either turkey hunting or doing your traditional elk hunting.

[A]

Well, I. I don't. I can't. I can't see. I'm not sure which picture we have up there right now, but.

[B]

Yeah, it's a turkey hunting, elk hunting. It's a. It's a. It's a very, like, GQ picture. Your hair's longer, your goatees. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a great picture.

[A]

That was tricky hunting in New Mexico. Yeah, that was a great hunt. That was a lot of fun.

[B]

Oh, that looks like a great hunt. Well, Ted, thank you so much for coming on. I really appreciate your time and your efforts and what you guys are doing. If my math is correct, the North American grass partnership is 25 years old in.25. And here's to the next five to 25 years of what you guys do.

[A]

Thank you so much. Yeah, we really need to grow now the most threatened ecosystem on the continent in the world. Pheasants Forever has been awesome at saving grasslands. They've been a huge supporter of ours, but nobody wakes up every morning like we do thinking about how we're going to save wild prairie grass and grasslands. So if that's important to you, please support us.

[B]

Yeah, I have a have a [e-mail], you can contribute there, you can donate there, you can check out what they do. And yeah. Thanks Ted. Appreciate you man. Thank you for coming on.

[A]

Thank you Robbie. Really appreciate you having me.

[B]

Well, that's it for today. Appreciate you listening as always, Leave a review, share it with your friends, and most importantly, do what's right to convey the truth around hunting hey guys, this is Melissa Baughman. Are you ready to stop spooking deer before it's even time to hunt them? Then you need the new Flex S Dark cellular trail camera from spypoint with a no glow flash option, long lasting solar power, and a ton of settings that can be changed anytime through the SpyPoint app. There are no more excuses for letting your deer get wise before the season even starts.

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