With three days of their 3-week course left, WRFI’s Restoration Ecology class bumps up a gravel road in the Tom Miner Basin, just north of Yellowstone National Park. They’re here in the stunning glacial-formed basin to visit Hannibal and Julia Anderson of Anderson Ranch, established here in the 1950’s. The Andersons became friends of WRFI through mutual connections several years ago, and now students have been coming here for years to learn about the family’s unique ranching tactics and to do some hands-on ranching tasks of their own.
As they arrive, dark clouds are building over the nearby ridges, threatening to tumble over the peaks and into the basin. Ten weary students, fresh off of five days of backpacking in Yellowstone’s Lamar Valley, scramble out of the van and immediately begin setting up their tents, their speed evidence of this skill they have honed during the course. Five shelters pop up in the field, and three herding dogs descend from the corners of the property to inspect its new inhabitants.
Weather moves in over the WRFI tents set up in a meadow on the Anderson Ranch.
In a stroke of luck, the weather switches as quickly as the clouds were initially building. Now, students and instructors are sitting in a circle in low camp chairs, each holding a hot bowl of miso soup prepared by the night’s chefs in the golden afternoon light. As is the group’s tradition, they begin their meal by each sharing something from the day they’re grateful for. As they had just hiked out of the backcountry that morning, hot showers and cold drinks topped the gratitude lists, alongside the opportunity to recreate with new, good friends in America’s first National Park.
The vast majority of visitors to the park will never experience what these students have. To be deep in Yellowstone, away from the roads and the gift shops and the pit toilets, at the mercy of the wild nature of the landscape and its iconic wildlife. The students chatter excitedly about the group of bison that had woken them the night before, huffing and stomping through their campsite. Knowing one of the topics they’ll discuss with the Andersons is wolves in the area, several pairs of eyes scan the horizon and imagine who might visit camp tonight. A small group of cow elk look back from the top of a nearby hill before disappearing into an aspen grove for the evening.
Once the recounting of events dies down and the last remnants of soup have been slurped down, bedtime quickly approaches. You can see the students’ contentment under their heavy eyes, and soon they’re brushing teeth and zipping themselves into tents and sleeping bags before the sun has fully set below the horizon.
The next morning, the students are excited to meet Hannibal, the ranch’s current owner, who inherited the land from his parents. He leads everyone from the campsite (there were no overnight visitors, at least as far as anyone can tell) to the loft of the nearest barn. It has been recently renovated into a studio apartment, rented out to visitors of the area on Airbnb. Another circle forms, and Hannibal immediately dives in. He explains how his family is intentional about how they use this land. He points out how humans love to take complex systems – like the ecosystem they’re in – and make them as simple as possible for their convenience, often to the detriment of those ecosystems. So instead, the Andersons focus on keeping everything as intact as possible through a process called regenerative agriculture.
“It’s about soil. All of it is about soil,” Hannibal tells the students. By constantly moving his cattle around, and avoiding adding inputs to it, they are able to keep the ranch’s soil as healthy as ever while maintaining the productivity they need to keep the ranch going.
Hannibal explains how the “easy” thing to do would be to keep as many cattle as possible on the land, allowing them to eat the grass to their hearts’ content. Another “easy” fix would be to kill any wolf they see step foot in the basin to avoid associated livestock loss. Under this model, he and his family would spend the next several years bringing in more income than the ranch has ever seen. They would also not lose another of their herding dogs to the predators; a lesson they have already learned the hard way. These are tempting options in the world of modern independent agriculture, but the Andersons have steely resolve when it comes to their values as not only workers of, but stewards to, this land that their family has called home for now four generations. They focus solely on the future, and the effects their actions today will have on it for an untold number of generations to come.
Hannibal Anderson shares his land ethics philosophy from the loft of a barn on the ranch.
For these Restoration Ecology students, who have spent their course discussing the why and how of restoring depleted landscapes, the Andersons’ method is a breath of fresh air. Theirs is not a problem to be fixed, it’s a success story of working in harmony with nature from the get-go to avoid needing to perform a life-saving restoration project down the road. They recognize ranchers’ short-term incentives to work the land to its limit, but understand on a deeper level, partially thanks to the Andersons’ model, the long-term benefits of approaching land ethics from a mindset of stewardship and reciprocity.
A sustainable future will require a thoughtful and innovative approach. These WRFI students are lucky to be given a glimpse into what the future could look like through the work taking place on Anderson Ranch. Regardless of the professional fields they join, each of these participants can take something with them from the invaluable lessons Hannibal shared.
WRFI’s Restoration Ecology class of 2025, fresh off of a 5-day backpacking trip in Yellowstone.
Special thanks to the Anderson family for their continued hospitality towards WRFI Restoration Ecology students each year. Your work and words make a lasting impression on these future leaders, and we are grateful that you all take the time to share your knowledge and experience with them.