About 3,000 acres of productive ranchland in Hot Springs County have been preserved as the result of a conservation easement completed June 30 by the Wyoming Stock Growers Land Trust.

Executive Director Pamela Dewell said in partnership with the Wilson family, and with funding provided by the Wyoming Wildlife and Natural Resources Trust and Wyoming Game and Fish Commission, a conservation easement on the Swallow Place on the V Ranch ensures that the unit will remain in perpetuity.

Dewell said the Wilson's have been active participants in various conservation efforts along Kirby Creek and provide hunters with access through the Wyoming Game and Fish Department's "walk-in" program. The ranch serves as suitable habitat for many of Wyoming's Species of Greatest Conservation Need and a majority of their ranch is designated as yearlong habitat for pronghorn and crucial winter-yearlong habitat for mule deer by the Wyoming Game and Fish Department.

The property is within a Sage Grouse Core Area and the northern portion of the property is designated as Crucial Terrestrial Habitat in the Department's Strategic Habitat Plan.

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