For as long as he can remember, Zane Fredbjornson has wanted to work with livestock. From horses to cattle, he’s been a fixture on the prairies for decades, taking care of these animals and the land they depend on. Tune in and uncover the surprising connection between endangered prairie birds and sustainable grazing, as seen through the eyes of someone who’s made that connection his livelihood.
You’re listening to Where the Bluestem Grows, stories from Manitoba’s prairie grasslands
I’m Evan Woelk Balzer.
If you were to visit southern Manitoba a couple hundred years ago, you probably wouldn’t recognize it. In those days, millions of plains bison grazed here, migrating slowly across the continent year after year. Through processes such as bison grazing, wildfires, and stewarding by Indigenous peoples, healthy, flourishing grasslands extended from horizon to horizon.
Now, fast forward to today, and it’s estimated that as few as 10% of the original prairie grassland in Manitoba remains. Those natural disturbances like bison grazing and wildfire are largely absent, and the remaining prairie fragments are threatened by invasive species, encroaching trees, and land conversion. However, prairie stewardship has not fully disappeared, it just looks different than it did in years gone by. Today, we’re meeting someone who’s dedicated his career to using cattle grazing to maintain prairie grasslands.
Zane Fredbjornson reaches out and gently pats one of the horses in his corral.
Cody, King, Phantom, and then there’s Cowboy and Little Hawk out there.
Behind him, a row of towering pines leads to an old white barn with a tin roof. Beyond that, grasslands - as far as the eye can see. They’re covered with snow now, stretching wide open and white, but punctuated with aspen stands in the distance.
These grasslands don’t belong to Zane, but he feels personally responsible for their health and management. He works as a pasture manager for the Association of Manitoba Community Pastures. And part of that job is to take care of cattle brought to this prairie pasture by other cattle producers who live nearby.
Zane’s a man of few words, but it’s clear that he’s invested in his work, and he knows this land like the back of his hand. It’s a good thing too- his neighbours rely on him to look after both the cattle they bring him, but also the prairie those cattle depend on to thrive. He gestures off toward the open country beyond where he’s standing.
They don't have to look after we do all the work. Get outta here Cody. Yeay So Lazare’s off that way to pasture and right up to the highway and runs that way to the Assiniboine Valley. And the Qu’Appelle’s on the south.
You might think of this pasture as an inn, and Zane as the innkeeper. The grasslands Zane manages are divided into over 50 individual paddocks - think of those as rooms in his inn. But his guests are not human- they’re cattle. It’s Zane’s responsibility to keep the inn beautiful and pristine, and the guests healthy and content.
By dividing the community pasture into smaller sections, or rooms if you will, Zane can rotate his bovine guests around throughout the course of the grazing season to ensure that no one room gets trashed.
The collective nature of this grazing management model gives it its name: a community pasture. And it’s a model that’s been working for almost 100 years now.
Guy doesn't have enough grass at home he can bring them here, pay a fee for it, and take them home in the fall and the cows and calf and sell the calf the next year. We're just managing these lands to keep them in a sustainable, productive state.
You know, I know there would be people that think we can rip this up and grow a crop but, it doesn't, if it don't rain, you'll just have a nice big sandbox.
This is no sandbox. It’s a mixed-grass prairie situated on top of sandy soil that slopes gently toward the rivers that cut through the landscape. Zane has made it his business to know this landscape intimately, and all the species that call it home. He’s a devoted student of the grasslands, and how his cattle interact with them.
And then you'll see purple prairie clover out here and I've watched cattle walk and select just that plant. They’ll walk and they’ll eat that one and they’ll walk over there and eat that one and they won’t eat the grass in between
It’s just a matter-of-fact description- here’s what cattle do, but those observations don’t come lightly. It takes years of careful attention and dedication to understand the seasonal shifts in the ecosystem, and how the cattle will respond to those shifts. There are thousands of plants and animals that call this place home - each with its own time of the year to shine – just ask Zane…
There's a period in the spring when the this place will turn purple.
and then you'll see the old man's whiskers. You’re your three-flowered avens. They’ll come in and it'll be another reddish purple like just covered across the landscape.
Zane though, he doesn’t have a favourite.
Not as long as the cows like em hahaha. No they’re all good and you gotta have the variety yenno cause yenno every plant has a point in time when it’s the best.
Grasslands rely on disturbance to remain healthy. Without the occasional fire or hungry animal, prairie grass and flower communities tend to become less diverse. These kinds of changes make grasslands less capable of supporting the wide variety of plants, birds, insects, and other creatures that call them home. Cattle, although not quite the same as bison, can perform a similar role for keeping their prairie pastures healthy.
You're using the cows as a tool to manage your grass and you're looking after the cows at the same time. So, you know, if you don't have cows- healthy cows, you're not going to have good grazers.
Over the years, Zane has seen the connection between maintaining a healthy pasture for cows - and how that stewardship can benefit all the other species that live here.
You got deer, you got moose, you got elk, and you got bears, you got wolves. Like they're here. They're just here and like, you know, they like this area as much as I do I guess.
In addition to this long list of four-legged species, there are a variety of at-risk ones as well, including rare grassland birds whose habitat requirements are limited to the kind of prairie he’s caring for.
Yeah like we’ve got yenno Sprague’s Pipits out here um, Chestnut collared longspur, um yeah like if it wasn’t for these rangelands, them birds don’t have a home. They’re there because of what we’re doing here. So. It’s like a, it’s a coexistence you know, Without this, you can’t have that.
Visitors to this area can be lucky enough to hear the high trilling call of a Sprague’s Pipit, or to see the brown tuxedo worn by a Chestnut Collared Longspur.
For Zane, this isn’t just a job. It’s a lifestyle that he won’t soon abandon.
You got to find a job that you're willing- you're willing and love it enough you’d do it for free. You just got to find somebody stupid enough to pay you to do it.
If I was doing a terrible job, lots of deads, you know, overgrazed, beaten up fields, they’d go, ‘Well, maybe this isn't your calling in life.’
The thing is, this pasture is thriving. It’s no coincidence that producers bring their cattle here to stay with him year after year. He recognizes that there’s value in this land that extends beyond the economic benefits of the community pasture program.
As prairie grasslands continue to be lost across Canada, management success stories like Zane’s become more valuable, and perhaps more rare. His hard work caring for this endangered landscape has far-reaching impacts.
Not only for the human to enjoy, it's what it provides for the wildlife. You know, that's their home as much as it is ours, more so their home. So to me, that's, you know, if we don't have these grasslands here and they’re extinct…
Once you rip it up it's gone. Yenno. If it ain't here for the future, where's it going to be? What are we. What are we going to have? Yenno. I think it's you know, it's something we should we should be managing and keeping around for generations to come. Like without this, what you know, what are you going to have?
In early summer, when the wind blows through the grasses and the birds sing from all around, you can close your eyes and imagine this place as it was thousands of years ago. Thanks to people like Zane, there are still grassland birds to be heard here, elk that roam, and healthy cattle that help keep the prairie thriving.
Where the Bluestem Grows was created by the Nature Conservancy of Canada. Our editor is Ashley Ahearn. Sound design and music by Jordan Jackview.
The audio for this episode was recorded on Treaty 2 land, the traditional territory of the Dakota, Anishinaabe, Anishininiwak, and Ininiwak peoples, and the homeland of the Métis Nation. We are grateful for these lands and their many stewards.
This project was undertaken with the financial support of the Government of Canada through the federal Department of Environment and Climate Change.