Bighorn Audubon Society

Overview

Bighorn Audubon Society (BAS) includes National Audubon Society members and the local chapter members from five northeast Wyoming counties: Crook, Sheridan, Johnson, Campbell, and Weston. ²

The BAS runs the Important Bird Area program (IBA), a global initiative that works to identify, monitor and protect critical bird habitats. The BAS forms partnerships to maintain these habitats with various organizations such as Audubon Rockies, the Ucross Foundation, and the Brinton Museum in Big Horn, Wyoming. The BAS and partners designated seven different critical bird habitats from 2015 to 2019. ³

The BAS offers educational programs on topics relating to birds, ⁴ hosts events such as collective bird watching (co-hosted with the Brinton Museum), ⁵ and coordinates a bald eagle count with the Wyoming Game and Fish Department. ⁶

Activity

In 2020, the Bighorn Audubon Society purchased property with wetlands in the Powder Horn housing area in Big Horn for the purpose of landscaping it with native plant species to improve the habitat. The organization wished to develop a plan for this project coordinating with local officials. ⁷ In that same year, the BAS urged U.S. Senate leaders include funding in the 2021 budget for conserving habitats critical to the greater sage-grouse. It was joined in this effort by environmentalist and animal liberation organizations such as the Environmental Defense Fund,  Humane Society Legislative Fund, Animal Legal Defense Fund and the National Wildlife Federation. ⁸

The BAS is one of many environmentalist organizations that opposed a U.S Forest Service plan to control invasive grasses in the Bighorn National Forest by aerially spraying herbicides. The BAS argued that aerial spraying of chemicals would reduce bird and wildlife populations in the forest. ⁹