PROFESSOR VALLEY RANCH

Protected in 2009
 

Acreage: 118

Grand County, UT

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The High Uinta Ranch preserves valuable open space adjacent to Highway 150 in Uinta County. Highway 150 is the Mirror Lake Scenic Byway; it runs through the Uinta Mountains in Utah and Wyoming. The High Uinta Ranch Property occurs in a wet valley with tributaries to the Bear River just north of the Uinta Mountains at about 7500 feet elevation above sea level. Cellar Creek and Cottonwood Creek flow through the Property near the east and west boundaries, respectively. Vegetation communities on the Property are marked primarily by grass and sedge used for hay and pasture, and by riparian areas that include willows in places together with narrow-leaf cottonwoods, red-osier dogwood, Wood’s rose, spruce, quaking aspen, and other trees, shrubs, herbaceous plants, and grass. Vegetation communities and abundant water on the Property function to provide food resources for birds and other wildlife. The Wyoming Game and Fish Department Strategic Habitat Plan 2009 includes the Property in both a crucial terrestrial habitat area and a crucial aquatic habitat area because of wildlife values on land and water, including crucial range for moose. The Property is predicted to provide habitat appropriate for at least 194 wildlife species, including at least 41 species of concern for conservation in Wyoming. Six extant sensitive species have been documented in the area of the Property.