The Hellyers take pride in their livestock and land management programs and those efforts have carried over to benefit wildlife throughout their deeded and leased public lands.

The Hellyers run a cattle operation with its main base along Willow Creek south of Lander. In the summertime, they run cattle on their Burnt Ranch property along the Sweetwater River in southern Fremont County. The ranch is comprised of 7,100 acres of deeded land as well as many more thousands of acres of state and federal leases. The ranch supports mule deer, white-tailed deer, pronghorn, elk, moose, sage grouse, pheasant, chukar, Hungarian partridge, and every form of waterfowl that flies through the region.

The Hellyers consistently make improvements throughout their holdings and public land pastures to benefit wildlife including fence modifications, water storage improvements, and riparian protection. It is clear when working with them that they hold wildlife and Wyoming’s wild places in high regard.

The Hellyers recognize the value of high quality wildlife habitat, and have worked with the Department in partnership with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Partners for Fish and Wildlife Program in order to remove encroaching juniper from sagebrush habitat. The project is designed to enhance sagebrush and bitterbrush habitat for sage grouse, mule deer, and pronghorn antelope on the fringes of Table Mountain which is classified as crucial winter range for mule deer.

The Burnt Ranch property along the Sweetwater River also supports a unique assemblage of trout and native fish species. The Hellyers have restored approximately 12,100 feet of altered river channel to its historic channel using a series of dikes, instream structures, and irrigation headgate repairs.