Have I got a family to introduce to you today! Meet the Sorensens from Elko Nevada, Their family has been ranching the land for 3 generations. But they are the ones that have learned something different. You’re going to just LOVE this story.

At Secret Pass near Elko, family focuses on making ranch sustainable

In the 1940s, the Sorensen family planted roots in Nevada, raising thousands of sheep and some cattle on a ranch where the Ruby and East Humboldt mountain ranges meet in the northeastern corner of the state. Their descendents are still there.

Third-generation Nevada rancher Jared Sorensen and his wife Selena are raising their family of nine children, who play important roles on the Secret Pass Ranch, where winter winds are unforgiving and a blanket of snow glimmers across the region. Encompassing 10,000 acres (and an additional 12,000 acres the Sorensens lease for grazing), it sits between the mountain ranges, the valley opening up to vast fields where cattle graze. The Sorensen home, an unassuming 100-year-old house, is mostly hidden from the highway by trees. Across the way at the foot of the Ruby Mountains, a stream flows along the highway.

More than eight decades since their ancestors first set foot on the ranch, the couple is now leading their family in a different direction from past generations with regenerative ranching — a concept designed to take into account the effects of climate change while working to ensure the longevity of not only their family and ranch, but the surrounding environment.

Regenerative ranching you say? What’s this? Making the land you work actually better in a way that allows it to sustain itself? How’s that even possible?

In 2019, Jared and Selena enrolled in the Nevada Conservation Credit System, a program that offers incentives for habitat protection for Greater sage-grouse, a large bird found throughout eastern Nevada and other Mountain West states. The bird has a round body and long tail, which males spread into a starburst, similar to a peacock. Males are also known for an elaborate courtship ritual that includes flaunting distinct yellow air sacs on their chest to attract female mates. 

The Greater sage-grouse has a declining population and has teetered on the brink of being classified as an endangered species — a listing that would substantially limit development in rural Nevada and across the West. 

Hmm sage grouse. You know where I know about them a lot is because there is a huge crossover between them and beaver. Every SG restoration group I have ever heard of talks about the importance of beavers. I wonder what they’re position is.

SHHH, here’s my favorite part.

Another change in management includes moving the cattle on the ranch more frequently in order to let plants recover.

“We’re seeing the willows come back, the shrubs come back,” Jared said. “We’re seeing that there’s more fish and the beaver will come back. And that’s our keystone species that we look at … When beaver come back into the landscape, then you reach a threshold where it’s really sustainable because they’re going to be creating these huge wetlands.”

The dams beavers build help hold water on the landscape, which can help make the ranching area more resilient to drought. Other ranchers may not see beavers in such a positive light, as they can plug up irrigation ditches and hold back water from flowing to their fields. But he thinks removing them is a mistake.

 

A hardy thank you for Jared for delivering the very best quote of 2022 and maybe more. How much do you love this article? Go share it with everyone you know and let’s pray for more families like the Sorensens.