Conservation is everyone’s responsibility.
We work to preserve the beauty of wildlife through environmental stewardship.
Our Mission
Founded by entrepreneur and philanthropist Joe Ricketts, The Ricketts Conservation Foundation supports the conservation of wildlife and wilderness areas, promoting the importance of environmental stewardship as an enduring value. Underlying the Foundation’s mission is the belief that conservation is everyone’s responsibility.
In a world facing increasingly complex environmental challenges, private sector resources play an ever-greater role in the conservation of wildlife and wilderness areas. By answering this need, and encouraging others to do the same, the Ricketts Conservation Foundation aims to make a difference in the quality of life enjoyed by future generations.
Our Projects
What first interested me about the Whitebark Pine wasn’t the tree at all. It was the Clarks Nutcracker. That little bird, I learned, has lived in a symbiotic partnership with the Whitebark Pine for millennia, distributing the tree’s seeds far and wide, and caching them every Fall as a food source during the winter and following Spring. And it’s those seeds from which we get new trees. It’s also those same, calorie-rich seeds that feed bears, red squirrels, and other species critical to a balanced and sustainable ecosystem.
The Wind River Range (WRR) is a scenic, 100-mile-long mountain range that includes the highest point in Wyoming, Gannett Peak (13,804’), and 19 of the next 20 highest peaks in Wyoming. This expansive range includes part of the Wind River Indian Reservation, Bridger-Teton National Forest, Shoshone National Forest, and three designated wilderness areas. Among this vast expanse with 500+ named lakes you may find something unexpected: Common Loons, the rarest breeding bird species in Wyoming.
Earlier this summer, the RCF crew teamed up with biologists Jay & Heidi Carlisle from Boise State University’s Intermountain Bird Observatory (IBO) to attach satellite transmitters to Long-Billed Curlews on and around Jackson Fork Ranch in Bondurant, WY.
The number 17 does not come to mind when you think of big numbers, but when you’re working with Common Loons in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (GYE), an isolated population numbering only 22 territorial pairs, small numbers like 17 can be relatively massive.
April showers… are still bringing snow. Springtime in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem is finally here — temperatures are above freezing (if barely), birds are migrating through the area (most recently mountain bluebirds and killdeer), and RCF is getting its 2020 field season prepped.
The number 17 does not come to mind when you think of big numbers, but when you’re working with Common Loons in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (GYE), an isolated population numbering only 22 territorial pairs, small numbers like 17 can be relatively massive.
Since 2018, the Ricketts Conservation Foundation has worked with Bridger-Teton National Forest, the Wyoming Game and Fish Department, and the Bird Conservancy of the Rockies to assess how forest management activities designed to benefit game animals affect non-target species.
Reestablishing loons in their former breeding range and helping populations recover in Wyoming, Montana, Minnesota, and Massachusetts.
Increasing the Trumpeter Swan population in greater Yellowstone National Park.
Protecting a centuries-old relationship between the Clark’s Nutcracker and the whitebark pine in Yellowstone National Park.
The Clark’s Nutcracker Project is a multiyear partnership between The Ricketts Conservation Foundation, the University of Colorado-Denver, and Yellowstone National Park to study Clark’s nutcrackers in Yellowstone National Park and arrest broader ecosystem problems related to this important little bird.
Foundation News
Give a Hoot
Giving a Hoot By Ricketts Conservation Foundation Team Several species of owls breed near or migrate through the Upper Hoback River Valley. Most...
The Clarks Nutcracker: My Whitebark Pine Story
The Wind River Range (WRR) is a scenic, 100-mile-long mountain range that includes the highest point in Wyoming, Gannett Peak (13,804’), and 19 of the next 20 highest peaks in Wyoming. This expansive range includes part of the Wind River Indian Reservation, Bridger-Teton National Forest, Shoshone National Forest, and three designated wilderness areas. Among this vast expanse with 500+ named lakes you may find something unexpected: Common Loons, the rarest breeding bird species in Wyoming.
Where Loons Hide and RCF Seeks: Wyoming’s Wind River Range
The Wind River Range (WRR) is a scenic, 100-mile-long mountain range that includes the highest point in Wyoming, Gannett Peak (13,804’), and 19 of the next 20 highest peaks in Wyoming. This expansive range includes part of the Wind River Indian Reservation, Bridger-Teton National Forest, Shoshone National Forest, and three designated wilderness areas. Among this vast expanse with 500+ named lakes you may find something unexpected: Common Loons, the rarest breeding bird species in Wyoming.