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What Audubon and Northern Everglades ranchers were trying to accomplish
Audubon Florida’s August 2013 account described a collaboration built around two linked goals: keeping important habitat in private ranch ownership and managing water so cattle production could coexist with the needs of the Everglades watershed. The setting was a working landscape, not a preserve established solely for wildlife. Ranchers continued raising cattle while adapting pasture and drainage infrastructure to retain water and moderate nutrient movement.
At a luncheon hosted on August 20, 2013, by Darden Restaurants with the Florida Cattlemen’s Association and the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, Audubon Florida Executive Director Eric Draper introduced Rafter T representatives Case Wohl and Bob Mayworth. The event was the public setting for recognition of Rafter T’s conservation work in the Northern Everglades. Audubon’s story was published August 21, 2013.
The collaboration did not begin with that luncheon. Audubon’s regional cooperation with ranchers reaches back more than five decades before the award, when the organization worked with cattle owners to protect bald eagles on the Kissimmee Prairie. The 2013 event therefore marked recognition of an ongoing relationship rather than the launch of a new sustainability campaign.
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How Rafter T Ranch managed wet-season water
Audubon’s 2011 field account of the Wohl family’s Rafter T Ranch explains the mechanics of the featured project. The ranch used its low-lying pastures as temporary storage areas during Florida’s rainy season. Instead of allowing all incoming water to move quickly through the drainage network, the system held water on the ranch and released it in a controlled sequence.
- Capture: Rainwater accumulated in low-lying pasture areas during the wet season.
- Set a release level: When the water reached a predetermined elevation, it moved over flashboard risers—adjustable boards in a water-control structure.
- Route to additional management areas: The controlled flow entered other water-management areas rather than surging immediately downstream.
- Allow some natural drainage: Part of the water flowed toward Arbuckle Creek, while the rest remained in the ranch’s managed system.
- Recharge a wetland area: Water from the management areas was eventually pumped into a downstream wetland rehydration area.
The arrangement was intended to slow the movement of water carrying elevated nutrient levels. Audubon paid particular attention to the early wet-season “first flush,” when the first heavy rains can wash accumulated nutrients from soil and vegetation into streams. Holding that water on the ranch gave algae, pasture grasses and soil more opportunity to take up nutrients before the water moved onward.
Why the first flush matters
The first flush is a timing problem as much as a volume problem. Nutrients that build up during drier periods can be mobilized rapidly when intense rain begins. A ranch that temporarily stores this initial runoff can spread the release over a longer period and direct water through areas where plants and soils can absorb some of the load. The Rafter T description presents that as the project’s intended function; it does not provide a verified percentage reduction in nutrients or a measured improvement in creek or lake water quality.
Water storage also supports habitat goals
Keeping water in pasture depressions and management areas can maintain wetter conditions for longer periods and supply water to a rehydration area downstream. Those hydrologic benefits are part of why Audubon treated ranch infrastructure as conservation infrastructure. The account describes the pathway and purpose, but it does not report a project-specific bird census, nutrient sampling result or other quantified ecological outcome.
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What the 2013 Sustainable Rancher Award meant
In an April 2013 announcement, Audubon said Jimmy Wohl received its first Sustainable Rancher of the Year Award for stewardship and conservation in the Northern Everglades. The announcement credited his work to store and clean water through the Florida Ranchlands Environmental Services Program and the Payment for Environmental Services program.
Those names describe voluntary, service-based conservation approaches: a rancher undertakes management that benefits the wider watershed or wildlife system, and the value of that service can be supported through a program or payment arrangement. The award recognized the conservation effort. It was not a certification of Rafter T beef, a label guaranteeing that every animal met a particular feeding standard, or proof of a measured water-quality result.
A conservation relationship that started before 2013
A U.S. House Committee on Natural Resources hearing record recounts the earlier history. It says Audubon began cooperative bald-eagle sanctuary work with Kissimmee Valley cattle ranchers in 1961. By October 1962, the voluntary sanctuary network included 59 ranch properties covering 600,000 acres.
That figure belongs to the historical enrollment described in the 2012 hearing record. It is not a current acreage total and should not be read as the amount of land protected by today’s programs. Its importance is chronological: ranchers and Audubon were already using voluntary agreements to protect wildlife on working land decades before the Rafter T water project or the 2013 award.
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| Date | Milestone | What the record establishes |
|---|---|---|
| 1961 | Bald-eagle cooperation begins in the Kissimmee Valley | Audubon and cattle ranchers start cooperative sanctuary work. |
| October 1962 | Voluntary sanctuary network expands | 59 ranch properties and 600,000 acres are reported in the House hearing record. |
| 2011 | Rafter T field account | Audubon describes pasture storage, flashboard risers, managed areas and pumping to a wetland rehydration site. |
| April 2013 | Jimmy Wohl receives Audubon’s first Sustainable Rancher of the Year Award | The announcement credits water storage and cleaning through Florida environmental-services programs. |
| August 20–21, 2013 | Recognition at the Darden-hosted luncheon and publication of Audubon’s story | Rafter T representatives are presented as the Northern Everglades sustainability example. |
| April 7, 2026 | Audubon announces broader Conservation Ranching growth | The figures apply to the organization’s program nationally, not specifically to the Northern Everglades. |
Do not confuse the award with Bird-Friendly Land certification
Audubon’s current consumer-facing certification is a separate system from the 2013 Sustainable Rancher Award. The certification is called Bird-Friendly Land and covers four standard areas:
- Habitat management for wildlife and ecological function.
