If you haven’t yet, check out Part I: The Past to learn about the history of the Sand Creek Desert.

In 2018, then Department of the Interior Secretary, Ryan Zinke, issued an important order for wildlife, “Improving Habitat Quality in Western Big-Game Winter Range and Migration Corridors,” which encouraged federal and state agencies to collaborate for the benefit of big game species like moose, elk, and deer. This order is particularly important for special places like the Sand Creek Desert area, which serves as the winter home for more than 10,000 moose, elk, and deer that migrate west each year, retreating from the harsh winters of Yellowstone National Park in search of more hospitable winter range. And this order is also very important for our work at GYC, because it presents an opportunity to work with the many different stakeholders in the Sand Creek Desert area to protect important big game species and their winter habitat. 

The Sand Creek Desert was originally part of the territories inhabited by the Eastern Shoshone Tribe and the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes. Settlers who colonized the area introduced livestock production to the landscape, grazing both sheep and cattle on its uniquely sandy soils. Elk arrived later in the 1930’s and 1940’s during two separate introduction events: first, by a group of local citizens working together with a sportsman's group; and second, by the Railroad Ranch, which is known today as Harriman State Park. These newly introduced elk may have formed what we refer to as the Sand Creek Elk Herd, a group of more than 3,000 desert wintering elk that is one of Idaho’s largest wintering elk herds. 

Today, the Sand Creek Desert area is owned and managed by a familiar patchwork of public and private titleholders: Bureau of Land Management, Idaho Department of Lands, Idaho Fish and Game, and an assortment of private landowners. In addition to the Sand Creek Wildlife Management Area that is managed by Idaho Fish and Game and discussed in Part I of this series, more than 21,000 acres in this area are managed by the Bureau of Land Management as part of the Sand Mountain Wilderness Study Area, which provides crucial winter habitat for big game such as moose, elk, and deer, including the Sand Creek Elk Herd. Several ranchers also depend on the land, continuing to utilize the Sand Creek Desert area for sheep and cattle grazing as well as agricultural production. 

The interesting origin story of the Egin-Hamer Road is a great example of how this diverse and complex landscape has been and continues to be managed collaboratively by the different owners over the years for the purposes of livestock production, agriculture, and wildlife. In 1983, Fremont County, Idaho, and Jefferson County, Idaho, submitted a joint application to the Bureau of Land Management for a right-of-way to be used as a farm-to-market route for the farming area northwest of St. Anthony and as access between the Egin and Hamer areas, both located in Idaho but separated by critical winter range for wildlife.  The livestock and agricultural producers who sought the new route, along with the Fremont and Jefferson county commissioners who represented their interests, proposed to use the new route twelve months each year, complete with winter maintenance. 

Concerned with potentially significant impacts to wildlife, including loss of big game winter habitat and displacement of big game that were known to heavily utilize and rely on the Sand Creek Desert area for survival, the Bureau of Land Management granted the right-of-way in 1987 with one condition: a road closure lasting from December 1 and March 31 each year. 

Local citizens and sportsmen flooded the agencies with comments that underscored the fact that winter range can have the most significant impacts on big game, and the proposed Egin-Hamer Road would compromise the highest-quality elk range in the area, potentially causing a long-term reduction to the Sand Creek Elk Herd’s population. In response, the Bureau of Land Management later amended their conditional permit to allow the newly created Egin-Hamer Road to be open year-round in exchange for mitigation for wildlife impacts that included the current closures to human entry, last from January 1 to May 1 on the northern portion of the Sand Mountain Wilderness Study Area, and January 1 to April 1 on the southern part of the Sand Mountain Wilderness Study Area.  

YC continues to work with the Bureau of Land Management, Idaho Department of Lands, Idaho Fish and Game, private landowners, and other conservation and sportsman organizations to improve habitat quality, winter range, and migration corridors in high-priority areas like the Sand Creek Desert. Up next will be the third and final installment of this series: “Part III: Future,” which will peer into the proverbial crystal ball to examine the land management issues currently facing the Sand Creek WMA and how these challenges may be opportunities for GYC and other stakeholders to find and implement durable conservation solutions on this important Idaho landscape. 

- Allison Michalski, Idaho Conservation Associate