Dean Hunt's great-grandfather couldn't the afford mountain acreage he hoped for, so he settled for 80 acres in the Arcata bottoms. "Little did he know, that 80 acres was more productive than 2,000 acres in the hills," Hunt says. "This country always grows grass… it may not be quality grass, but it's always growing a little bit."
Several generations later, Hunt's family is still raising cows in Humboldt's low country. Wtih six herds to move across about 100 pastures, he stays busy growing young calves into adults before they move on to the next link in the cattle industry. "When you look at what we do, we are such a small part of the equation," he tells Dr. Keith Flamer and Dr. Tom Jackson.
The cattle industry has its challenges, but Hunt tries to focus on the common ground between his business, conservation needs, and regulations. "We ... agree on about 80% of the stuff. We made our minds up that we were not going to worry about the 20%." He brings this ethos into everything from family meetings to a national coalition he helped launch called Partners for Conservation. Now called Partnerscapes, the organization "represents the voices of 21st-century conservation and the collective effort to support working landscapes through voluntary, incentive-based public and private programs."
On this episode of Talk Humboldt with Keith and Tom, Hunt talks about what it takes to be a cattle rancher in Humboldt County.
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TRANSCRIPT:
[Footsteps on gravel, theme music]
Dean Hunt:
Well, we're walking towards the working facilities with cattle in it to try to try to get the sound of a cow. [Cow moos]
Announcer:
On a sunny Thursday, deep in the Arcata bottoms, Dean Hunt and his ranch dog are heading into a holding pen.
Dean Hunt:
Bring them up. Walk them up.
Announcer:
Hunt's family has been working the Arcata Bottoms since the 1880s. Today, the business is a cow-calf stocker operation. He's not a breeder, and he's not a meat packer. He's right in the middle.
Dean Hunt:
We are grass farmers, so we got grass out there. We put cattle on it and we put pounds on the cattle. After that, they go on to, feedlots, where they're finished on grain. [Moo sounds]
Announcer:
Today on Talk Humboldt with Keith and Tom, it's a tour through the life of a Humboldt cattleman. From the Arcata bottoms, here's Keith and Tom.
Tom Jackson:
Hi, I’m Tom Jackson with Cal Poly Humboldt. And I'm here again today with my dear friend and colleague, the president of the College of the Redwoods, Dr. Keith Flamer.
Keith Flamer:
Good to see you, Tom. We are in a small corrugated barn on a huge ranch owned by Dean Hunt and his family.
Tom Jackson:
Good to see you, Dean, and thanks for being here.
Dean Hunt:
Thanks for being here.
Tom Jackson:
Can you say a little bit about how you got into this business?
Dean Hunt:
So my great grandfather showed up here from Vinalhaven, Maine, in 1887, and wanted a mountain ranch. And all he could afford was 80 acres on the Arcata bottoms. Little did he know that 80 acres was more productive than 2000 acres in the hills. But he started down here with a dairy, and my dad and my grandfather had it and partnered with my parents and then I bought my parents out.
And now our son’s involved with us. So we've been doing it ourselves since about 1996. And we are cow-calf stocker operation, is what we call ourselves, mainly a stocker operation.
Keith Flamer:
Okay. Can you talk to us about what that means?
Dean Hunt:
We are the daycare of the cattle business. There's a cow-calf operator that raises the calves. We buy the calves in the area and they get sized up, and then we run them here on the grass for sometimes ten months. They transition out of here when they get big enough. We like to try to make our steers weigh about 900 pounds. We'd like to see our heifers weigh somewhere between eight and a quarter and eight and a half. And from there, they go on to a feedlot up into Oregon. And that's where they're finished on grain and stuff before they go to a processor and become your steaks and hamburgers and all that.
Tom Jackson:
When you were talking earlier about your original 80 acres that came within the family, what's special about the bottoms that's different than other places?
Dean Hunt:
This bottom ground is really good. March, it starts getting good. April, a little better. May, it's out of this world. And I always tell people, there's time of year when you feel like you mowed your lawn today and you look at it tomorrow, you go, “Oh, well, I have to do it again.” Well, that's when we need a lot of cattle on the grass, and we need to be moving them around. We have over 100 pastures here. We have it split up into about six different groups of cattle. And we'll be moving those cattle every other day to a new pasture.
