Wyoming Hunters Say Proposed 100,000-Acre Land Swap Would Be A Raw Deal

The Bureau of Land Management and the Q Creek Ranch swapping about 100,000 acres with each other in south central Wyoming would provide better recreational access and improve wildlife habitat, backers claim. But some hunters don’t like it. 

“This is a scam to the public lands hunter,” outdoorsman and northeast Wyoming resident Owen Miller told Cowboy State Daily.

Avid hunter Chad Parsons of Laramie said he’s hunted big game in the area “for years” and worries that the land swap could restrict hunting access. 

“I do understand that this would not be good for anybody except Q Creek,” he told Cowboy State Daily.

Messages left for Q Creek management on Monday weren’t answered.

According to information about the proposed swap posted online – if the deal goes through, it would protect vital sage grouse habitat, and provide better recreational access to Seminoe Reservoir in Carbon County. 

And in the area around the Prior Flat campground, for instance, “access to key hunting ground” would be unchanged or improved, according to proponents of the land swap. 

Earlier Proposal Turned Down

The current suggestion is for 99,200 acres to go to the BLM and 99,400 acres to Q Creek. 

However, no formal proposal has yet been presented to the BLM, agency spokesman Brad Purdy told Cowboy State Daily on Monday. 

The BLM isn’t yet involved in any effort to move the land swap forward and hasn’t hosted any public meetings on the matter, although Q Creek recently hosted a meeting in the tiny Carbon County town of Hanna. 

There was a previous formally-proposed land swap in that area, but in 2021, the agency decided it wasn’t in the best interest of the public, Purdy said. 

Hunters Have Misgivings

Parsons says that if the new land swap idea goes through, it could affect some of his favorite hunting grounds.

“I hunt Area 47 for antelope, and the Shirley Mountains for deer. If what they propose goes through, it reduces the opportunity for core-area deer and elk,” he said. 

Miller said it could boil down to “corner-crossing” – or crossing over the pinpoints where the corners of square parcels of public and private land meet in a checkerboard pattern. 

“As it is now, you can cross corners and get into the interior part of the property where the elk are and catch them crossing the public land. This will all go away (if the land was swapped) and the only one benefiting from all of this is the Q Creek and their wallets,” he said.

He added that he doesn’t think the ranches’ grazing opportunities are affected by the current arrangement. 

But if the land swap was to go through, public land hunters would be left with only scraps. 

“They want to pick out the best hunting ground for themselves and own it outright now and give away their land that is least desirable for hunting,” he said.

Mark Heinz can be reached at mark@cowboystatedaily.com.