Purpose
- Explores and develops market-based solutions.
Summary
The National Wildlife Federation’s (NWF) Wildlife Conflict Resolution (WCR) program resolves conflicts between wildlife and livestock through the market-based approach of compensating ranchers for retiring high conflict grazing leases on federal land. Thanks to over a decade of funding from the Walker Foundation, we have retired over 100 grazing allotments totaling over 1.7 million acres. In 2017 NWF launched the WCR Southern Rockies, Colorado Plateau and Great Basin program, and we recently piloted a new strategy in Grand Staircase-Escalante National and Bears Ears National Monuments in southern Utah that included "AUM buy-downs," and the full retirement of grazing allotments. In 2024, we began a new WCR venture by assisting NWF’s partner the Wind River Tribal Buffalo Initiative (WRTBI) to negotiate with Wind River Reservation Range Unit grazing permit holders in an effort to open up areas for the Reservation’s Buffalo program. This work will be the focus of this application.
Description
After a productive site visit with the Walker Family Foundation members to the Wind River Reservation in early September 2025, WCR staff has continued discussions with the Wind River Tribal Buffalo Initiative (WRTBI) staff on next steps for moving forward with retiring cattle permits on the adjacent range units in order to allow for the expansion of the bison herd. In the fall of 2025 the Northern Arapahoe and Eastern Shoshone tribes passed resolutions to designate buffalo as wildlife rather than livestock, which is an important step that will provide for future protections under tribal law. This work is taking place in a politically and socially complex landscape, and in order to be successful in the long term we need to move forward slowly with all the stakeholders aligned. We will start reaching out to the permittees on the adjacent range unit 24A and 19A. These conversations will need to happen thoughtfully and will require introductions from WRTBI staff. In preparation for the conversations, we have been collecting data and information related to the current use of the priority range units which is important as part of conversation with the permittees and for project planning.
There have also been some changes in staffing and capacity over the last year, and anticipated additions in the next months. Bob McCready, Director of Western Wildlife at NWF, started his transition to retirement in early 2026 and fully retired in early July of 2026. Due to this decrease in capacity within the WCR program, progress was slower than anticipated over the last year. NWF is currently working on hiring a new full-time position in the WCR program, which will result in greater capacity for the program than before Bob’s retirement. This hiring process should be completed by the end of 2026. In addition, WRTBI is hiring a new Executive Director, which will increase the current Executive Director Jason Baldes’s capacity to further this work as part of his role as the Tribal Buffalo Program Manager at NWF. Another complicating factor over part of last year is that the Bureau of Indian affairs was impacted by the widespread reductions in force of government land management agencies. This initially resulted in some challenges but ultimately could provide an opportunity for the Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapahoe tribes to have greater control over how range units are managed, which would benefit this work.
As a result of this temporary decrease in capacity with the WCR program, we have reserved the remaining funds from this grant and will continue to put them toward this project at Wind River.
Purpose
Beginning in 2003, NWF began using a market-based approach that recognized the economic value of public land grazing permits and offers to compensate ranchers for waiving their permit. We then receive assurances from the public land management agency that the allotment will not be restocked with livestock. In an effort to apply our model to new landscapes and to continue to innovate, we will adapt our allotment retirement model on the Wind River Reservation by adapting to the Bureau of Indian Affairs’ allotment rules, increased engagement with Tribal members, and ensuring the range units are able to be converted to buffalo once the cattle permits are waived.
Scope
NWF has used this approach to address conflicts between large carnivores and livestock in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem and beyond in the Northern Rockies for the last 22 years and in addition has employed the strategy to reduce conflicts between domestic and bighorn sheep. Because of the absence of large carnivores in the Southern Rockies and Great Basin, we have only focused on retiring domestic sheep allotments that impact bighorn sheep herds in these areas. This proposal will focus on our expanding impact in Wyoming and the Wind River Reservation's efforts to retire cattle permits and convert land usage to buffalo.
Information Dissemination
The North American Bison Summit is now an annual event that builds upon past American bison Society conferences, with the goal of providing shared, improved, resources, and replicable models and methodologies related to bison restoration. We would plan on attending and submitting a proposal to present at this conference, as it would provide an important opportunity for collaboration and networking across conservationists, tribes and first nations, ranchers, government agencies, academia, and more. Jason Baldes is also the current Vice President of the InterTribal Buffalo Council, which is a collection of 86 Tribes in 22 states that facilitates management of over 20,000 buffalo. Jason is a very respected member of this community and will be able to help share results, findings, and lessons learned with other tribes. Within NWF, we can also work through our existing Tribal and Indigenous Partnership Enhancement Strategy to increase awareness of this work and share results and findings.
Amount Approved$70,000.00
on 11/25/2025
(Check sent: 12/7/2025)
