Rancher says Manatee County faces key conservation decisions Myakka's Jim Strickland says Florida is headed toward ecological disaster if the public doesn't deal with important issues now. By Jay Heater | 5:00 a.m. January 17, 2024 Myakka Rancher Jim Strickland says...
FOXX 13-Tampa Bay | Hundreds of Florida ranchers push for conservation easements to prevent climate change
Watch Broadcast https://www.fox13news.com/news/hundreds-of-florida-ranchers-push-for-conservation-easements-to-prevent-climate-change By Lloyd Sowers Published December 19, 2023 5:16PM DeSoto County TALLAHASSEE, Fla. - The cows, fields and farms in Florida are often...
‘Invisible Fence’ Keeps Cattle On Ranch, Helps Protect Environment
Published in Where the Food Comes From by WTFCF Staff | Oct 25, 2023 Go to Article in wherethefoodcomesfrom.com For decades, Jim Strickland has managed and operated Blackbeard’s Ranch in Myakka City. As much as he cares about his cattle, he sees himself as an...
Rescuing ‘wild Florida’ – by saving cattle ranches
Christian Science Monitor By Stephanie Castellano, Contributor August 22, 2023 | GAINESVILLE, FLA. Go to article on website www.csmonitor.com Some days Wes Carlton wants to turn off his phone. The calls from developers wanting to buy pieces of his four large cattle...
Myakka City cattle rancher holds on to Florida’s past while riding into the future
"So we have to save some of these cattle ranches, timberlands, agricultural areas for all those benefits we get from those greenspaces in those areas," Strickland said. "But one of the things that keeps it that way is agriculture. The products we grow, but also the...
FloridaTrend: The Horse Creek Ranch Conservation Easement Deal
FloridaTrend | SPOTLIGHT | August, 2023, Art Levy The Horse Creek Ranch Conservation Easement Deal, costing $51 million and spanning more than 16,000 acres across DeSoto and Hardee counties, ranks as one of Florida’s biggest single conservation agreements in 20 years....
State agrees to protect nearly 40,000 acres of environmentally sensitive lands
WUSF Public Media - WUSF 89.7 | By Steve Newborn Published May 23, 2023 at 6:32 PM EDT LISTEN • 1:08 Florida Forever / Grubb Ranch in Hardee County Gov. Ron DeSantis and the Florida Cabinet on Tuesday voted to spend around $100 million to help protect nearly 40,000...
Destiny’s death buys time for a Florida frontier and the birth of conservation movements
WUSF Public Media - WUSF 89.7 | By Kevin Spear - Orlando Sentinel Published December 28, 2021 at 5:00 AM EST Kevin Spear / Orlando Sentinel The vast expanse of wildlands between Central and South Florida was given a second chance for conservation when, in the heart of...
Florida Trend, Jim Strickland
Florida Trend, November, 2022 Interview by Art Levy Jim Strickland Rancher, Myakka City I’m 67 years old, and at age 7, I wanted to be what I am now. I always just wanted to be on a horse. My dad was my hero. Dad was smart. He was entrepreneurial. He was a cattleman....
Meet the Cattle Ranchers Working to Preserve Southwest Florida’s Wild Side
Southern Living, March 21, 2022, By Kaitlyn Yarborough Photos by Brown Cannon As the population of southwestern Florida rises at an unsustainable rate, nearby cattle ranchers are among those fighting to protect the biodiversity of the historic Myakka River Valley....
The First American Cowboys
Flamingo by CRAIG PITTMAN OCTOBER 18, 2021 Read Full Article on Flamingo Florida cattle ranchers hold fast to a 500-year-old American tradition that began in our state and is helping to save its remaining green spaces. On a steamy August morning, as the temperature...
Ranchers carry on history, family legacies
Fort Myers Florida Weekly October 13, 2021 BY MARY WOZNIAK mwozniak@floridaweekly.com Read full article on Fort Myers Florida Weekly This is a tale of two ranches. They are completely different, but each provides a brief glimpse into the cattle rancher’s way of life...
