Given the loud and angry fight over wolves in Colorado, it’s easy to assume that environmentalists and ranchers are sworn enemies in the state. On one side are the advocates for the animals and wild nature, on the other side the iconic cowboys and their cows defending a way of life that defines the very contours of Colorado’s soul.

But I met a rancher recently who thinks the whole us vs. them thing is a bunch of bunk.  

Erin Michalski left a Wall Street banking career to help her parents, Dave and Jeannie Gottenborg, run Eagle Rock Ranch near Tarryall, which recently became the first ranch in the nation to establish an elk migration agreement. The pact bridges the whole environmentalist-rancher divide by compensating ranchers for providing elk pathways to migrate through private land. It’s paid for through a five-year, privately funded project by the Colorado Cattlemen’s Agricultural Land Trust and the Property and Environment Research Center.

In other words, it’s a way to make a profit off conservation.

“Ranchers really are some of the biggest advocates for the land and for nature,” reminds Michalski. “At the end of the day, ranchers and farmers alike really do care about protecting all nature and livestock and wildlife and not just what’s on their property for profit.”

The agreement essentially compensates Michalski’s family for fencing damage caused by migratory elk in exchange for them keeping some pastures ungrazed for the elk to come take advantage of during the spring and the winter. The key to making that work is something called laydown fencing.

“The concept of laydown fencing is being able to lay down or put away fencing when it’s not needed in order to enable migratory paths that are easier to get through by elk and antelope and deer,” said Michalski. The fences at Eagle Rock have regular T-posts, but the barbed wire in some sections isn’t attached directly to the posts. Instead, the fencing is attached to 3-inch-diameter wooden posts that can then be secured with fencing stays up against the T-posts.

“We basically just lay the fence upward, and then when we don’t need it, we undo the fencing stays to the T-posts and that whole fence can literally lay on its side,” said Michalski.

“And then, that way when the elk come through, they’re not constantly tearing down our fences, they have some place where they can cross that’s natural and easy and they don’t get hung up in it.”

In the summer months, when the ranchers need those pastures, the fence will be up. But in the spring, fall and winter, when they’re not using those pastures, the fencing will be down. Call it smart ranching.

I asked Michalski if it was a lot of extra work. She said it was much less work than repairing fences every spring that are knocked down by elk.

“We needed to figure out a way to work with them and not against them. So that was kind of the motivation for this was to figure out,  ‘How can we welcome the elk, keep them here in their natural habitat and still be able to ranch on this land?’”

Ranchers were the first conservationists, Michalski reminds, and it’s a misconception they aren’t stewards of the land.  

This year, the Eagle Rock won the Colorado Leopold Conservation Award for its working-land conservation that supports both cattle and wildlife and it was featured in a display at the Colorado State Fair.

They received the $10,000 award in June at the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association annual convention.

The award recognized the Gottenborg family for  much more than the elk agreement.

Dave and Jeannie Gottenborg told our reporter Scott Weiser they met as teenagers wrangling horses at a dude ranch in Estes Park. They bought Eagle Rock Ranch in Park County in 2012 when they “retired” — and set about healing the “wounded landscape” they found there.

“It’s not just lay down fencing,” Michalski said. “We’ve done things like replant willows along our riverbanks to help preserve riverbanks. We’ve created miles worth of better fish habitat for the trout in our river, whether it’s digging deeper ponds or adding in shade elements and rocks and fish ladders. And then a lot of soil health restoration, too.”

Michalski now handles finishing, processing and direct-to-consumer sales of the ranch’s all-natural Black Angus beef.

She credits her dad for this new way of ranching.

“All the credit goes to my dad,” said Michalski. “We’ve been his support staff essentially.”

Dave Gottenborg likes to quote the great conservationist Aldo Leopold as he does his chores around the ranch, his daughter said. Quotes like, “A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise.”

Michalski says word is spreading about this kind of ranching. “We kind of created a little partnership within our valley, and more and more ranchers are getting on board with keeping their fences down when the elk are moving through and just being more aware of how we can cohabitate with elk.” 

PERC, the Property and Environment Research Center, is driving this movement nationally by creating market solutions for conservation. The organization helps farmers and ranchers explore how to align what they do with incentives for environmental stewardship.

Is it working? Michalski says the Eagle Rock is making more money than they used to when they had to repair fences every year. And the elk population in Colorado, which once dwindled down to 40,000 across North America in the 1900s due to unregulated hunting, is now at  280,000 — the largest in the world.

“Ranchers that owned our property before us had fought against the elk and used air horns to blow them out of the pastures and fencing and all that,” said Michaski. “We decided that they’re coming anyways. We understand and appreciate that the elk have been at our ranch long before we were. We need to cohabitate with them.”