JACKSON, Wyo. — Earlier this month, the Jackson Town Council voted to reject four proposals for ecological monitoring at Karns Meadow, and instead chose to seek an alternative plan through partnerships with nonprofits and other agencies for monitoring various aspects of the proposed park.
In December 2025, Town Council agreed on a budget for the ecological monitoring plan and released a request for proposals. Four proposals were received, ranging from $101,000 for three years of monitoring to $616,000 for four years of monitoring. The $101,000 proposal from Y2 Consultants was preferred, but after reviewing all proposals, staff recommended that Town reject the proposals and shift the plan to a partner approach for two reasons.
“Using the methods proposed, it is unlikely that the data collected will definitively determine the impact of recreation on the ecological values of the park,” reads the staff report. “It is extremely challenging to find large trends within a small study area that is affected by multiple factors, including annual variations in weather and snowpack, development of parcels surrounding the study area, and the spread of disease within wildlife populations.”
The second reason for rejecting the proposals is that some of the methods in the proposals are currently used by local agencies and nonprofits. Those groups could employ the same approaches at a lower cost to Town. Ultimately the Council voted unanimously in favor of rejecting the proposals and seeking partnerships for alternative monitoring methods.
The following alternative methods were suggested by staff in place of selecting a submitted proposal:
- Seasonal visitation counts: Work with Friends of Pathways and use trail counters to document recreational use.
- Monitor the spread of invasive weeds: Work with Teton County Weed & Pest to monitor non-native plant growth.
- Monitor changes in the audioscape and songbird nesting success: Work with Teton Raptor Center to conduct acoustic monitoring. Install non-invasive, acoustic monitoring devices to record changes in the audioscape, including sonbirds, amphibians and humans. This option would cost the Town $10,000 per year plus $5,000 in equipment.
- Monitor changes in vegetative cover: Hire a firm to do a vegetative cover map after construction is complete and the park is activated. This can be compared to the pre-construction cover map that was completed as part of the environmental analysis.
- Summarize available data into a report that can be updated annually: Use a summer intern to write a synopsis of the information. “This task does not require expert knowledge,” the staff report states, “as all of the information is already available.”
- Monitor the impact of recreation on overwintering wildlife: Seek guidance from the Wyoming Game and Fish Department (WGFD) on adaptive management and seasonal conditions. Rather than conduct intensive monitoring on the small tract, Town could work with WGFD to study wildlife on larger landscapes and develop an adaptive management plan.
Councilor Kevin Regan expressed that he was of “two minds” on this topic, saying he favors the established track record of Y2, but appreciates the potential merits in the partnership model. He said he is focused on finding the best plan for managing the property that was sold by the Karns family to the Town of Jackson at a discount. In 2003 the Town acquired the parcel for less than market rate in exchange for turning it into a park to benefit people and wildlife.
“I appreciate the staff’s thinking outside the box on this,” said Mayor Arne Jorgensen, “and I’m confident we can work through that, and confident that we can continue to evaluate it as [Regan] just suggested, and make sure that we’re getting what we’ve asked for and what the community has asked for.”
