Dayton O. Hyde
Founder and President
Institute of Range and the American Mustang

Dayton Hyde is a rancher, photographer, essayist and author of 17 books, including “Sandy”, Don Coyote”, and “Yamsi”. Dayton has been called a rancher’s rancher and a naturalist’s naturalist.  He is a man whose wonderful observations bring home the powerful fact that a human being is responsible to the land and is not its master.  All his life his curiosity has compelled him to learn all he could about every creature inhabiting the land he nurtures. As a result, he has become an exceptional self-trained naturalist whose experiences enrich us all. Yamsi, a 6,000 acre working cattle ranch in Oregon’s Klamath Basin, is the setting for Dayton’s lively meditation on what it means to be a rancher in the West in the late twentieth century.  Hard work and hardships at Yamsi coexist with dedication to principles of conservation and sound ecology.  His exuberant, hard-fisted, often humorous portrait of a rancher’s life is told the way it ought to be told.  He now runs The Black Hills Wild Horse Sanctuary, an 11,000-acre ranch in Western South Dakota where he protects wild horses.

For more information about Dayton O. Hyde and his books click here