As Florida marks the half-millennium of cattle ranching this year, the industry tackles challenges from development.
Fort Myers Florida Weekly October 13, 2021 BY MARY WOZNIAK mwozniak@floridaweekly.com Read Full Article on Fort Myers Florida Weekly IT ALL BEGAN THAT WINTER DAY in 1521 when Ponce de León came ashore near Charlotte Harbor on Southwest Florida’s coast, looking to...
Keeping The Country
Bitter Southerner | January 28, 2020 Story by Michael Adno Photography by Michael Adno & Cavin Brothers In southwest Florida, nothing seemed as central to the Myakka River Valley as mystery and myth. Over the course of centuries, the region has remained largely...
Ranchers vs Environmentalists” is a longstanding trope. But in the Sunshine State, ranching just may be the last, best hope for ecological salvation
…Durando, the rancher who helped start the Florida Conservation Group with Strickland, says that managing his land for wildlife also benefits his cows. For example, when he burns to clear brush, high protein grass grows up that benefits his cattle as well as quail,...
Myakka’s Jim Strickland named Sustainable Rancher of the Year by Audubon Florida.
By Pam Eubanks, Senior Editor, YourObserver.com Wearing his cowboy hat, cattle rancher Jim Strickland rolled through pastureland on the 4,500-acre Blackbeard’s Ranch in eastern Manatee County in his pickup truck.He nodded toward the window. About 50 feet away, deer...
Jim Strickland is a sixth-generation cattle rancher who, alongside fellow ranchers in the Sunshine State, is working to preserve Southwest Florida’s natural habitat
By Katelyn Newman for USN&WR Go To Full Story As the sun begins to rise and the mist breaks on a clear Florida morning, wild turkeys, white-tailed deer and pesky feral pigs rummage for breakfast near Sabal palms and hay bales. Less than a football field...
Ranch Near Myakka River State Park Will Be Preserved Under Conservation Easement
By Zac Anderson Nearly 1,500 acres of cattle ranch close to Myakka River State Park will be protected from development and restored to native habitat after the federal government recently signed off on a conservation easement for the site. The National Resources...
Cattle ranches keep development from wiping out Florida’s beautiful ‘wild places’
I am a sixth-generation Floridian and third-generation Florida cattle rancher. My grandfather founded our ranch, Williamson Cattle Company, in the 1940s. Our family-run ranch is located in Okeechobee County, the heart of Florida’s cattle county. Many people don’t...
Trying to Save Florida’s Landscape
By Zac Anderson ~ Sitting in an open air chickee hut with expansive views of the pastures and pine forests on his ranch bordering Myakka River State Park, Jim Strickland points to a tree line in the distance toshow where a golf course once was planned.Before...
Another Perspective: Florida ranchlands protect the Everglades headwaters
By Zac Anderson ~ My family has been in the cattle business in Florida for multiple generations. As ranchers, we have an obligation to care for the land that is entrusted to us. Our ranch south of Orlando is in an area known as the Everglades Headwaters. This...
State funding in jeopardy for land conservation programs
By Zac Anderson ~ That’s the status of funding for the Rural and Family Lands Protection and Florida Forever programs as the current state legislative session nears an end on Friday. Julie Morris, a Florida Conservation Group adviser and board member, said neither the...
Tommy Clay Jr.: Preserving land and saving farms
By Zac Anderson ~ My family has raised cattle in northeast Florida since 1854. We consider ourselves blessed to be stewards of this beautiful land for eight generations. We have recently secured a conservation easement on our property, and that assures the land will...
State funding in jeopardy for land conservation programs
By Cleveland Tinker ~ A state land conservation program may not receive funding for the first time since it was created by the Florida Legislature and another may only receive a fraction of what it used to get before the recession hit in the late 2000s. That’s the...