The Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation recently surpassed nine million lifetime acres of conserved or enhanced wildlife habitat. Below is one of RMEF’s many land conservation and access projects.
It’s a spectacle to behold when up to 10,000 elk from Colorado’s White River herd cross the Keystone Ranch twice a year commuting to and from winter range in this area northwest of Meeker. And thanks to the ranch owners and their staunch conservation values, the tradition continues into the future.
The landowners entered the nearly 12,000-acre ranch into a voluntary conservation agreement with RMEF in 2022. Colorado Parks and Wildlife indicates the acreage encompasses the state’s number-one priority migration corridor used by the state’s two largest migratory herds of elk and deer.
The agreement also cemented hunter access to the property’s varying landscape of grasslands, sagebrush shrubs and canyons to aspen and conifer woodlands, cultivated crops and riparian areas.
(Photo credit: Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation)