Wyoming Featured Partner

In Wyoming, the BLM manages 18 million acres of public land, often with help of partners.  Whether they’re helping to determine eagle populations, building wildlife-friendly fences, or providing water sources for wild horses, our partners are essential.  Working with partners, including government agencies, schools, businesses, and community organizations, strengthens the connections to Wyoming and helps us accomplish common goals.

Featured Partner Story: Buffalo and Lander Field Offices Partner with Wyoming Conservation Corps for Sage-Grouse and Riparian Habitat Improvement Projects

Two large conservation projects on Wyoming’s public lands this summer further enhanced high-quality sage-grouse and riparian habitat.  This was the eighth year that the BLM partnered with Wyoming Conservation Corps (WCC), Devon Energy and the Wyoming Office of State Lands and Investments (OSLI) to improve Wyoming’s public lands. 

The Buffalo Field Office, WCC and Devon Energy’s Gillette field office worked on a 10-day preservation, restoration and education project in Burnt Hollow in the Powder River Basin.  The partners thinned encroaching juniper to improve sage-grouse habitat function in the North Gillette Core Area, part of a multi-year effort across the northern Powder River Basin.

The Lander Field Office also partnered with Devon, WCC, and OSLI on another 10-day conservation project within core sage-grouse habitat in the Wind River Basin.  The project entailed fencing off a riparian area where active head cutting was resulting in the loss of soil and organic materials in the system and threatening the meadow’s ability to hold water.  Now that fences have excluded grazing pressure, staff can re-contour and reseed the riparian area where elk, deer and antelope also live. 

As part of a second riparian enhancement project on public land, WCC crew members felled beetle-killed trees over a route that livestock were using to trail up Green Mountain.

“Anything we can do to stabilize and improve riparian areas will be valuable to wildlife, including Greater Sage-grouse,” said Supervisory Rangeland Management Specialist Curtis Bryan of the Lander Field Office.

Devon Energy supported the 2015 partnership with a $30,000 donation for the two projects.  Devon also hosted an education day to teach University of Wyoming students about energy development in Wyoming, including a field and drilling rig tour, as well as discussions about safety, the area’s geologic formations, how oil and gas are produced, and how to partner with the federal government on public lands.