Keith Flamer:
Sounds like the grass is different here. It's. Is it healthier for the…
Dean Hunt:
The mountains have times of the year that it might be more nutritious than this country. But it's a shorter period of time. This country always grows grass… it may not be quality grass, but it's always growing a little bit.
Keith Flamer:
I would like to know how your business works. What's it like being a cattle person?
Dean Hunt:
Our business is like any business. We've got overhead and we got direct costs. We go to an auction... we don't know what we might be buying.
Tom Jackson:
I should tell you, Keith, I had the pleasure of going to an auction with Dean once. And I have never seen so many poker players in a room right now. [Laughter] And once they sat down, it was poker.
Dean Hunt:
There's a love-hate relationship with cattle buyers.
Keith Flamer:
Talk to us about that
Dean Hunt:
Well, they all love each other going into the auction, I think. And they hate everybody during the auction. And then the love's back on after the sale.[Laughter]
Keith Flamer:
Okay, I see how that happens. Okay.
Tom Jackson:
We're here today with Dean Hunt, a rancher. Dean, if you could take a moment and talk a little bit about the threats that you encounter as a cattleman.
Dean Hunt:
I think the first big threat is the Aleutian geese, and they eat everything. We'll have times of the year where we'll have 30,000 or 40,000 of them on us. And also they like this bottom ground, and they like ground that's been grazed by cattle.
Keith Flamer:
I see now where the threat to the cattle.... First, I wasn't quite grasping.
Dean Hunt:
So then we went from the Aleutian goose here, to our ranch out in Bridgeville. And this has been 25 years ago now… we discovered we had elk. You know, they just one day showed up.
Tom Jackson:
Elk eat everything.
Dean Hunt:
They eat the same thing as cattle.
Dean Hunt:
At the ranch at Bridgeville, we run about 80 mother cows, calves. A lot of times we'll have over 200 elk on us and basically can't do much about it unless you want to go out there and run them through your fences. They don't jump very well. They like to run through the fences.
With our cows. Our cows have a calf and we take the calf off the cow. Well, the calf never comes off of the elk. It just becomes more elk. What I get worried about is that at some point, if it gets too overpopulated, then there's going to be a lot of disease come into the elk, which hopefully doesn't transmit to the cattle, but it's becoming a problem.
Keith Flamer:
You know, as you're speaking, I was thinking about the relationship that you would have with the state government or the feds. So what what is that like? And over time, has it changed?
Dean Hunt:
We have worked with the state agencies. We've worked with the federal agencies on private land stuff… and the way I finally figured out what we were is all we were educators. Because we get a group in there that we're getting along with, and about time we're getting along good with them, they're gone.
Keith Flamer:
And then you have to re-educate...
Dean Hunt:
Then we have to reeducate a new group. Hopefully they're getting a little bit of education before they move into that position. But a lot of times they are not.
Tom Jackson:
Dean, can you say a little bit about something you've talked about in the past, the 80-20 rule? Can you explain it for us?
Dean Hunt:
The 80-20 rule, where I learned about it was with this group of landowners, with Partners for Conservation. And we had all come to the conclusion, dealing with all the different agency people and everything else, that we could probably agree on about 80% of the stuff. We made our minds up that we were not going to worry about the 20%.
And that's, to me, been a very useful tool. You got to have that open mind because there's different people who’ve got different ideas.
Tom Jackson:
Dean, thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you for your time today and sharing this information. Not only was it educational - it makes me hungry. So thank you very much.
Keith Flamer:
I so enjoyed it. Now I know what I'd like to do when I'm done working in higher ed. I'm going to sit on horseback and help you move cattle. It's a dream come true.
Dean Hunt:
Yeah, yeah. Bring your horse. Come on down! We feed you you good after you're through.
Keith Flamer:
Well, that's the only part I was going to do! [Laughter]
Announcer:
From the Arcata bottoms, you've been listening to rancher Dean Hunt on Talk Humboldt with Keith and Tom. To hear this and other episodes, visit KHSU.org.