Landowner of the Year

John and Nancy Joyce’s property is located east of Manderson on the Nowood River. The Joyce’s manage their property with the help of their sons.  The species rich Nowood River meanders through their property for 7 miles supporting a cold and warm water fishery.  The Nowood River supports up to twenty different species of fish including sauger, burbot, flathead chub, mountain sucker, and  smallmouth bass, to name just a few. 

John and Nancy  maintain 1,500 acres of land where they graze sheep and grow crops using water from the Harmony Ditch  diversion off the Nowood River.  In 2006 and 2007 an en-trainment study was completed that esti-mated over 55,000 fish were entrained into the Harmony Ditch each irrigation season and permanently lost from the Nowood River fishery.   

The Joyce’s are conservation minded and wanted to prevent the loss of fish down their canal, allow for year round passage in the Nowood River, and eliminate annual maintenance to divert water.  They collaborated with the Department to develop solutions to meet these goals.  A project was designed that improved fish pas-sage and sediment transport, reduced fish entrainment and annual maintenance, and stabilized approximately 1200 ft of streambank.

The Snake River Ranch has partnered with Game and Fish for nearly 100 years on various projects, is the largest deeded ranch in the Jackson Hole area and is located on the west side of the Snake River.

The ranch was placed under conservation easements in the 1980s to help protect and preserve wildlife and wild places. Most of the land consists of irrigated pasture, which provides food and cover for many wildlife species. It has assisted Game and Fish’s management of private-land elk herds in the Snake River bottom, and in recent years the ranch has hosted a hunt for Wounded Warriors.

The families have provided access to monitor Snake River cutthroat trout, and have worked with Game and Fish and other agencies to better understand fish loss into irrigation ditches and the timing of water delivery. The ranch also works with organizations to improve stream function and riparian habitats along the Snake River.

Buffalo Bill Cody acquired the ranch in the late 1800s and named it the TE Ranch. The Duncan family purchased it in the early 1970s, and the Bales have managed it for more than 20 years. The working cattle ranch is home to numerous big game species including deer, elk and bighorn sheep.

The ranch provides prime winter range for wildlife migrating out of the backcountry, along with summer transitional range.

Owners and managers have willingly allowed Game and Fish personnel access to help manage grizzly bears and wolves that frequent the ranch, and have worked to avoid bear-human conflicts throughout the property. It also has worked with Game and Fish towards brucellosis management.

Bill and Beth White are a father / daughter duo who exemplify the hard work and dedication necessary to be successful ranchers in these challenging times.  The White Ranch encompasses over 6,700 acres along the Tongue River and foothills of the Bighorn Moun-tains near Ranchester.  

The White Ranch has been a key partner with the Sheridan County Weed and Pest as well as the Uni-versity of Wyoming Research Sta-tion to combat invasive grasses in Sheridan County.  Medusahead and Ventenata, invasive non-native grasses, have been spreading rapidly across the county and outcompeting native rangeland grasses.  The White Ranch has been very active mapping out these grass species on Beth White, & Bill White their ranch, as well as providing the University of Wyoming with a research plot to study the effects of different chemical and fire treatments to control these grasses. 

The White Ranch participated in the Dry Fork Riparian Enhance-ment Project, which incorporated both riparian and upland man-agement.  Approximately 580 acres of riparian habitat and 7.4 miles of stream were fenced, reducing grazing pressure on this important habitat. This protected area has been included in the overall management plan of the ranch and an additional 4,200 acres of uplands have also been placed into an intensive livestock grazing system.  The fenced area is managed to maximize woody vegetative growth and improve stream health. 

The nearly 20,000-acre Banner Ranch is located in Natrona and Converse Counties, 10 miles southeast of Casper. The family history of ranching, stewardship, and love of wildlife make them an easy and most deserving selection for this award.

The Banner Ranch has welcomed hunters and anglers for as long as Mike McCleary and Shelly McCleary Trumbull can remember. Their ranch is home to a diversity of wildlife, including pronghorn antelope, mule deer, white-tailed deer, elk, sage grouse, Hungarian partridge, turkey, black bear and mountain lion. Mike and Shelly are always supportive of hunting and believe it is important to maintain healthy wildlife populations. They also understand the goal of hunting and the revenue it brings to the local communities.

