Fortification Creek Wilderness Study Area needs your HELP! The last vestige of a Powder River Basin pristine high prairie ecosystem is in trouble from excessive coal bed methane and the BLM is asking for comments on the values of the area. We need your participation.

Location and Access

Fortification Creek lies about 30 miles northwest of Gillette in Campbell County in northeastern Wyoming. Two possible accesses exist:  to reach the eastern boundary via Arvada use the Echeta Rd. (a well-maintained gravel road) to Schoolhouse Draw, walking about a mile crossing a bit of private land; or traveling north on the Fortification Rd., cross a small portion of private land to reach the southern boundary - either way an access would have to be negotiated with private land owners.

Because the area is surrounded by private land, no place exists where the public could reach this unit solely on federal land. BLM needs to acquire public access to the area or secure the landowners consent.

Highlights

Home to a rare herd of plains elk and roosting bald eagles, the Powder River Breaks contains an eerie mix of numerous ephemeral drainages carving a landscape of narrow, sharp ridges or "breaks" and intimate valleys for several miles, just east of the Powder River. Austere hills and red rock cliffs contrast with sagebrush, grass, and juniper to give the traveler the feeling of being in one of the most remote areas of the world.

These unique badland hills represent the only chance to protect the last remaining wild lands in the Powder River drainage system and are surrounded by some of the most extensive coal mining in the country.

Wilderness Qualities

Site vegetation represents the Sagebrush Steppe ecosystem/Great Plains Shortgrass Prairie province‑‑an ecosystem not represented or administratively endorsed for inclusion in the NWPS. This is one of the very rare chances to designate such an area. Nearly all of the area is crucial yearlong and winter range for about 300 elk, and 760 acres provide important calving grounds (BLM 1986). This elk herd is unique in that it is one of the last remaining elk herds to occupy a plains habitat in the nation. The herd was established in the 1950s with elk from Yellowstone National Park.

The Powder River Breaks provides roosting habitat for wintering populations of federally protected (Listed Endangered/Threatened) bald eagles (WNDD, 1993). The area also features migrant peregrine falcons, strutting sharp‑tailed and sage grouse, coyotes, bobcats, and important deer winter and yearlong range. Visitors here find excellent deer hunting amid rugged dramatic scenery. Swift fox‑‑a federal threatened and endangered species candidate‑‑ likely occurs in the unit's grasslands. The endangered black-footed ferret was last observed in 1975 in the area (WNDD,1993).

The Powder River near the Breaks region provides aquatic habitat for sturgeon chub, a federally protected fish species, and is one of the main strongholds for the silvery minnow in the entire State (WNDD,1993). Other fish species include the shovelnose sturgeon, channel cat, sauger, goldeye, and walleye (WG&F, McDowell, 1993). A state priority plant species, slender bulrush, has been observed in the area (WNDD, 1993) in moist, sandy/clay soil.