Exciting Progress Toward Grassland Protection

Photo of grasslands and thunderhead at Bohart Ranch

Bohart Ranch
© Gifford Ewing

Mititgating the Impact of Colorado's Highways
In February, the Conservancy and the Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT) completed the first of four transactions designed to protect tens of thousands of acres of Colorado’s shortgrass prairie [read press release]. The Shortgrass Prairie Initiative is a joint effort to offset habitat loss caused by future road widening and maintenance activity while safeguarding large blocks of shortgrass prairie, home to a number of "at risk" species.

CDOT is directing funding to recover and preserve critical habitat outside of the state’s major transportation corridors and, in return, will be able to conduct their activities on the prairie over the next 20 years.

This first transaction, a voluntary land preservation agreement, protects approximately 2,400 acres west of Grover and adjacent to the Pawnee National Grasslands. Under the terms of the agreement, the Conservancy will work with the landowners to ensure preservation of the prairie and the continuance of traditional uses of the land.

Preservation of the shortgrass prairie will help protect certain "at risk" species--as determined by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to be in threat of extinction--as well as other species, including the mountain plover, burrowing owl, swift fox, ferruginous hawk and McCown’s Longspur.

Charles Bedford, Heather Knight and Greg Gamble hold GOCO check

Prairie Protection
The Laramie Foothills: Mountains to Plains project aims to conserve approximately 70,000 acres in the Laramie Foothills—creating a corridor between the Front Range and the prairie. The City of Fort Collins, the Conservancy and Larimer County are partnering to conserve a landscape-scale mosaic of ranch lands with significant wildlife, scenic, recreational, agricultural and historical values.

We are already making progress toward this community-based conservation project's goals. First, the board of Great Outdoors Colorado (GOCO) awarded an $11.6 million grant [read press release] to the Laramie Foothills: Mountains to Plains project. This grant is the largest-ever award to a conservation project in Larimer County.

Second, shortly after receiving the award the Conservancy and the Larimer County Open Lands Program acquired Red Mountain Ranch [read press release], the centerpiece of the Laramie Foothills: Mountains to Plains project.