CONSERVED FOREVER
Thunderbolt, Wyoming: A Striking Win for Conservation
PHOTO: RMEF
by Heather Fraley
In southwest Wyoming, nearly 7,000 acres known as the Thunderbolt Conservation Easement Project will forever remain undeveloped for elk and other wildlife thanks to a voluntary conservation agreement between RMEF and Mike and Maurene Samuelson Smith, who donated the easement. The Smith family has carefully stewarded this ranching property lying south of Mountain View for 20 years, running cattle on the land and cherishing the remarkably intact habitat and its wildlife inhabitants.
“We wanted to create a balance for wildlife and livestock. That was our vision, and we were fortunate enough to be able to do it,” says Mike.
Mike and Maurene are Life Members who joined RMEF in 2008. A year later the Wyoming Game and Fish Department (WGFD) named them Landowner of the Year in part for installing wildlife friendly fencing on their property.
“This action is yet another example of Mike and Maurene’s conservation ethic and legacy as it protects diverse, yearlong elk habitat that also benefits mule deer, pronghorn, grouse and other species,” said RMEF Managing Director of Mission Operations Jenn Doherty after the conservation agreement was finalized in 2024.
The Thunderbolt project consists of several parcels grouped in two different areas about seven and 10 miles from Robertson, respectively. The 4,600 deeded acres of the eastern parcel, known as the Cottonwood parcel, are open for public access through enrollment in WGFD’s Walk-In Access Program for Elk Hunt Area 107. And the property borders BLM acreage, creating a stretch of unbroken habitat benefitting public hunters.
Fragments of western history also dot the landscape. A 40-50-feet-in-diameter half-circle stone structure built by Native Americans faces east on the top of one butte, and tipi rings are still visible near the river. The parcels are near Fort Bridger, a fur trading outpost established in 1842. And vegetation has reclaimed much of a moonshine still dating back to Prohibition.
Mule deer bounce through these rolling Idaho fescue-and-sage-covered hills that drop into riparian willows and hay meadows. Elk slip through cover provided by aspen-and-cottonwood coulees interspersed with stands of conifers. In March and April, the hollow sounds of greater sage grouse, a species of special concern in Wyoming, filter through the air as the males strut to attract females. Moose trot through riparian areas, newborn elk calves stagger up from under sagebrush and pronghorn pass at lightning speeds.
“It’s pretty spectacular,” says Leah Burgess, RMEF’s northwest mission lead. “The habitat diversity of that place and how it sits in the landscape adjacent to large blocks of federal lands; it is really unique and a perfect property to protect for elk and other wildlife.”
