Field of Dreams
Stand at one edge of Lost Girl Prairie Ranch and you can gaze out clear across three miles to the other side. All told, the ranch holds 1,300 acres of marshy wetlands and upland savanna. Dozens of cows and their calves browse the grasses, sticking close to the shade of ancient oaks and cabbage palms.
The ranch contains a busy flyway and feeding ground for water-fowl, attracting the greatest variety of diving and dabbling ducks you’ll see anywhere from Tampa to Naples. And with a new golfing community clearing lots across the road, an influx of deer, Osceola wild turkey, and eagles are now being sighted at Lost Girl Prairie Ranch.
There are herds of big ideas roaming around out there, too, and wild flocks of dreams sweep through the air.
“There’s a lot of dreams here, there’s a lot of thinking,” says Jim Strickland, who owns Lost Girl Prairie Ranch with his wife, Julie Morris. “Julie’s dream has been to be a rancher. Her dream has come true—well, not only did her dream come true, but it’s going to be there forever.”
Morris is one of the state’s most respected wildlife ecologists and conservationists, serving as the National Wildlife Refuge Association’s conservation program manager for Florida and the Gulf Coast for the last 10 years. Strickland is a sixth-generation cattle rancher, Audubon Florida’s 2019 “Sustainable Rancher of the Year,” and a new inductee into the Florida Agricultural Hall of Fame. Together, Morris and Strickland form an ardent mutual admiration society. They’ve worked closely on land protection initiatives for nearly a decade, becoming business partners, best friends, and parents to two little girls in that time. Last October, they tied the knot.
“It was a quick courthouse wedding that we decided on that morning,” Morris says. “I think we texted each other, Let’s go down and do it, because we both had a few hours free. So we grabbed Ayla and Sabal, the girls, and we were all able to run down to the courthouse and get it done.”
In founding the Florida Conservation Group, Morris and Strickland have played a hand in helping Florida ranchers maintain their livelihoods and remain on their ranches through conservation easements, in which the state purchases development rights of properties with high conservation value.
“We’re strong proponents of cattle ranching as a land use in Florida because it is so low-intensity, and it’s very compatible with the native landscape and what has historically been here,” Morris says. “As an ecologist and ranchland conservationist, having Lost Girl Prairie Ranch really has helped me do my job better when I’m working with ranchers and understanding where they’re coming from.”
Conservationist Julie Morris and her husband ranch manager Jim Strickland and their kids sabal and ayla on Lost Girl Prairie Ranch
Lost Girl Prairie Ranch also shows where Florida cattle ranching is headed. It’s one of four ranches in the nation that has received a grant to test new technologies in virtual fencing—fences that can’t be blown down or washed out in a tropical storm and can be redrawn anywhere on the property with a few mouse clicks. This major innovation in pasture rotation promotes sustainable management of the ranchland as Morris and Strickland work to restore the ecosystem of native grasses and canes. Lost Girl Prairie Ranch offers an important test of virtual fencing in a wetland environment, which has implications for sustainable ranching practices in other ecologically sensitive places like the Amazon. Within the next year, the ranch will implement new technology for herd welfare that uses artificial intelligence to monitor and alert ranchers when a cow has fallen sick or is ready to calve.
“It takes shiny pennies to be able to keep ranchers sustainable on big landscapes,” Strickland says. “If we do that, then we’ll keep green space. We know development’s coming, but we want a mix of yin with the yang: green space, water purification, oxygen, aquifer recharge, and all those different things that nature provides to the 23 million people who live here in Florida.”
Ultimately, Morris and Strickland dream of Lost Girl Prairie Ranch being a place where eyes are opened. They see the land as a way to engage the community, educate people about conservation and sustainable agriculture, and influence land use and development policy in the region. They can’t wait to start bringing people out to the ranch and show the world what’s possible.
