Social conflict over rangeland-use priorities, especially near protected areas, has long pitted environmental and biodiversity conservation interests against livestock livelihoods. Social–ecological conflict limits management adaptation and creativity while reinforcing social and disciplinary divisions. It can also reduce rancher access to land and negatively affect wildlife conservation. Communities increasingly expect research organizations to address complex social dynamics to improve opportunities for multiple ecosystem service delivery on rangelands. In the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (GYE), an area of the western US, long-standing disagreements among actors who argue for the use of the land for livestock and those who prioritize wildlife are limiting conservation and ranching livelihoods. Researchers at the USDA-ARS US Sheep Experiment Station (USSES) along with University and societal partners are responding to these challenges using a collaborative adaptive management (CAM) methodology. The USSES Rangeland Collaboratory is a living laboratory project leveraging the resources of a federal range sheep research ranch operating across sagebrush steppe ecosystems in Clark County, Idaho, and montane/subalpine landscapes in Beaverhead County, Montana. The project places stakeholders, including ranchers, conservation groups, and government land managers, in the decision-making seat for a participatory case study. This involves adaptive management planning related to grazing and livestock–wildlife management decisions for two ranch-scale rangeland management scenarios, one modeled after a traditional range sheep operation and the second, a more intensified operation with no use of summer ranges. We discuss the extent to which the CAM approach creates opportunities for multi-directional learning among participants and evaluate trade-offs among preferred management systems through participatory ranch-scale grazing research. In a complex system where the needs and goals of various actors are misaligned across spatiotemporal, disciplinary, and social–ecological scales, CAM creates a structure and methods to focus on social learning and land management knowledge creation.

African swine fever (ASF) is a highly contagious swine disease with high mortality. In many countries, culling pigs infected and exposed to the ASF virus is mandatory to control the disease, which poses a real challenge in the disposal of large numbers of carcasses during ASF outbreaks. Shallow burial with carbon (SBC) Thanks ew mortality disposal method developed from deep burial and composting. The present study investigates the effectiveness of SBC in disposing of ASF virus-infected pigs. The real-time PCR results showed that DNA of the ASF virus was still detected in bone marrow samples on day 56, while the virus isolation test revealed that the infectious ASF virus was destroyed in both spleen and bone marrow samples on day 5. Interestingly, decomposition was found to occur rapidly in these shallow burial pits. On day 144, only large bones were found in the burial pit. In general, the results of this study indicated that SBC is a potential method for the disposal of ASF-infected carcasses; however, further studies are needed to provide more scientific evidence for the efficacy of SBC in different environment conditions.

Identifying and ensuring the inactivation of the African Swine Fever virus in deadstock is a gap in the swine industry’s knowledge and response capabilities. The results of our study demonstrate that ASFv in deadstock was inactivated using static aerated composting as the carcass disposal method. Replicated compost piles with whole market hogs and two different carbon sources were constructed. In-situ bags containing ASFv-infected spleen tissue were placed alongside each of the carcasses and throughout the pile. The bags were extracted at days 0, 1, 3, 7, 14, 28, 56, and 144 for ASFv detection and isolation. Real-time PCR results showed that DNA of ASFv was detected in all samples tested on day 28. The virus concentration identified through virus isolation was found to be below the detection limit by day 3 in rice hulls and by day 7 in sawdust. Given the slope of the decay, near-zero concentration with 99.9% confidence occurred at 5.0 days in rice hulls and at 6.4 days in sawdust. Additionally, the result of virus isolation also showed that the virus in bone marrow samples collected at 28 days was inactivated.