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Places We Protect

The Matador Ranch

Montana

Brown and black cattle spread out in lines across rolling green hills.
Cattle on the Move Cattle on the move near the Matador Ranch © Ami Vitale

Helping conserve wildlife and family ranching.

Viewing

Overview

Description

Why You Should Visit

Flashes of color reveal birds flitting through waving grass, while pronghorn bound across the landscape as part of a 350-mile migration journey. This is the Matador Ranch, an extraordinary expanse of mixed-grass prairie that is a rare intact jewel among one of the most imperiled natural habitats on the planet.

Where wildlife thrives, so do people. The 60,000-acre ranch is home to The Nature Conservancy’s pioneering grassbank—a unique partnership that offers ranchers grazing access to rich grasses in exchange for adopting sustainable practices on their own property. This promising model of community conservation helps sustain Montana’s cattle ranching heritage and expands the ranch’s conservation influence to well over 170,000 acres.

The ranch is also a research hub, inspiring grassland protection around the world. This advances our global goal of tackling climate change, as undisturbed grasslands store carbon long term in prairie soils, keeping it sequestered underground and out of our atmosphere.

Access

Limited Access

For information and ranch visits, call 406-673-3767.

Explore our work in this region

Closeup of a greater sage-grouse standing on a vast grassland plain.
Greater Sage-Grouse The greater sage-grouse thrives in healthy grassland habitats like those found at the Matador Ranch. © Jeremy Roberts | Conservation Media LLC

At Home on the Matador

  • 52 bird species
  • 3 sage-grouse leks
  • 83 burrowing owl breeding pairs
  • 31 prairie dog towns
  • 2,000 head of cattle

The Grassbank: Protecting a Future for Ranching Families

In 2002, as severe drought gripped eastern Montana, cattle faced starvation and ranchers faced financial ruin. Yet at the Matador Ranch, decades of sustainable grazing had kept forage plentiful. The Nature Conservancy reached out to neighbors with a lifeline—deep discounts on grazing access so ranchers could rest their drought-weary land in exchange for conservation commitments on their own ranches. At a minimum, grassbank users must control noxious weeds and agree not to till up pristine prairie sod on their property. They receive further discounts if they agree to protect prairie dog towns, secure sage-grouse leks, modify fences to prevent wildlife from becoming entangled or protect nature in other ways.

The grassbank has allowed ranchers to broaden their stewardship in ways that increase benefits to wildlife without reducing the already slim profit margins for ranching. This unique partnership has conserved some of the most important remaining habitat in the nation for grassland birds, pronghorn, prairie dogs and sage-grouse.

Uniting to Save the World's Grasslands

Each year, scientists from universities, tribal colleges, state agencies and non-profits across North America, as well as researchers from as far away as Mongolia, come to the ranch to share the latest knowledge and innovations in grassland conservation. Montana landowners and land management agencies are honored attendees at this annual symposium, ensuring our communities benefit from cutting-edge science and best practices that are helping save grasslands around the world. In addition, the ranch has hosted scientists researching animals as diverse as porcupines, fish, beavers, pronghorn and burrowing owls.

Join rangeland ecologist Kelsey Molloy on a virtual wildflower walk.

Matador Ranch

For information and ranch visits:
4883 Ranch Road, Dodson, MT 59524
Ranch office phone: 406-673-3767
Ranch manager’s email: caitlyn.kelly@tnc.org

Wildflower Walks

Join our rangeland ecologist, Kelsey Molloy, as she takes us on a tour of the many wildflowers and other plants blooming in and around TNC’s Matador Ranch, located in Montana’s Northern Great Plains. Watch episode one below.

To see the rest of the season including all 10 episodes, visit the playlist on YouTube.

Wildflower Watch (02:27) Join our rangeland ecologist, Kelsey Molloy, as she takes us on a weekly tour of the many wildflowers and other plants blooming in and around TNC’s Matador Ranch, located in Montana’s Northern Great Plains.
A young boy sits atop a horse and looks over his shoulder while three adults on horseback herd cattle in a wide grassy landscape.
Matador Ranchers Rancher Roan Korman and his family work the herd at Matador Ranch. © Brett Kuxhausen
A pronghorn stands in a wide grassy plain.
Pronghorn Through TNC and partners' efforts at Matador Ranch, species like pronghorn can coexist with ranching and have plentiful habitat to forage and thrive. © Brett Kuxhausen

Listen

Discover how The Nature Conservancy’s first grassbank in Montana got its start in a 2024 interview on the Ranch Stewards podcast.

Visit Our Matador Ranch Story Map

The Nature Conservancy’s pioneering grassbank evolved in 2002 following severe drought, when ranchers were faced with selling off their herds if they couldn’t find grazing. They found grass at the Matador Ranch, a 60,000-acre expanse of extraordinary mixed-grass prairie in north-central Montana. Ranchers were able to rest their drought-weary grazing lands, and a great partnership with our neighbors was born. Through this unique exchange, hundreds of thousands of acres of working lands at the core of Montana’s ranching heritage have become healthier for wildlife, native plants and people.

This story map takes you on a journey through a year of activity at the ranch. Follow the movement of cattle from our participating grassbank ranchers. Enjoy the abundance of wildflowers in spring. Learn about our efforts to reduce barriers to pronghorn migration in the fall. See how native grasses can help in our fight against climate change, and so much more.