For Sale: 160 acres in northeastern North Dakota. Rolling hills covered with stands of native oak and aspen interspersed by lowland swamps. Lots of wildlife and hunting. Adjacent to Jay V. Wessels Wildlife Management Area. $75,000.

Partners Rally to Save Elk Range

	Peter and Prescott Holman WMA

This piece of vital elk winter range had already made appearances in real estate advertisements by the time the North Dakota Game and Fish Department (GFD) asked the Elk Foundation to assist in purchasing the parcel. With other offers already on the table, the Elk Foundation moved quickly to gain partners and make a deal. Pembina County and Area Sportsmen Club, the National Wild Turkey Federation, North Dakota Resource Trust and the North Dakota Game and Fish Department all agreed to help through contributions, and the landowner agreed to sell the property to the Elk Foundation.

“The fact that the land would be part of a land conservation effort and in its original form was important to us,” says Robert Waldner, trustee for the Holman family and grandson of the deceased owner. “We also thought it was very nice that they [the Elk Foundation] would allow us to have the family name attached to the property.”

“They lived in different places at times, but they really loved North Dakota and that land,” Waldner says.

Peter and Prescott Holman WMA
The parcel, named the Peter and Prescott Holman WMA, provides critical timberland habitat for elk, deer and other wildlife, and abuts the already-protected 3,300-acre Jay V. Wessels Wildlife Management Area.

In North Dakota, parcels covered with native stands of aspen and oak are limited, and many of them are in private hands, says Larry Baesler, North Dakota lands program manager. “Those lands provide important forage for herds during hard North Dakota winters.”

In 1993, the Elk Foundation acquired its first wildlife habitat in the state and has since completed seven acquisition projects—six of which have been transferred to the GFD. Most have focused on winter range, including the Jay V. Wessels WMA.

Jay V. Wessels WMA
The Wessels WMA sits on an old glacier lake delta and contains sandy deposits, a high water table and heavy aspen forests—perfect habitat for forest wildlife. During the fall, nearly 100 elk (roughly 10 percent of North Dakota’s herd) migrate to this area, passing through private farmland.

The recently acquired Holman parcels will provide additional critical, contiguous winter habitat for these elk and reduce depredation on the surrounding private lands.

While development is always a threat, Baesler says the most significant danger to the Holman parcel was the risk of conversion to agricultural land. Native trees and important forage could have been replaced with row-crops and fences for farms or cattle.

“Loss to private holders would mean loss of management of winter range,” Baesler says. “Here, we not only protected elk habitat but ensured public access for fishing, hunting and recreation.”