Project Summary:

The utility of GIS has been slow to be realized in some natural resource agencies due to the expertise and cost required to get a useful GIS infrastructure in place. We are working closely with WGFD personnel in this project to plan a GIS application that will bring structure and ease of use to an ArcGIS-based GIS system. Field biologists, habitat specialists, administrators or others are regularly faced with performing Wildlife Environmental Reviews (WERs), or making other important decisions regarding habitat evaluation or management. This GIS-based tool, fully integrated with statewide datasets, will allow efficient visualization and analysis. Biologists will no longer have to rely on several different paper maps, mylar overlays, and disparate databases to visualize and analyze proposed actions. Clear benefits of this approach are that decisions statewide (and perhaps across agencies) are based on the same data and documented well, improving consistency and quality of WERs, habitat improvement projects, and hopefully in the future, game season recommendations, fish stocking recommendations and nongame projects.

WER-GIS has been in use by WGFD biologists and other personnel since 2005. WyGISC continues to add new data to the system as well as new functionality. In 2009, a new function was added to assist biologists in reviewing oil and gas leases coming up for sale. New functions are also currently under development to more fully utilize the WGFD's extensive aquatic geodatabase which includes sample locations for streams and water bodies, photos, aquatic habitat and species information, barrier structures, and many other information.

For Additional information, view the project information document (pdf)