Room to roam

By Kate Martin

BLUE MOUNTAIN BISON RANCH — Steep, dry hills vaulted by a cloudless blue sky: this is part of the home range of the buffalo.

Also called the American bison, these animals can adapt to many conditions, said Katherine Jonjak, one of the owners of Blue Mountain Bison Ranch.

Ann Montoya, education coordinator for Larimer County, and Jonjak took 12 people on a tour of Jonjak’s bison ranch Saturday. Jonjak said the ranch has about 100 bison. While the property could take more, Jonjak said she wants the land to recover first from the last drought.

Her family is concerned about the land. Houses butt up against her property line, and she said she’s gotten calls from people wanting to buy her land to develop it.

But Jonjak doesn’t have to worry. Her family sold a 4,100-acre conservation easement to Larimer County, forever protecting the land from development.

The ranch is west of Carter Lake Reservoir on County Road 8E and occasionally is open for free tours by Larimer County Parks and Open Lands. In 1989, Jonjak’s relatives bought the ranch and started breeding bison a year later. Jonjak’s family farmed cranberries in Wisconsin.

“We decided to go with bison because they’re a native species, and they’re easier to take care of than cattle,” she said.

On Saturday, most of the buffalo were in the corral, Jonjak said, awaiting their annual vaccinations, deworming and weaning of calves from their mothers.

Otherwise, the buffalo roam the 4,300-acre ranch year round with little interference. Jonjak and her husband manage
the ranch, which mostly involves keeping up the miles-long fence around the property.

About 30 buffalo milled about in a corral Saturday morning. Visitors looked at the beasts in awe as they lumbered around. Occasionally the animals made a low huffing noise and bumped against each other.

“They have an established pecking order,” Jonjak said.

They looked docile, but make no mistake, they’re wild animals, Jonjak told the visitors. Females weigh 900 to 1,100 pounds, and the males from a ton to 3,000 pounds. Their thick fur makes them look massive.

Jonjak rattled off the vitals of the buffalo; females carry one calf a year, the gestation period is about the same as a human’s, they can run faster than 30 mph and jump a 6-foot-high fence from a standstill.

And they can be mean.

“The males are very dangerous in breeding season,” Jonjak said. “And you don’t want to get between a female and her calf.”

Suddenly the green rail gate between the tourists and the buffalo didn’t look all that sturdy.

Visitors then rode to the edge of Jonjak’s property to see the stunning scenery. Denver was under a brown cloud, and down the valley lay Boulder.

“This is an urban area,” she said. “It’s very difficult to raise any product in southern Larimer County.”

Merv Sea of Fort Collins said he enjoyed the tour.

“A lot of this information, I had no idea. I learned a lot about buffalo,” he said. “Or bison.”