During Mike’s early years on the ranch, he can only remember a few elk running around. Today he often enjoys hundreds of elk wintering on Banner Mountain and the surrounding foothills. Banner Ranch continues to support large numbers of wintering elk despite the hardships they cause, especially with fences. Wintering mule deer above the ranch at one time numbered around one to two thousand in the 1970s and early 1980s.

The Banner Ranch has also shown their generosity when they initiated the development of a permanent access easement with the Department allowing fishing access to lower Deer Creek Canyon. This beautiful canyon and pristine stretch of water offers some of the best stream fishing opportunities in all of central Wyoming.

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.

John and Vanessa are the third generation to live and work on the Buyok Ranch near the old mining town of Monarch in Sheridan County.  ohn’s uncle began putting the ranch together in 1946 as coal companies sold off parcels. His uncle finished purchasing the current ranch in 1953 with the closing of the coalmine. John and Vanessa began purchasing portions of the property in 1990 and finished assembling the total acreage in 2006.

The Buyoks are true stewards of the land and have implemented several habitat projects to improve forage and cover for livestock, game animals and game birds. They have added water tanks to distribute livestock grazing and installed fencing to protect sensitive riparian areas.

In 2010, the Buyok’s partnered with the Sheridan Community Land Trust (SCLT) to implement a conservation easement on their property to protect their portion of the Tongue River Valley from development. At the time, it was the largest conservation easement in SCLT history. 

The day the easement was signed, John and Vanessa  said “Although our ranch is small by Wyoming standards, we have been fortunate to share it with an amazing variety of wildlife and native plants. Sometimes being rich has nothing to do with money. We’re rich because of the biodiversity and productivity of our small corner of the planet along the Tongue River in Sheridan County.”

Camp Guernsey is a premier Joint Training Center consisting of more than 78,000 acres of maneuver area, training ranges, and 64 square miles of air space which provide for combined arms training using multiple scenarios over varied terrain.   

Aside from their main duty of training soldiers, Camp Guernsey has been a formal partner of the Department since 2003, when it entered into an agreement to create the “Broom Creek” Hunter Management Area, providing the public with access to hunt pronghorn antelope, deer, elk, mountain lion, predators, turkey, waterfowl, small game, and doves.

The camp is probably best known for its spring turkey hunting. Every spring, numerous  hunters convey onto the camp to try and call a big gobbler within shotgun range. Camp Guernsey’s unique habitat is perfect for Merriam’s turkeys; it has just the right amount of topography, conifer cover, and grasslands needed for them. The camp recently approved the release of 73 Merriam’s turkeys from the Black Hills to help bolster the existing population.

The camp sits within the Rawhide Elk herd unit and provides opportunity for hunters in an area that is 90% private land. The camp also accommodates disabled hunters by sectioning off parcels of land to provide opportunities to harvest mature bulls for hunters confined to wheelchairs.

Camp Guernsey is more than deserving of this award. They are instrumental in our nation’s safety and have been an incredible partner with the Department for over 20 years.

The E.O. Bischoff Ranch has a long history in Lovell and is a family owned ranching operation in northern Big Horn County. They readily allow access on and through their property for a variety of big game and game bird species. Most notably has been their work and cooperation with the Department on the successful management of the prized Devil’s Canyon bighorn sheep herd.

The Devil’s Canyon bighorn sheep herd began to flourish approximately 11 years ago after receiving transplants of bighorn sheep from the Missouri River Breaks in Montana, and reached a high count of 263 sheep in July 2016. The Bischoff’s have worked closely with Department personnel for a series of bighorn sheep transplants out of the Devil’s Canyon herd to augment an existing population of bighorn sheep in the Ferris and Seminoe Mountain Ranges in central Wyoming.

The ranch provides additional hunting and fishing opportunities throughout the year. Access to deeded and public land for mule deer, elk, black bear, and mountain lion hunting in Hannan’s Coulee, Dugan Bench, and Granary Ridge is readily granted as well as some excellent trout fishing in Porcupine Creek within Devil’s Canyon. The E.O. Bischoff Ranch also owns farm ground east of Lovell where they provide access for deer and waterfowl hunters. 

