For Immediate Release: August 31, 2026
Contact: Dagny Signorelli, Western Watersheds Project, (307) 302-9931, dagny@westernwatersheds.org
Western Watersheds Project appeals ruling reintroducing cattle grazing in long vacant Elk Ridge Complex
The organization will seek emergency injunction from Tenth Circuit to prevent grazing while appeal proceeds
CHEYENNE, Wyo. – Western Watersheds Project (WWP) filed a Notice of Appeal with the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals challenging a federal district court’s denial of its request to block the U.S. Forest Service from allowing up to 1,300 cattle onto the currently ungrazed Elk Ridge Complex of the Bridger-Teton National Forest.
The appeal follows U.S. District Judge Kelly Rankin’s recent denial of WWP’s motion for a temporary restraining order/preliminary injunction. The nonprofit sought emergency relief after the U.S. Forest Service authorized cattle grazing on the 30,500 acre Elk Ridge Complex, which has remained vacant from permitted livestock grazing for a decade following WWP and partner’s funded conservation buyouts of former domestic sheep grazing permits. The buyouts were intended to protect native bighorn sheep from domestic sheep disease transmission and reduce recurring conflicts between domestic livestock and large carnivores such as grizzly bears and gray wolves.
“We disagree with the court’s decision and are moving quickly to appeal it,” said Dagny Signorelli, Western Watersheds Project’s Wyoming/Northern Utah director. “The District Court declining to preserve the decade-long, grazing-free ecological recovery of the Elk Ridge Complex will have significant impacts to wildlife and their habitat.”
While last week’s ruling addresses WWP’s request for interim relief it does not resolve the ultimate merits of the lawsuit, filed on August 10 which alleges violations of the National Environmental Policy Act, National Forest Management Act, Federal Land Policy and Management Act, and Administrative Procedure Act. The suit challenges the legality of the Forest Service’s June 2026 authorization of four public land grazing allotments—Elk Ridge, Lime Creek, Rock Creek, and Tosi Creek— issued without providing public notice or an opportunity to comment and relied on an outline of a document the Service characterized as a “NEPA sufficiency review” of an environmental analysis prepared in 1978.
That 1978 analysis predates the current 1990 Bridger-Teton Forest Plan, the reintroduction of gray wolves to the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, federal protections for Canada lynx and wolverines, and the Elk Ridge complex’s decade without permitted livestock grazing.
“A 48-year old analysis cannot answer what reintroduced cattle grazing will mean for the ecological integrity of this landscape, its watersheds, or its wildlife in 2026,” said Signorelli.
The Forest Service has acknowledged this gap before: In 2016, the agency itself said that the potential effects of cattle grazing in the Elk Ridge Complex had not recently been considered under NEPA and that new analysis would be necessary before authorizing term cattle grazing. The agency released a draft environmental assessment in 2021 but never completed the process.
The lawsuit specifically challenges the Forest Service’s failure to conduct a current environmental review, consider reasonable alternatives, analyze site-specific impacts to watersheds and wildlife, and ensure that the grazing authorization complies with the Bridger-Teton Forest Plan.
WWP is represented by Greenfire Law, PC, a public interest environmental law firm located in Berkeley, California.
The litigation effort was launched with a generous grant from Large Carnivore Fund, a 501(c)(3) wildlife conservation nonprofit based in the greater Yellowstone ecosystem.
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Western Watersheds Project is a nonprofit conservation group founded in 1993 with more than 50,000 members and supporters whose mission is to protect and restore western watersheds and wildlife through education, public policy initiatives, and litigation. WWP and its members have longstanding interests in improving public lands management throughout the western United States.
