Council for the Bighorn Range

05/07/2026

The Council for the Bighorn Range will continue to monitor and communicate about the management of our Bighorn National Forest.

Future forest health and timber projects on the Bighorn National Forest will be approved under the Emergency Action Determination authority of the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, Section 40807, which displaces the comment process set out in 36 CFR Part 218. There will be no administrative review process (objection period) per agency guidance and the authority granted in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.

Wiping out the administrative review process (objection period) removes the mediation tools needed when the Forest Service has gone off the rails in its management, and the public gets a chance to offer a reasonable alternative.

The public, conservation groups, recreational users, and non-timber commercial businesses will be effectively shut out of the modernized Forest Service that is timber- and fire-first. Our Wyoming Fish and Game will be effectively shut out as a habitat partner.

04/23/2026

The Bighorn NF will hold its spring Forest Plan Steering Committee meetings on May 7, 2026, in Greybull. The committee is comprised of representatives from the four counties of the Bighorn NF, Soil and Conservation Districts. W**d and Pest and State Agencies. The State Agencies include Wyoming Game and Fish, the Department of Forestry, and State Trails. Often, the Congressional Delegation sends field operators.

The meetings are held twice a year to show local and state leadership what is currently happening with the BNF and to meet with the staff. The public can attend, but while the session is in progress, they are rarely a part of the program. The upside is that during breaks, the public can mingle with the Committee members and BNF staff.

The meeting will be held at the Big Horn County W**d and Pest Building, 4782 US-310, Greybull, WY from 10:30 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. on Thursday, May 7, 2026.

The agenda for May 7th is the introduction of the new Acting Forest Supervisor. two new Acting District Rangers, and the Powder River District Ranger. We have acting leadership following the initial steps of the illegal Forest Service realignment and dispersal since the end of 2025.
• Roadless Rule changes on the Bighorn NF
• Dispersed and developed recreation projects
• Moose Parturition Presentation
• District Ranger updates to the committee
• Feed back and future topics
For more information, call the Bighorn NF in Sheridan, Forest Supervisors office.

-1903 Big Horn Forest Reserve boundary marker.

04/06/2026

Because of rugged topography with canyons and coulees cutting along the faces of the Bighorn Mountains, many islands of highland Mountain big sagebrush are included in the 2001 Roadless Rule acres. Those subalpine shrublands provide a snow anchor, allowing melt to recharge the limestone aquifers that make the Bighorns such a notable water engine for the lower Yellowstone Basin.

04/03/2026

The Council for the Bighorn Range and Wyoming Wilderness Association led a meeting on the Roadless Rule rescission in Buffalo and Sheridan.

Sheridanites are worried about the impacts rescinding the 2001 Roadless Rule might have on the Bighorn National Forest and other National Forest areas.

04/01/2026

The Bighorn NF, with 1,120,000 acres, has 620,663 acres in its inventoried roadless area (1978), covered by the Roadless Area Conservation Rule (2001 RACR). By 2012, 491,000 remained without roads or development.
The Council for the Bighorn Range and the Wyoming Wilderness Association hosted teach-ins in Buffalo and Sheridan this week to inform and mobilize the public about this change to the Roadless Rule.
Though born of the need to rein in federal spending on roads and millions in deferred maintenance in the 1990s, The Rule protects undeveloped forest areas for ecological values, including biodiversity, clean water, and wildlife habitat, while allowing hiking, hunting, and forage.
The 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule (Roadless Rule) is a federal regulation that protects nearly 58.5 million acres (now often cited as 45-58 million) of National Forest System lands from most road construction, reconstruction, timber harvesting, or intensive modification.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture is initiating an environmental impact statement (EIS) and rulemaking concerning management of inventoried roadless areas on approximately 44.7 million acres of National Forest System lands, including in Alaska. The proposed rule would rescind the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule (2001 Roadless Rule) (66 FR 3244, 36 CFR Subpart B (2001)), which prohibits road construction, road reconstruction, and timber harvesting in inventoried roadless areas, with limited exceptions.
Like it never happened

02/09/2026

The area of the Council for the Bighorn Range
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02/04/2026

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02/03/2026

We aren’t going back.
With only 2/3 of the Bighorn NF grazing allotments meeting standards, the Federal Administration wants to boost beef production on our National Forest by granting exemptions or by bypassing range standards developed during the excesses of the 1940s-1950s, before NEPA.
During World War ll and then through the US-supported European post-war recovery, the shackles were off on the Bighorn NF grazing for cattle and sheep production. Forest Supervisors and Regional Foresters were shunted aside as they tried to bring range management back to sustainable levels. Sanity and sustainability finally returned to Congress in the late 1950s, culminating in several landmark land management acts.
The Council for the Bighorn Range continues to probe range management on the Bighorn NF through FOIA requests and direct contact to determine the best current and future standards and guidelines, and to provide public education. We aren’t ging back to the ‘50s.

01/16/2026

The Tensleep Climbing Plan is seriously awry on reguirements on the cultural resource investigations throughout the project area.
The Bighorn National Forest is silent on legally mandated requirements to disclose existing conditions of and potential adverse effects to cultural resources. In addition, the Forest is silent procedures for notifying the public of the results of additional heritage inventories and providing opportunities for the public to respond to these findings, including potential effects.

01/10/2026

The Bighorn National Forest, after decades of neglect, finally released a Draft Environmental Statement for the Tensleep Climbing Plan. The Council for the Bighorn Range has been involved since its inception in 2016, coordinating with responsible climbing organizations and wildlife advocates to manage this incredible area.
Because the Council for the Bighorn Range has participated throughout this NEPA process, our comments and data will strengthen our position during the objection process regarding Climbing our concerns for water, wildlife, and wild natural areas on our public lands.