Across Wyoming’s Green River Basin, grazing pronghorn and vibrating drill rigs cast shadows on the horizon. These unlikely neighbors illustrate a common land-management conundrum: how to plumb natural gas fields while limiting damage to wildlife and habitat. For energy companies and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), which manages and sells oil and gas leases on publicly owned land in Wyoming and across the country, one collaborative mitigation effort points the way forward. This effort involves Jonah Field, a 30,000-acre natural gas field operated by Encana Oil and Gas and BP America Production Co.

To compensate for habitat loss at Jonah Field, the companies agreed to finance a $24.5-million mitigation fund that will be managed by a new governmental entity called the Jonah Interagency Mitigation and Reclamation Office.

The BLM turned to TCF to lead the initial conservation real estate deal using Jonah Interagency Office funds. Acting on the results of a conservation model, the BLM sought to protect land that is rich in critical wildlife habitat yet unsuitable for drilling.

Outcome Highlights

We conserved more than 9,000 acres of habitat along rivers, lakes and streams for a wide variety of wildlife using the Jonah mitigation funds, including land on Cottonwood Ranches, Carney Ranch and MJ Ranch.

Cottonwood Ranches

In west-central Wyoming, the 75,000-acre Cottonwood Ranches owned by cattle rancher Freddie Botur sustained his family’s way of life for years. The same land is home to a rich variety of wildlife, from the native trout that thrive in Cottonwood Creek to the mule deer, moose, elk and pronghorn antelope that use the land as a migration corridor. Healthy populations of sage grouse, burrowing owls and other raptors also flourish there. But gas exploration in the area led to increased residential and industrial development, posing a threat to the traditional way of life of the Boturs and other ranching families.

The Conservation Fund, along with the Wyoming Stock Growers Agricultural Land Trust, worked with the Botur family to place conservation easements on more than 4,600 acres of their property. Funding for the easements came from the Jonah Interagency Office, Wyoming Wildlife and Natural Resource Trust, The Nature Conservancy through a grant from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and the Wyoming Governor’s Big Game License Coalition.

The three easements ensure permanent protection against non-ranching development for prime sage grouse habitat along rivers, lakes and streams, and also improve habitat conditions for a wide variety of wildlife on more than 25,000 acres of adjacent land owned by the BLM.

Thanks to this partnership, Freddie Botur has been able to make improvements to his cattle ranching operation, which include installing pipelines, replacing antiquated head gates, building wildlife-friendly fencing and instituting progressive grazing management techniques that benefit wildlife and his herd. In exchange, the public is now assured that the ranch will stay intact and be available for wildlife and agriculture forever.

Carney Ranch

Carney Ranch forms the most important piece of the Path of the Pronghorn’s “funnel bottleneck,” which allows for pronghorn antelope to migrate from as far north as Grand Teton National Park. The property features the only bottleneck occurring on private lands — and the most vulnerable.

We completed a conservation easement with the Carney family that protects the northernmost 2,400 acres of Carney Ranch, located at the head of the Upper Green River Valley in Sublette County, by preventing future development of the land and ensuring its sound management.

This project protects the pronghorn and a working cattle ranch — two icons of the American West. The ranch property and the entire Upper Green River Valley boast some of the highest quality habitat and open space in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, and we want to thank our numerous partners for continuing to support the conservation of this important landscape for future generations.

We purchased the easement using funding from the Jonah Interagency Office, the Wyoming Landscape Conservation Initiative, the Wyoming Wildlife and Natural Resources Trust, and Acres for America, a partnership established between Walmart Stores Inc. and the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation. The Nature Conservancy, through a grant from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, provided additional funding for the easement.

MJ Ranch

Building on the success of the Cottonwood Ranches project, we helped complete a conservation easement on MJ Ranch, a family-owned working ranch southeast of Boulder.

The Jonah Interagency Office and the Wyoming Game and Fish Department identified the MJ Ranch as a top conservation priority. We worked with the ranch owners to place more than 2,000 acres of the property under a conservation easement, while the Wyoming Game and Fish Department developed habitat enhancement plans for the land.

Our mitigation work in the region continues. With our partners, we strive to balance the protection of nature with the development of new energy resources for the nation’s businesses and homes.