Ashly Steinke

Ashly Steinke is the Wisconsin Grassland Ecologist for Audubon Great Lakes and leads the Audubon Conservation Ranching (ACR) program in Wisconsin. In his role, he works with beef grazers starting in the Driftless and Central Wisconsin to enroll in the program by establishing and/or improving grassland bird habitat on their ranches. He will also provide technical assistance regarding implementation of grassland bird habitat and pasture restoration to other grazers. Ashly will be helping build an Audubon Great Lakes grassland bird initiative in Wisconsin with ACR and other future opportunities.

Ashly is a grazier and owner of Sedge Wood Farms that utilizes management intensive grazing for the benefit of healthy livestock, healthy soils, and quality wildlife habitat with an emphasis on grassland bird and invertebrate communities. Ashly previously worked as a county conservationist for Taylor County Land Conservation Department and also helped facilitate the translocation of Greater Prairie Chickens from Western Minnesota to the Buena Vista Grasslands of central Wisconsin. Earlier in his career, Ashly was a special projects coordinator for Wisconsin Waterfowl Association where he worked with private landowners to restore wetland and native grassland habitats.

Ashly has an undergraduate degree in Wildlife from the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point.  He also completed his M.S. in Wildlife and Fisheries Sciences from South Dakota State University where he studied Merriam's Wild Turkeys in the Black Hills of South Dakota.  Ashly's love for prairie, grassland and wetland ecosystems, and the wildlife that call them home, has led to his family practicing regenerative agriculture on their all-grass farm in west central Wisconsin just outside of Chippewa Falls.