The E.O. Bischoff Ranch has worked cooperatively with the Department to build and maintain strong working relationships. Their cooperation and involvement on wildlife issues, particularly bighorn sheep conservation, should be noted and applauded. The Bischoff’s support for Department projects and wildlife and habitat conservation are commensurable for their recognition as Landowner of the Year.

The Jackson Hole Hereford Ranch (JHHR) was created in the late 1920s by Robert Bruce Porter and remains a family operation to this day. The family takes great pride in being stewards of the land throughout five generations. Robert Gill currently continues the family tradition of running a cow/calf operation with the assistance of his family and a pair of great ranch hands, Steve Hardeman and Alex Renova.

The Gill family and employees of the JHHR clearly demonstrate an understanding of wildlife and their habitat needs. The ranch has allowed the Department to operate an elk feedground on their property through the winter months for the last half century. In recent years, approximately 800 elk utilize the Dog Creek Ranch property owned by the JHHR during the winter feeding season.

The ranch has also been instrumental in assisting the Department’s management of the ever growing private land elk herds in the Snake River Bottom in and around the South Park area.

The JHHR has been more than generous by hosting a Wounded Warriors hunt in recent years. This program gives a veteran injured in service an all expenses paid elk hunt on the ranch. Past recipients of this program have been taken aback by the kindness and generosity  the Gill family and employees of the ranch have shown them.

The Warner family operate the Sage Creek Ranch in southeastern Uinta County. Buzz Warner purchased the Sage Creek Ranch ten years ago, and since then has worked to make it one of the most wildlife friendly landscapes in Wyoming. The Sage Creek drainage is home to nearly every wildlife species found in southwest Wyoming, and provides crucial winter range for hundreds of big game animals each year. Although this drainage has provided quality wildlife habitat for many years, Mr. Warner has changed the landscape on the ranch through projects and livestock grazing practices to greatly improve the wildlife habitat. The amount of time, money and effort Mr. Warner has given to the wildlife of Wyoming in just ten years far exceeds what most people do in a lifetime.
 
Every project Mr. Warner has completed has been geared solely towards aiding  wildlife on the ranch and those benefits have spread to the National Forest lands, BLM lands, and other ranches surrounding his property. One of the first changes Mr. Warner made were to replace nearly every fence on the ranch with wildlife friendly fencing and to limit livestock grazing. Only 80 grazing pairs are allowed on the entire 6,100-acre ranch and they are limited to one small meadow at the lower end of the ranch near the ranch house.             
 
None of the projects  undertaken on the ranch would have been possible without the hard work of Ranch Manager Trevor Gillman. He has put in countless hours working to benefit wildlife that use the Sage Creek drainage. He spends a lot of time away from his family to complete this work at the ranch, and has been highly involved working with the Department on various projects.

Bud and Betty Jean Reed, owners of the 77 Ranch, have actively worked with the Wyoming Game and Fish Department, Office of State Lands and Investments, conservation groups, and others to enhance lands they own or lease.  Their stewardship and love of wildlife make them an easy and most deserving selection for this award.
 
The 77 Ranch was founded in the late 1800s and has a rich history of record sized roundups, gunfights and over 140 years of raising cattle wearing the 77 Brand.  The brand is believed to be among the oldest in the state of Wyoming.  The previous owner, A.A. Spaugh, lead the largest roundup ever recorded in Wyoming near Hat Creek in 1884.  Other notable historic events involving the ranch occurred when Dudley Champion, the brother to Nate Champion, the first man killed in the Johnson County War, was shot and killed in a shootout on the ranch.
 
The 77 Ranch has been cooperating with the Department for many years by allowing hunter access. Hunters have always been welcome on this ranch and the Reeds have been participating in the Department’s Access Yes Program since its inception in 1998.  They have instituted Walk-in hunting on nearly the entire ranch because they believe it is the right thing to do. The diversity and quality of hunting found on this ranch contributes to thousands of hunter days per year.
 
Bud and Betty Jean are most deserving of this recognition, as they clearly are stewards of the land and wildlife. Their range and habitat conservation practices currently benefit their livestock operation and improve habitat for wildlife. In addition, they have graciously and unselfishly opened their land to hunters. It is our pleasure to nominate the 77 Ranch for this prestigious award.