The Rocky Mountain Elk
Foundation has reported its fourth land protection project in Wyoming this
year, bringing this year’s total of permanently-protected habitat to 6,873
acres and open or improved public access to 12,620 acres.
“We salute the Grzybowski family for working
with us to permanently protect habitat that is so crucial for elk and other
wildlife,” said Kyle Weaver, RMEF president and CEO in a news release. “This
conservation easement ensures that nearby development pressure will not spread
to this landscape.”
According to RMEF, the 432-acre property is
located in the Little Laramie River watershed just east of the Snowy Range
Mountains and provides year-round habitat for elk and moose as well as important
winter range for elk and mule deer.
This project is adjacent to two conservation
easements totaling 2,091 acres completed earlier this year by RMEF, landowners
and partners. Three additional conservation easements completed in prior years
by RMEF and other land trusts, as well as interspersed state and federal
parcels, knit together a protected landscape of more than 11,000 acres.
Additionally, the easements in the Little
Laramie Valley protect essential lands for mule deer within Wyoming Game and
Fish Department’s Sheep Mountain Mule Deer Initiative area, and provide crucial
winter range and key transitional habitats as mule deer move across the private
lands to summer in the national forest.
In March, RMEF worked with the Wyoming Office of
State Lands and Investments, and additional partners to protect 4,350 acres of
wildlife and riparian habitat within the Grand Canyon of the Black
Hills near the South
Dakota-Wyoming border.
