A nonprofit conservation group is paying Wyoming cattle ranchers for internet hosting elk herds on their land. The initiative led by the Better Yellowstone Coalition is billed as an effort to scale back the state’s reliance on elk feedgrounds, which may be breeding grounds for power losing illness. Funds for wildlife tolerance are a transfer that’s changing into extra frequent within the West and has large attraction for landowners, but in addition offers some public hunters pause.
The Better Yellowstone Coalition, Wyoming Fish and Sport Division, and the Knobloch Household Basis initiated the primary “elk occupancy agreements” in 2019. The GYC manages two agreements in Teton County and not too long ago added a brand new take care of Spring Creek Ranch in Lincoln County.
“The true purpose is to facilitate closing feedgrounds and to create a mannequin to point out ranchers who’ve properties: Right here’s an possibility the place you may get paid,” Knoblach Household Basis director Steve Sharkey advised Wyofile.
An elk occupancy settlement is a voluntary short-term habitat lease designed to enhance tolerance for ranging elk on non-public land. Ranchers who permit elk to winter on non-public lands obtain financial compensation to cowl the price of cattle relocation, feeding bills, and infrastructure modifications comparable to let-down fences, which may be laid down to permit elk to maneuver freely. The Wyoming Sport and Fish Division helps the agreements and has integrated them into the Wyoming Elk Feedground Administration Plan.
“These voluntary agreements incentivize ranchers to supply essential, unobstructed habitat for elk and different wildlife on non-public land whereas lowering competitors between elk and cattle, a win-win for wildlife and landowners,” the GYC says on its web site.
One other facet of elk occupancy agreements is that they compensate ranchers for retaining their livestock out of areas that WGFD identifies as “essential winter vary” for giant recreation. This enables elk to browse their method by the powerful winter months with out competitors from cattle, whereas additionally retains home cattle from intermingling with brucellosis-infected elk.
Wyoming is the one state with an elk feedground program, and wildlife managers have relied on them to assist elk survive harsh winters since 1912. WGFD at the moment operates over 20 feedgrounds that serve roughly 20,000 elk within the western a part of the state.
These state-run feedlots present supplemental feed — usually alfalfa pellets or hay — when heavy snow cowl makes pure forage laborious to return by. Feedgrounds additionally assist preserve elk herds from invading non-public lands, the place they’ll co-mingle with cattle and eat by a rancher’s grass and hay.
Whereas Wyoming’s feedground program is deeply embedded within the state’s strategy to elk administration, this system got here beneath heavy fireplace when an grownup cow elk discovered lifeless on the Scab Creek feedground in December 2024 examined constructive for CWD. Lifeless contaminated elk had been additionally discovered within the Dell Creek and Black Butte feedgrounds. CWD is at all times deadly and spreads shortly in concentrated elk and deer populations
Paying ranchers to tolerate, and even welcome elk grazing on their property, isn’t a brand new thought within the West. One other Bozeman-based nonprofit, the Property and Surroundings Analysis Heart, launched Montana’s “Elk Hire” program in November 2023. This system pays ranchers based mostly on the period and variety of elk on their property in the course of the winter months. It makes use of path cameras and synthetic intelligence to trace elk and calculate payouts. Not like conservation easements, which completely prohibit land growth, “Elk Hire” presents landowners the pliability to reassess participation every season.
These packages are at the moment being funded by non-public donors. Nonetheless, it might be one other for elk administration in areas the place winter vary and cattle ranches coincide. WDFG’s elk feeding value taxpayers a whopping $3.1 million in 2022. If Wyoming might divert these funds from its feedground packages to native ranches, proponents say, it might be a win-win for wildlife and ranchers.
“The ranch has been with my household for nearly 100 years, and I would like it to remain that method for one more 100,” Luke Lancaster, proprietor of Spring Creek Ranch, advised GYC. “To not have to fret about elk in with cattle and a constructive brucellosis check is a large aid. This settlement actually secures the way forward for our ranch.”
In the meantime, some hunters really feel uneasy about such packages. The growth of the cash-for-wildlife-occupancy mannequin has involved hunters coping with an identical program in Montana. Some are anxious public funds could be tapped for funds, and others are involved such funds would possibly incentivize landowners to harbor elk on their lands to be able to qualify for additional cash funds.
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“We recognize … revolutionary makes an attempt to encourage private-land conservation, however we don’t imagine that wildlife tolerance essentially warrants financial compensation,” Jake Schwaller, board member of the Montana Chapter of Backcountry Hunters & Anglers, advised OL final yr. “The ‘Elk Hire’ pilot program is intriguing, however we query the scalability and fear concerning the precedent this may occasionally set.”
