Teton Regional Land Trust secures funding for 357-acre easement for Darby Canyon

For millennia, bighorn sheep and mule deer have wandered the rugged hillsides of the Teton Mountain Range, spanning Wyoming and Idaho. Both now species of heightened concern for Wyoming Department of Game and Fish, Idaho Department of Fish and Game, the National Park Service, and the  US Forest Service, these animals depend on the low-elevation foothills in the winter, which are becoming increasingly threatened. 

In the midst of this complex, magical ecosystem is Darby Canyon, which drains from the western slope of the Tetons into the valley. It is here that grizzly bears, elk, and golden and bald eagles call home, and where Teton Regional Land Trust, led by executive director Kim Trotter and her team, worked with a long-time farming family to protect a key property, ensuring permanent conservation in an area of immense development pressure. 

At the mouth of Darby Canyon lies the Darby Creek Farm, a 192-acre farm that provides wintering area for mule deer and bighorn sheep. The Bowles family has owned the property since 1910, stewarding it for agriculture through irrigated farmland. These irrigated wet meadows sustain key sandhill crane habitat and are dwindling as farmers switch over to center pivot watering systems. In late 2023, Teton Regional Land Trust closed the conservation easement with the family, celebrating their 100th conservation project completed in Idaho. Keep It Connected support totaled nearly $250,000 of the project. 

Years earlier, a young biologist by the name of Michael Whitfield was using his climbing and research skills to study eagles high up in their lofty conifer nests and follow in the footsteps of bighorn sheep and mule deer on the western slopes of this same ecosystem. Over three decades, Whitfield would become an integral part of Teton Regional Land Trust’s foundation, the early Director of Heart of the Rockies Initiative, and eventually an elected County Commissioner in Teton County, Idaho. He would help form an early relationship with the Bowles family that eventually led Trotter and her team to this successful new project. 

In the fall of 2023, Teton Regional Land Trust hosted a public celebration for the completion of the Darby Creek Farm project. Whitfield and many current and past supporters engaged in joyful conversations, celebrating a successful collaboration across partners. You can read more about the Darby Creek Farm project here.

“The Keep It Connected program provided substantial support to this project which was the first of three conservation easements from a local landowner, helping him preserve his family farm bordering the national forest. This funding has been essential for bridging the gap of both conservation easement acquisition and transaction project costs.” – Renee Hiebert, Land Protection Director, Teton Regional Land Trust