None The Nature Conservancy in Wyoming Press Releases Search All Press Releases Pam Dewell Phone: (307) 335-2133 E-mail: pdewell@tnc.org

Wyoming Game and Fish presents "Landowner of the Year" Award

Conservancy staff member Bob Budd nominated for his work in Fremont County

Lander, WY—August 18, 2004—The Wyoming Game and Fish Department’s management and protection of the state’s wildlife is a visible, tangible effort. Game wardens in the agency’s characteristic red shirts crisscross the state in hunter-green trucks, state signs mark wildlife and habitat management areas, and hunters and anglers tuck licenses bearing the agency’s name into their pockets. But there’s another group of people whose efforts also help Wyoming’s wildlife, although their efforts aren’t always as easily seen.

They are landowners who allow the public access to their property so hunters and anglers can enjoy the wildlife that lives there. Or they allow conservation projects to be built and wildlife to be released on their land. Sometimes, they buy land to preserve it for future generations and educate children on the wise use of resources. It can be an inconvenience, and often it costs money from their own pockets. But for this special group, the rewards are seeing the antelope and deer bound across their land and hearing the elk’s resonating, prehistoric call. They are the state’s Landowners of the Year.

Every time the aspens turn, department biologists and officers recognize seven landowners who’ve managed to harvest crops and run their cattle while helping wildlife. Wyoming’s four-footed and winged populations can’t thank them, but we can.

If the Nature Conservancy’s mission is to preserve plants, animals and natural communities by protecting land and water they need to survive, the 53-year-old group has done its job well in Fremont County. Wildlife there have benefited tremendously from the efforts of the TNC and its science and planning director, Bob Budd.

Budd is involved in a number task forces and working groups and has increased and improved wildlife habitat on TNC properties. Through his direction, beavers have again become a part of improving riparian habitat and during the past three years, he has reduced cattle-stocking rates to prevent range overuse during the drought. He’s also friendly to hunters, anglers and other recreationists, allowing access to TNC land.

In Dubois and Lander, TNC owns several parcels of land and has prevented the loss of about 141,200 acres to subdivisions and other land use. The group protects land by purchasing it and selling it to “conservation buyers,” with restrictions on the deed to prevent it from being subdivided. On other lands, TNC buys a conservation easement and the property is kept by its original owners. Some lands are purchased by TNC and kept in “preserve status,” where habitat is improved but traditional uses, such as grazing and farming, continue.

In the Dubois area, TNC land provides crucial winter range for bighorn sheep, elk, moose and deer and habitat for grizzly bears, moose, pronghorn, raptors and resident and migratory birds.  The Blue Holes area, adjacent to the Wyoming Game and Fish Department’s Whiskey Basin Wildlife Habitat Management Area, was bought by TNC and placed under U.S. Bureau of Land Management jurisdiction via a series of land exchanges. Moose and elk calve on TNC’s upper Winchester property on Horse Creek.

But preserving doesn’t always mean excluding. The old Louisiana Pacific Lumber Mill site along the Wind River is maintained by TNC and provides important public access to anglers. Ways of restoring riparian and upland vegetation lost to logging operations also are being explored.

The TNC’s Red Canyon Ranch in Lander is home to pronghorn, black bears, mountain lions, grouse, chukar and gray partridge and raptors and neotropical migratory birds, such as woodpeckers, warblers, flycatchers, thrushes, sparrows, swallows, vireos, orioles and hummingbirds. It’s also home to an education center visited by hundreds of elementary and high school students every year. Through jaunts onto the ranch property, students learn big game biology, avian and beaver ecology and range management. At a bird banding station on the ranch, the Game and Fish Department, the Red Desert Audubon Society, Partners in Flight and volunteers collect migratory songbird data. The only known population of the endangered plant Barnaby’s clover grows on the ranch’s sandstone cliffs. 

A prime target for subdivisions because of its location, the old Walker Ranch near Table Mountain was bought by TNC. Elk, mule deer and moose winter on the land. Had it been developed, the loss of habitat could have had significantly impacted the South Wind River mule deer herd.

Fish also benefit from TNC’s work in the area. The Sweetwater River Canyon south of Lander is an important fishery bound by the Mormon and Oregon trails, and is important habitat for sage grouse, elk, pronghorn and mule deer, as well as crucial winter range for moose. A valuable stretch of cottonwood riparian habitat along the Wind River on the Winchester Ranch near Diversion Junction is important habitat for bald eagles and other raptors, great blue herons and songbirds.