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Rancho Tres Papalotes— Improving Wildlife Habitat with Cattle

BY ANN ADAMS

Enrique Perez Carrillo, 31, and his wife Carolina Muñoz Cervantes, 30, run the 40,000-acre Rancho Tres Papalotes, near Janos, Chihuahua, Mexico. Their vision for the ranch is to strive for a sustainable way of ranching through raising adaptive cattle and Holistic Management. They say they still have much to learn but they have seen improvement in their herd and on the land as well as the numbers of species of wildlife now making their homes on Rancho Tres Papalotes—reversing the downward decline of functioning grasslands in Chihuahua.

Enrique took his first Holistic Management training when he was 15 years old in 2005 from HMI Certified Educator Elco Blanco. “Everything was an aha moment,” says Enrique. “I really liked the course and everything made sense. My grandfather bought the ranch about 40 years ago and then my father managed it. He waited until I graduated from Chihuahua State University in Animal Science in 2011 for me to start managing the ranch.”

Enrique had been working with his father on the ranch until he took over all management in 2015. Then he began making changes including creating more paddocks and reducing paddock size as well as developing water sources. They also got rid of cattle they had so they could begin stocking animals that were better suited to the forage native to Tres Papalotes.

The ranch is currently divided into two sections by a Mennonite farm. Originally they had only four paddocks in each section. Now the one section has 33 paddocks and the other one, which has more difficult terrain has 16 paddocks. Enrique notes that the investment in this infrastructure development paid for itself even with most of the investment coming from the ranch. However, they have worked with a variety of conservation partners including The Bird Conservancy and IMC–Vida Silvestre (IMC), a local wildlife conservation group. These groups, in turn, collaborate with Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo Leon, Pronatura Noreste, Rio Grande Joint Venture, and Profauna.

“We began working with the Bird Conservancy in 2011,” says Enrique. “I met some of their staff in university and they asked me to get involved. I am passionate about wildlife and photographing them, as well as the aesthetic of the landscape, so I agreed.”

Arvind Panjabi is one the scientists conducting grassland-bird surveys at Tres Papalotes and other ranches in the Chihuahuan Desert. But in 2006 they found that many of the ranches were being turned into cropland, reducing the amount of grassland habitat for these birds.

Grasslands make up 15% of the Chihuahuan Desert’s 140,000 square miles. This area is particularly important for the migration of the nine out of 10 migratory bird species from the Great Plains. Because these grasslands serve as wintering ground for many grassland birds, the need to keep these grasslands highly functioning is critical for the health of grassland birds which are a key indicator species for the health of the grasslands upon which they depend.

The scientists are estimating that the shift of grasslands to croplands in this area has probably displaced 350,000 grassland birds. The shift to croplands has been fueled by the ability of farmers to tap aquifers 700 feet down to irrigate fields. Likewise, violence due to narcotics have also driven some ranchers to sell to Canadian Mennonites who have found the land suitable for crops.

Besides grassland bird habitat, Tres Papalotes is also good falcon habitat, so the Bird Conservancy installed a nest platform on several ranches in the area including Tres Papalotes. In 2018, 11 pairs nested across the Chihuahuan Desert, the most since 2012, and fledged 10 young, half of which hatched on nest platforms. This group of 15 ranchers/ land owners and conservation groups have created the Sustainable Grazing Network (SGN) that covers more than 250,000 acres. barely feed them,” says Enrique. “But now I have 300 pairs in that section.” Because of the divide between the two sections they run two different herds (one for each section) and plan the grazing accordingly.

Enrique is excited about the results the Bird Conservancy is seeing on the land as well as the increasing bird numbers they see with their bird counts. The Conservancy has also helped him by suggesting which areas to graze and not to graze based on bird habitat. In this way, he collaborates with the Conservancy on the grazing planning. They also have trail cameras for different animals, not just birds, and have seen the return of mountain lions to the ranch. In the past two years they have been involved in research with golden eagles as well. While the ground cover is improving, Enrique is aware there is more work to be done to cover more bare ground.

Water development has included four new wells ranging from 100 to 600 feet in depth for a total of eight wells that each serve four paddocks. The water line used to be 1 ¼- inches diameter, but now they have two-inch piping with 100,000 liter per stock tank holding capacity to be able to water more cattle effectively.

Improving Infrastructure

For the last five years Enrique has been focused on infrastructure development that helps improve their ability to be a sustainable and resilient commercial cattle operation, but also to improve the wildlife habitat. While Enrique and Carolina share a passion for wildlife and improving the wildlife habitat on their ranch from a conservation perspective, they also have a mule deer hunting enterprise to augment income for the ranch. They use their Facebook page to show the wildlife that use their water points at https://www.facebook.com/ Rancho3Papalotes. Enrique notes that they have added drinkers even where they don’t bring cattle so that the wildlife can use it. Their water is often the only source for several miles around.

In 2011 Tres Papalotes could run 1,000-1,500 steers for five months. Now they run 600 cow/calf pairs for six months, and Enrique estimates they have more than tripled their carrying capacity. “In the section where I first started developing the fencing and water, I could only run 100 pairs, and even then I could

All of Enrique’s new fences are permanent, one-strand electric fence. He then subdivides these paddocks with temporary electric fencing. Given the variety of terrain and size of paddocks the grazing periods range from one month to five to 10 days in some of the smaller paddocks. With temporary electric fencing he can get the grazing period down to two days. He also is working to have only one graze period a year to allow for adequate recovery The shortest recovery is 330 days with some small paddocks being used twice a year because there are alkali grasses that he grazes twice during the growing season.

Enrique grazes to increase the amount of desirable grasses like blue grama, sideoats grama, and galleta. He is seeing an increase in all of those grasses. The average rainfall, of 10 inches of rain, has become more sporadic with the summer monsoons in July and August not always materializing. They can get all of their rain in one or two months although their growing season is from June to October. Enrique monitors the height of grasses and residual on the ground to determine grazing moves. In some paddocks there is little grass and the cattle browse on mesquite, chamisa, and fourwing saltbush.

With his increased production Enrique has not had to feed hay at all while his neighbors usually feed from January to June. In a really bad year he might help the cattle a little with protein and he does provide salt and minerals.