Natural Animal Systems provides landowners with advice and expertise regarding conservation management of ranch properties on grasslands throughout the Great Plains and Rocky Mountains. The goal is to assist landowners in establishing and maintaining an enterprise or a healthy mix of enterprises on the grasslands with ruminant animals (domestic grass cattle or bison). We manage animals and land in tune with natural processes developing an operation that is financially stable and environmentally sustainable. The idea is to promote healthy livestock, wildlife, and human communities by concentrating on healthy natural habitats.
Technology is readily used but not as a crutch to cover for inadequate management or to “conquer” natural processes. We work in sync with nature. The production challenges we face are better solved by learning how wild grazing herds and their associated grasslands deal with nature’s challenges. It is important to encourage and maintain an interdisciplinary problem-solving approach. Viable and sustainable working landscapes are very important to our world and to society as a whole.
Central to this business is the keen awareness of the interdependence of all living things. Interdependence promotes biodiversity which is vital for healthy, resilient, and sustainable landscapes. We must cultivate responsible care of animals and their homes as well as a reverence for all life. We must develop a system of sharing, not only across distances but across time demonstrating proper concern for generations yet unborn.
Every community is dependent upon the health of the surrounding natural landscape. This includes food, water, ecosystem services, and other natural amenities. People and their families are of key importance to communities. Rural communities can and should be attractive places to visit, work, and live. Rural and urban areas can be effectively linked together by supporting locally grown foods and through regional recreational and educational opportunities.
The four pillars of our business are animal and range health, consultation, research, and education. Each discipline is necessary for the achievement of goals and the improvement of grass-based landscapes. For these ranches to succeed and prosper, we must have a can-do attitude and be willing to challenge existing ways of thinking
Don Woerner, DVM