In Memoriam
Sid Goodloe (1930-2023)
Native habitat in the West is getting harder and harder to come by. Sid Goodloe was one of the first white men to recognize the importance of grazing for maintaining what was left and restoring some of what has been lost. The West is poorer for his passing, in July of 2023, at the ripe old age of 92.
Sid Goodloe was born in Abilene, Texas, in 1930. Settlers had been busy for two decades turning the land north and west of Abilene upside down, plowing shortgrass prairie into cropland, praying that rain would follow the plow. Having lived through the dust bowl that followed, his life became a master work in atoning for our damage to the High Plains.
For 67 years, Goodloe was owner-operator of the Carrizo Valley Ranch north of Capitan, New Mexico. In 1966, Goodloe took an opportunity to work in Kenya as an adviser to the Range Management Division in the Ministry of Agriculture. In 1967 he traveled to Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) to visit a rancher friend. “We went to a ‘field day’ on a neighboring ranch,” Goodloe wrote in a 2013 history of the development of short duration grazing for Rangelands,“that had invited Allan Savory to be their key speaker.” Savory took Goodloe on a tour of ranches that were implementing early versions of what have come to be called “Savory-method” grazing practices. Upon returning to the U.S. Goodloe produced an article on “Short Duration Grazing in Rhodesia” that was the first introduction of the practices to the rangeland management community in the U.S.
As Savory tells it, “That was how, when I arrived in the US [in 1978], I was confronted with government booklets on the ‘Short Duration Grazing System’… developed in Texas!” Goodloe helped Savory arrange a lecture tour of western range management schools and . Together, these efforts helped bring Allan Savory’s method of rotational grazing to the United States. “I could not fully anticipate that the ensuing interest in this topic would give rise to decades-long discussions,” Sid wrote, “and, at times, vigorous debate that continues to this day.”
Meanwhile, Goodloe implemented short-duration grazing at Carrizo Valley Ranch starting in 1971, and practiced it until his passing. He noted in 2013 that it had led to both a 20% increase in long-range stocking rate and an improvement in range condition and biodiversity.
Goodloe was also president of the Lincoln County Cowboy Symposium for 27 years, striving to promote and protect the ‘cowboy way of life.’ His commitment to the ranching heritage of the American West came from his view that it was compatible, even necessary, for maintaining the ecological health of the region. After all, he had seen it firsthand at Carrizo Valley for half a century. As you’ll read in the pages of this volume, many more people are coming to understand just how important working ranches are for the future of biodiversity in the West.
Goodloe had 22 grandchildren and 13 great grandchildren. He was a good man and a great cowboy. He was committed to his family, his community and his ranch. He loved the land and its inhabitants. He will be greatly missed.
