Conservation Easement Protects Moyer Ranch, 6,700 Acres of Flint Hills

Easement is largest ever for Kansas Land Trust, one of eight active land trusts protecting ecologically important lands in Kansas.

PJ Griekspoor

Published: Sep 5, 2010

The Moyer Ranch, 6,700 acres of pristine Kansas Flint Hills prairie, will remain a working cattle ranch in perpetuity, thanks to action taken in July by owner Rod Moyer.

Moyer, a third generation Flint Hills rancher, said he began thinking about the ranch and his family's legacy in the Flint Hills several years ago when he realized his son, who lives in New York, was not interested in returning to Kansas to run the ranch.

"He expressed an interest in seeing it preserved, but not an interest in any hands-on participation," Moyer said.

Then Moyer learned about the Kansas Land Trust, a non-profit organization dedicated the management and preservation of ecologically important land.

BORDER FENCE:
Original stone fence posts with wrought iron panels marks the border of the Moyer Ranch headquarters. Manager Trey Allen is collecting posts from around the ranch and says he hopes one day to see the fence line all of the border that faces public roads.
WORKING WINDMILL:
An old-fashioned windmill and water tank still supply water to cattle on one section of sprawling Moyer Ranch pasture.
CATTLE CHUTES:
Traditional pens and chutes at the edge of a gravel road provide a place for unloading calves at the beginning of the season and for gathering and loading at the end.
WATER SUPPLY
Pasture ponds like this one are the commonest supply of water for the cattle that graze the rich grasslands of the Tallgrass Prairie.
ROCKY SOIL
Rock outcroppings like these, visible on the Moyer Ranch, give a mute indication of the geography that saved the Flint Hills from the cultivation that converted the grasslands further east to some of the richest farmland in the world.
'CHAPMAN CORNER'
Moyer Ranch manager Trey Allen says this structure was named for its inventor, who used a flat rock to support an upright post. Holes drilled in both rocks allow the wedging of a pipe to form a corner brace from which wire fencing could run in all directions.
MODERN FENCE
On Moyer Ranch a Chapman Corner was left near a modern corner, a steel post in the ground that forms an anchor for pipe fence separating pastures. In the early days, pipe was purchased from steam ship companies or salvaged from steam ship wrecks.
PIPE FENCING:
A hole drilled in a flat rock provides support for a pipe fencepost on Moyer Ranch. A loop welded to the pipe post supports barbed wire.
COMFORTABLE CATTLE
Calves approach the edge of tree-line Humboldt Creek, one of many areas that provide them shade from the summer heat on Moyer Ranch.
THE DIFFERENCE
Rock posts and fencing mark the northern border of Moyer Ranch. The neighbor to the north does not burn pastures regularly, as attested by the invasion of Eastern red cedar trees visible at the top of the photo.

It doesn't get much more ecologically important than the Flint Hills, which represent more than 90 percent of all the virgin Tallgrass Prairie left in North America, a tiny remnant of the vast oceans of grass that once covered all of mid-America.

Working with the Fort Riley Army Compatible Use Buffer Program, the Natural Resources and Conservation Service, Farm and Ranchland Protection Program and the Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks, Kansas Land Trust was able to put together a conservation easement for Moyer Ranch. That easement was dedicated on July 22.