Chase Currie

I have always had a passion for the outdoors and conservation, which led me to pursue my undergraduate degree at Texas A&M University. From there, I went on to purse and Masters and Doctrine in Wildlife and Range Science at Texas A&M University-Kingsville through the Caesar Kleberg Wildlife Research Institute. I have been working for the Fitzsimons and Howard Families at the San Pedro Ranch since 2012. I was originally hired to help manage the oil and gas development on the ranch so that we upheld our duties to the Conservation Easement, which was placed on the ranch in December of 2009 through Texas Agricultural Land Trust. From there, my position has evolved, and I know manage all aspects of the ranch. The San Pedro has been owned and operated by the Fitzsimons families for nearly 100 years and is currently on its fifth generation. We were fortunate to learn early on the importance of managing the ranch in a holistic manner. Understanding that the foundation of our management, whether it be for wildlife or livestock, is habitat health and diversity. We have learned the hard way, that building resiliency in our management through maintaining adequate herbaceous cover is critical in long term sustainability for both wildlife and livestock in a brittle environment. We currently have one of the largest purebred Beefmaster cattle herds in the breed and graze them in one herd over 200+ paddocks.

Plenary

Learning to Do More With Less: Ranching Resiliency

This presentation will provide insight into real world applications on how to build resiliency in your ranching program. It is important to understand that factors such as drought, can actually be a blessing in disguise. These types of factors that we often deem as out of our control can actually help us become better managers. We feel it is important to recognize that why we can’t control when it rains, we can control how effective the rainfall is on the landscape.