Aldo Ranch's wildlife work earns honors

The Aldo Ranch is in some of the most rugged country near Nolan, Texas. But Doug Stuart is painstakingly trying to improve the ranch—from plants, to wildlife and water—with help from specialists, and occasional advice from his dad, Al Stuart.
For his efforts, Aldo Ranch was just recognized as Nolan County Soil & Water Conservation District (SWCD) 2006-2007 “Outstanding Wildlife Conservationist.”
“The ranch management challenge is to balance over 1,000 acres of crop fields, Edwards Plateau range, waterways and wells, with food plots and minimal supplemental feeding,” says Doug.
He aims to combine natural conditions with improved habitat to provide cover, nutrition, and water for healthy wildlife on the ranch.
The wildlife mix includes deer, wild turkey, bobwhite quail and dove.

Doug Stuart loves his Polaris Ranger for getting around the Aldo Ranch, whether it’s working on something, or feeding and checking the variety of wildlife. Doug does his own wildlife counts, but is assisted by Texas Parks & Wildlife Department census, and USDA. The entire ranch is mapped.

Blessed with water
Aldo Ranch is fortunate to have 13 water wells. It also has concrete tanks, as well as earthen stock tanks. Large windmill-supplied tanks can use smaller concrete troughs to catch overflow. A series of underground pipe throughout the ranch also allows the windmill water to help replenish a network of streams. Electric wells also are used.
“Stream corridors are only partially protected by naturally vegetated buffers,” Doug notes.
That’s one of the things Doug plans to improve with seeding vegetation.
Brush control clearly has led to resurgence in water—even during the severe drought.
“A spring started running again in January 2005—it has slowed down, but hasn’t stopped,” Doug observes.
The area only gets 23.54 inches of annual rainfall in a good year. But this year, only 12 inches had been received by late fall as the drought persisted heading into this winter.
Aldo Ranch is at the northeast area of the Middle Colorado Watershed, a federally designated watershed, and also the Elm Creek Watershed, a Texas-designated watershed.
But even with brush removal, patterns of brush are left in strategic places to benefit wildlife.

Deer management
Doug and Al aim to maintain a 1: 2 ratio of buck to does on the property through their deer management, while also increasing overall buck quality and ages.
White-tailed deer are free range and low-fenced. Doug keeps a plant inventory list and works with USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) biologists as well as Texas Parks & Wildlife Department on that.
“We do have corn in feeders—but only two,” he points out. “I really want deer to favor plants on the range.”
Deer like a variety of plants, Doug adds.
TP&WD helped with census counts to determine deer harvesting needs.

Wild turkeys prolific
Rio Grande turkeys roost, feed, water and breed on the Aldo Ranch. They often are seen along their water travel trails, or feeding routes.
Hunters often get a chance to test their “turkey calling” skills.
In Texas, either sex can be hunted in fall, but males (toms) only in spring. They’ll find corn too.
“Turkeys are like vacuum cleaners for the corn,” Doug reports.
The turkeys also enjoy natural food sources on the ranch.

Rio Grande wild turkeys are prolific on the Aldo Ranch, and they can skillfully hide—or move pretty fast—when they need to do so. They offer hunters a challenge in doing their turkey calls.

Bobwhite quail numerous
The bobwhite quail numbers are growing.
Doug does counts. He found 26 coveys on the ranch in 2005. The drought and unrelenting heat was tough on quail in 2006, but they have survived.
The ranch attempts to control predators. Wild hogs, which can wreak havoc on quail nests and eggs, haven’t been a big problem…yet, anyway.
Part of that—Doug guesses—may be due to one of the nation’s most concentrated wind turbine distributions across the countryside. The seemingly endless wind turbine construction may have dispersed feral hogs. The towering turbines are within ½-mile of the eastern portion of the ranch.
Veteran ranch woman Roxy Whiteside, is a native of the area, and while noting turbines have changed the countryside dramatically, “The income is probably a savior for some people now.”

Food for dove and other wildlife
Doug says doves are notoriously poor nesters. But he’s built some nests with special cloth and other materials in an attempt to help nesting.
He’s gone with 70 percent grasses and 30 percent forbs mix on the range for dove, including Maximillian sunflower, perhaps their favorite food.
Doug has also seeded the range with Illinois bundleflower, Eldorado Engelmann daisy, Cheyenne Indiangrass, Blackwell switchgrass, Kow big bluestem, Van Horn green sprangletop, and tall dropseed.
The range also has its native grasses, such as warm-season Haskel sideoats grama (The State Grass of Texas), and cool-season grass like Texas wintergrass.
Beyond range, there’s also 319 acres in crops—including 165 acres in wheat, as well as grain sorghum and haygrazer.
If rains come and prices are good, they may harvest some wheat.
In 2005, the ranch got approval for acceptance in the USDA-NRCS office in Sweetwater, Texas for the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP). Fields have been grubbed and spot seeded with those mixtures of native, warm and cool-season grasses.
A grazing deferment also was initiated in January 2005, and so all cattle were removed at that time. When the deferment ends, if Aldo Ranch returns to restocking cattle, the conservation plan calls for 2-pasture rotational grazing.
Right now, a major goal remains controlling cedar.
“Aggressive control of cedar (a.k.a. juniper) is primary to vegetation improvement and management,” Doug assures. “Cedar limits other trees and grasses.”

Sunflowers are perhaps the favorite dove food on the Aldo Ranch. These are at a water source too.

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