The United Nations declared 2026 the International Year of Rangelands and Pastoralists (IYRP), a global initiative aimed at raising awareness for healthy rangelands, food security, and climate resilience. How better to commemorate this designation than to educate the youth who are interested in becoming future stewards of Wyoming’s land, wildlife, and livestock.
During the third week of June, The Wyoming Section of the Society for Rangeland Management hosted Wyoming Resource Education Days (WyRED; wyomingrangelands.org/wyred1), bringing high school students and a few adults from across the state to western Wyoming to do just that. WyRED is a week-long camp that focuses on all aspects of natural resource and range management. Professionals from throughout Wyoming and the local area volunteer to teach high school students about plant identification, soils, wildlife habitat, energy development, water resources, grazing, GPS skills, and more.
Students worked on their plant identification near Kendall Warm Springs in preparation for their range judging contest at the end of the week. They learned a variety of plants, both native and non-native including Lanceleaf stonecrop, paintbrush, and low larkspur.
In addition to the tour of the Green River Basin in Sublette County, the Ricketts Conservation Foundation (RCF) hosted WyRED participants at the Jackson Fork Ranch (JFR) in the Hoback Basin. This day was designed to expose students to data-driven research and monitoring on modern-day working lands. In the morning, our bird biologist crew gave a demonstration of songbird capture and banding on a post-fire aspen regeneration study site.
Avian populations serve as vital indicators of overall ecosystem health and the monitoring at this specific project site gives us information about changing bird communities in areas affected by wildfire and management. RCF biologists discussed data collection, bird identification, health assessments, and migration with the students.
Later in the day, the focus shifted to the complex balance of managing livestock among wildlife and between public and private lands. Keller Hyde (Sublette County Conservation District) and Shari Meeks (RCF) gave an overview of the grazing conducted on the allotments surrounding the JFR, the cooperative ecological monitoring done, and the importance of collecting long-term trend data. They emphasized how this data can be used to inform adaptive management to help protect landscapes from degradation. Shari introduced the students to JFR’s implementation of let-down fence and related projects using virtual fence, both tools for mitigating wildlife-fence conflict.
To wrap up the student’s time on the ranch, Antonio Rivera (JFR Bison Manager) led a session on the specifics of bison management. He discussed how JFR uses rotational grazing to ensure the grass has adequate time to recover after livestock disturbance. He also covered the challenges of managing brucellosis and how wildlife migration patterns and nearby feed grounds influence operational decisions. For many students, the highlight of the week was Antonio’s wagon ride out to the bison pasture, where the students experienced a safe, close-up look at the herd and saw how these large ungulates interact with the landscape.
By teaching students about wildlife biology, rangeland monitoring, and production agriculture, RCF and Jackson Fork Ranch's contributions to WyRED 2026 emphasized the exact mission of the IYRP, demonstrating that ecological health and sustainable agriculture can thrive together. After a week at WyRED, Wyoming’s next generation of land stewards are better equipped with the science, tools, and vision to keep our rangelands healthy for years to come.
