Heart Mountain grassbank

Abstract

The Heart Mountain Ranch is a Nature Conservancy holding just north of Cody consisting of 15,000 acres of private and federal and state leases. In order to promote conservation projects on surrounding public grazing lands, the Nature Conservancy has placed a portion of the ranch into a grassbank. Ranchers apply to use the grassbank, and pay a fee of $15 per season for each cow-and-calf pair. In return, Heart Mountain Ranch staffers rotate the cattle, maintain fences, and irrigate land for forage production. The program helps to move cattle from public grazing lands temporarily to allow conservation practices to be applied where active ranching would not allow. Conservation activities on the ranch itself range from spring and seep protection, riparian restoration, and forage inventories. An educational component of the project also exists since ranchers that participated in the program are required to attend a workshop where they can learn conservation techniques.