A new, 159-acre conservation easement along the North Platte River will link two larger easements to form a contiguous 13,000-acre tract of wildlife habitat in the Jackson Canyon area.

All three easements are held by the Wyoming chapter of The Nature Conservancy.

The newest easement was donated by Cindy Rose, a Casper-area jeweler. The property is southwest of Casper and includes almost a mile of North Platte River. This stretch of river stays open in the winter due to warm springs - critical for bald eagles' winter-time survival.

"I decided to donate a conservation easement on my land because of everything that's here," said Rose, who first got the easement idea from her father, the late Robert Rose, Chief Justice of the Wyoming State Supreme Court in the 1970s.

The heavily wooded riparian property is home to mule and whitetail deer, the occasional antelope and mountain lion, mink, muskrats, wood ducks and a turkey flock of about 50 birds, she said. The property will continue to follow natural flood cycles that support a healthy trout fishery, as well as songbirds, owls and other species.

Rose is all too aware of the increasing pressure from residential development in Natrona County, and wanted to prevent any subdivision of her property and limit future construction to the areas around her present home.

"We won't have a gated community here," she said. Maybe somewhere else on the river, but not here, she added.

"It's important to me that this chunk of river not be developed," she said. "Even though it's just a mile, it's a mile that won't be destroyed."

The Rose easement connects two easements donated previously by Stacy Scott and his parents before him, Oliver and Deborah Scott.

From the Conservancy point of view, the Rose easement is part of an ongoing commitment to freshwater ecosystems, which are habitats that deliver nutrients to floodplains, wetlands and estuaries, while moderating floods and droughts.

"Wyoming's freshwater ecosystems have so much value for the people of our state," said Andrea Erickson Quiroz, director of the Wyoming TNC chapter. With its partners, the chapter has conserved more than 400,000 acres of biologically diverse wildlife habitat in Wyoming.

On the Internet:

The Wyoming chapter of The Nature Conservancy is at www.nature.org/wyoming