- Forage and feeding practices on the ranch.
- Animal health and welfare.
- Environmental sustainability.
Food Alliance conducts third-party verification for the certification program. Products carrying Audubon’s consumer seal come from certified ranches, but the seal does not mean the beef is automatically 100 percent grass-fed or grass-finished. Audubon says those characteristics vary by ranch or brand and must be checked separately on the product’s own labeling.
| Feature | 2013 Sustainable Rancher Award | Bird-Friendly Land certification |
|---|---|---|
| Purpose | Recognize a rancher’s stewardship and conservation work in the Northern Everglades | Verify ranch practices against Audubon’s current standards |
| Example associated with the record | Jimmy Wohl and Rafter T Ranch | Products from certified ranches carrying Audubon’s consumer seal |
| Verification | Award recognition by Audubon | Third-party verification by Food Alliance |
| Grass-fed or grass-finished requirement | Not established by the award | Not required as a universal condition; it varies by ranch or brand |
Because the 2013 article concerns an award and a conservation project, it does not establish that Rafter T beef carried the later consumer seal or met a grass-fed claim. Those are separate questions requiring current product and ranch documentation.
What the current program figures do—and do not—show
Audubon’s April 7, 2026 announcement reported 150 farms and ranches enrolled in its Conservation Ranching program, totaling nearly 4.5 million acres. The same announcement said a new project was expected to enroll 32 additional ranches in 13 states over three years and manage another 500,000 acres.
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These are dated, program-wide figures. They are not a Northern Everglades tally and they do not measure the results of the Rafter T installation. Audubon’s ranching-program page, crawled in October 2026, displayed a lower description—more than 100 ranches and nearly 3 million acres. The two figures should not be combined: they reflect different dates or reporting contexts.
The 2026 announcement also quoted Audubon Chief Conservation Officer Marshall Johnson: “Thanks to NFWF and program partners, this project increases the power and profile of voluntary, rancher-led conservation efforts to deliver measurable benefits for working lands, wildlife, and rural communities on half a million acres in America’s Central Grasslands.” That statement refers to the announced Central Grasslands project, not to the 2013 Northern Everglades work at Rafter T.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Why a ranch-based approach can matter in the Everglades
Large ranches occupy a strategic position in the Northern Everglades watershed. Their pastures can either move stormwater rapidly through ditches and creeks or provide room for water to spread, slow and interact with vegetation and soil. Voluntary projects allow conservation groups and ranchers to adapt structures to an operating cattle business rather than removing the land from production.
The approach also recognizes that wildlife habitat is not limited to formally designated parks. Pastures, wetland pockets, prairie and drainage features can provide space for birds and other species when water levels and vegetation are managed appropriately. The bald-eagle sanctuary work documented in the early 1960s and the Rafter T water project illustrate two different conservation needs—species protection and watershed management—addressed through cooperation with landowners.
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How to interpret the evidence about Rafter T
The available accounts support a clear description of the system’s design and intended benefits. They do not support a numerical claim about how many pounds of nutrients were removed, how much water reached Lake Okeechobee, or how bird populations changed after installation. A later South Florida Water Management District inventory lists a project named Rafter T Ranch with an “O&M” status in its 2025 South Florida Environmental Report, but that listing alone does not verify that it is the same installation described by Audubon in 2011 or establish its output in any particular year.
The most defensible conclusion is therefore specific: Rafter T used ranchland to retain wet-season water, control its release and route some of it to wetland rehydration, with the stated aim of reducing nutrient surges and benefiting the watershed. The record does not justify turning that mechanism into a quantified success claim.
What this history means for consumers considering certified beef
Audubon’s consumer program addresses a different question from the 2013 historical story: whether a current product comes from a ranch whose land-management, forage, animal-welfare and environmental practices have been verified. A shopper should look for the Audubon Certified Bird-Friendly seal and then read the product’s own statements for grass-fed, grass-finished, organic, origin and availability claims. The seal alone does not answer all of those questions.
Montana Audubon’s 2024 report offers one example of how certified cattle can enter a market. It described Blue Nest Beef as a nationwide retailer sourcing exclusively from Audubon Certified ranches and reported a pilot involving 63 cull cows from three certified Montana ranches. That pilot is a 2024 report, not a current inventory guarantee, and it does not show that the cattle came from Rafter T or that products are available in every region.
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The practical takeaway
Audubon’s Northern Everglades collaboration shows sustainability as a set of ranch-level decisions: preserve habitat, hold stormwater where pasture and soil can use it, release water through adjustable controls, and work with ranchers through voluntary programs. Rafter T Ranch became the named 2013 example because its water-management design connected cattle production with watershed goals. The award recognized that effort; it did not certify the ranch’s beef. The broader Audubon certification program and its 2026 acreage figures belong to a later, national context and should not be used as proof of measured outcomes at the 2013 project.
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