Posted on 05/12/2026 10:42:38 AM PDT by CondoleezzaProtege
Ted Turner helps a biologist release a couple of wolves on his Ladder Ranch, New Mexico, property in 1998.
Over the course of his long life, media mogul and philanthropist Ted Turner bought vast stretches of land in Colorado, New Mexico, Montana and Nebraska and managed them for conservation. That work is expected to continue, even after Turner’s death on May 6 at age 87.
One of the Turner family’s largest properties, the 363,000-acre Armendaris Ranch in south-central New Mexico, is shielded from development by the nation’s second-largest permanent conservation easement. According to a statement on Turner Enterprises’ website, the rest of the roughly 2 million-acre ranchland empire will “continue to be protected, limiting future development and parcellation.”
“Turner Ranches, the Turner Foundation and his other nonprofits intend to do stewardship and restoration on those lands,” said Jonathan Hayden, executive director of New Mexico Land Conservancy, which holds the conservation easement on the Armendaris Ranch. Turner “will be known for being an innovator in the conservation space and being willing to try new things, from reintroducing desert bighorn to bison restoration — things that take a lot of capital and vision.”…
Turner’s ranches also concentrated on economic output, raising upward of 45,000 bison, as well as hosting sustainable timber harvest and high-end guided hunting, fishing and ecotourism…
“He understood from a practical standpoint that commerce and conservation have to go hand in hand,” said Lesli Alison, CEO of Western Landowners Alliance. “If commerce is pitted against conservation, nature will lose every time.”
(Excerpt) Read more at hcn.org ...
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He probably left it to his Chicom pals
The largest private landholder in the US whose properties will be sold by his estate. Many ranches including producing Bison ranches still siring many other smaller operations. It was and is a business. And, they will be sold. Big deal.
Captain Outrageous well known to Georgia/Atlanta people who know what is what. Why the surprise? Knee jerk is no way to go through life. His daddy killed himself while running the huge billboard company Turner Billboards. Ted took over flipped the cash rich biz to buy the Braves, SuperStation 17, created CNN (and forced revenues to be paid to have their content played in all his democrat arranged US and foreign airports— have to listen to the crap they put out for years. Not too much longer-they are going away- dissolving revenue unsupportable).
Bison meat runs in excess of 32$/lb and up, from anywhere. Oh, and he married that humping moron and VC Commie supporter mindless Jane Fonda, a festering bacterial/fungal infection of feminism.
“Huge tracts o’ land”
mark
The third castle burned down, fell over. Then sank into rhe swamp. But the fourth one stayed!!!
Dang!
You beat me to it...
Pay no property tax. Tax them.
They make it sound good, because they under estimate the need for management, and so did Turner. His role in the reintroduction of wolves has been catastrophic to that supposed marriage of conservation and productivity.
Yikes. You’re right, to an average layperson it does sound good on paper. But I guess not?
What will Robert Edward IV say about it?
In 2013, Robert Edward Turner IV ran as a Republican in the South Carolina congressional primary for the seat vacated by Tim Scott, finishing fourth with 7.90% of the vote. He cites his experiences in the Soviet Union and concerns over the federal budget deficit as key motivators for his conservative views.
I knew he had a big ranch in Montana, but I didn’t about his other western properties, his land, his environmental stewardship, and wildlife conservation efforts. That’s wonderful. Anything to keep the whole nation from getting paved over and stuffed with windmills and solar cells has my approval.
We visited my mom’s folks and dad’s brother’s family in Idaho a lot in the 50s and 60s. Back then, the west still had lots of remnants of the Old West...sleepy western towns, uncrowded, that had not changed a whole lot in 80 or 90 years. It’s changed a lot. That world is gone.
He and Jane had the good sense to rename the plantation “Avalon” in order to disassociate the property from original sin so that Hollywood and other liberals could visit guilt-free.
I see the media refer to the plantation as a “ranch” in noting his passing and refer to the columned plantation mansion as a “Colonial Revival home.”
The media rightly did not refer to the former mistress of the plantation - Jane Fonda - as a southern lady.
YOU HAVE PERFECTLY DESCRIBED FONDA
,,, I’m sure Turner scored thousands of acres in Patagonia as well.
“I knew he had a big ranch in Montana”
I can see his Flying D Ranch from my south facing windows - it’s about 30 miles from here. The public has alway been allowed to drive around the 110,000+ acres and gaze at the wildlife.
Drive around his property on his property?
110,000 acres — just staggering. We love visiting the 19,000 acre Bison Range owned and run by the Confederated Salish Kootenai Tribes an hour north of Missoula. It’s a great place to visit if you haven’t been there.
The better side of Ted, clearly took after another Ted - Teddy Roosevelt - who graced us with the National Park system as part of his legacy.
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