Wildlife Conservation Through Sustainable Ranching
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Grit, Grass, and Gated Pipe Help Wyoming Ranch Thrive
THROUGH AN ONGOING PARTNERSHIP WITH THE NRCS, THE McCUMBER FAMILY ARE BENEFITING BOTH MIGRATING WILDLIFE AND RANCH PROFITABILITY
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Colter McCumber is a generational rancher and steward of his land in Hot Springs County, Wyoming. His roots run deep in the Big Horn Basin, where his father still tends to the original family homestead raising alfalfa hay.
McCumber and his brother operate a well-drilling company by day, but his heart has long been set on a different dream — to own and operate a cattle ranch. When an opportunity arose to purchase a ranch, McCumber and his wife, Linda, seized it.
The McCumbers partnered with the USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) to tackle challenges and improve the ranch. Over the past three years, they’ve been able to modernize the water system and improve fences, benefiting their cattle and migratory big game in this part of Wyoming.
Thanks to help from the NRCS, modernizing the McCumber’s water system took just three years instead of fifteen. The impact of these upgrades has been profound. Pastures and fields that once took three weeks to irrigate can now be watered two or three times in the same period with less effort.
“It’s been life-changing,” McCumber says.
This story was originally published by Wyoming NRCS. Find the original here.
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January 15th: Batching Deadline for NRCS Conservation Programs
NATIONAL DEADLINE FOR EQIP, CSP, ACEP, AND AMA
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| 2025 Data for Rangeland Analysis Platform (RAP) Now Available
10-METER DATA FOR 2025 IS NOW SHOWING ON RANGELANDS.APP
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In August 2025, the USDA-Agricultural Research Service, Working Lands for Wildlife, and partners announced a major update to the Rangeland Analysis Platform – 10-meter datasets and expanded vegetation cover classes.
The paper describing those updates is now published in Scientific Data. Additionally, 10-meter data for 2025 is now online at https://rangelands.app/. Now, the team has updated RAP to include 2025 datasets for both the 10-meter and 30-meter resolutions. These datasets help conservation practitioners monitor rangelands and better plan conservation efforts to maximize benefits and investments.
With the updated 2025 datasets, practitioners, producers, and scientists can access the most up-to-date rangeland vegetation information for native perennial grasses, sagebrush, invasive annual grasses, trees, and more.
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Beavers Work Stream Restoration Magic In Birch Creek
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IDAHO RANCHER AND LONG-TIME WLFW PARTNER, JAY WILDE, FIRST BROUGHT BEAVERS BACK TO HIS RANCH TEN YEARS AGO.
HEAR DIRECTLY FROM JAY ABOUT HOW THEY'VE BENEFITED HIS OPERATION.
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I was riding out of Mill Hollow a while back. As I came out on to the road I couldn’t help but admire all of the work the beavers have done. It’s been ten years since we released those first beavers. Their effect on Birch Creek has been nothing short of a miracle.
Early on, I read countless papers and articles about beavers and what they can do for a watershed. I read with some skepticism, not sure if all of the things were true. But it fueled my interest to learn more and try to implement what the folks were talking about.
I’m going to tell you some of the “cool” stuff that I’ve seen in the ten years since releasing those first beavers....
Want to learn more about the low-tech riparian restoration WLFW and partners implemented at Birch Creek? Check out the "Introduction to Low-tech, Process-based Restoration of Riverscapes" course from our partners at the Utah State University's Restoration Consortium. It's open to non-USU students and offers continuing education credits, and it starts on January 6th. Sign up today!
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Rangeland Wildflowers: Their Value to Livestock and Pollinators
NEW PUBLICATION FROM NRCS, XERCES SOCIETY, AND PARTNERS
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This guide is intended as a portable, accessible guide for recognizing common, and nutritionally important, wildflowers and shrubs found on rangelands of the Northern Great Plains. The boundary of the Northern Great Plains used in this guide was developed using Major Land Resource Areas (MLRAs) identified as grassland areas in North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Montana, Wyoming, and Minnesota.
This guide shows the nutrition these plants can provide to livestock, and the ways these plants support pollinators.
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| North America's Last, Great Grasslands
LEARN MORE ABOUT EACH OF THE REMAINING GRASSLAND ECOREGIONS IN NORTH AMERICA
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From Canada to Mexico, North America is home to more than a dozen grassland ecoregions. This photo- and information-packed post (first published in August 2025) highlights them all.
To ensure we captured the unique qualities of each grassland, we reached out to experts across the biome who contributed their local knowledge and expertise to the post.
Because so many of these grasslands are privately owned, the USDA-NRCS and Working Lands for Wildlife play an important role in conserving and stewarding North America's grasslands.
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The USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), Intermountain West Joint Venture (IWJV), U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), and Ducks Unlimited, Inc. (DU) are hiring a Conservation & Agricultural Specialist to further conservation delivery of NRCS Conservation Implementation Strategies (CIS) and other working lands conservation programs in southeast Oregon.
This position will be based in Lakeview, Oregon and provide technical assistance to the NRCS for implementing the Working Lands for Waterbirds Conservation Implementation Strategy, as well as other wildlife habitat conservation efforts.
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This great story from WyoFile highlights how invasive annual grasses, like cheatgrass, are threatening sagebrush rangelands. The story features Brian Mealor from the Institute for Managing Annual Grasses Invading Natural Ecosystems (IMAGINE), a partnership between the University of Wyoming, WLFW, and others.
Fortunately, as the article highlights, proactive, solutions-focused conservation solutions are helping turn the tide in the battle against these invaders.
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Public and private partners, including the USDA-NRCS are making great progress on a multi-year restoration effort in Idaho. From 2022-2025, crews have cut approximately 5,000 acres of junipers in the project area. According to the project partners, forage and water are returning to the area, benefiting local producers and wildlife.
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Working Lands for Wildlife is the Natural Resources Conservation Service's premier approach for conserving America's working lands to benefit people, wildlife, and rural communities. In the West, WLFW is guided by two, action-based frameworks for conservation. The framework approach is designed to increase conservation and restoration of rangelands by addressing major threats to rangeland health and through the implementation of conservation measures that limit soil disturbance, support sustainable grazing management, promote the strategic use of prescribed fire, and support native grassland species. Together, the frameworks leverage the power of voluntary, win-win conservation solutions to benefit people and wildlife from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean.
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