A legacy of conservation in Jackson Hole
04 Oct 2022
Bill Rudd makes a career out of mapping and protecting wildlife migrations
Summer 2022
Written By: Emmie Gocke | Images: Keegan Rice
When Bill Rudd first began studying Wyoming’s big game migrations in the late 1970s, GPS tracking collars didn’t exist.
Instead, the young scientist, who was getting his master’s degree from the University of Wyoming, would roam the Yellowstone backcountry trying to gain enough elevation to pick up radio waves from collared elk. The research he did laid the groundwork for a comprehensive understanding of elk migration routes in and around Yellowstone. And while the technology used to study migration changed drastically during Bill’s near 50-year career in wildlife biology, his dedication to wildlife and conservation remained unwavering. It all started at the age of 15, when Bill attended a youth conservation camp in northern Minnesota and volunteered with a group of wildlife professionals. “I was like, wait a minute, you can make a living doing this? And I decided I would be a wildlife biologist,” Bill says of the experience. Several years later, he got his bachelor’s degree in wildlife biology from the University of Idaho, which led to his first field job: studying pronghorn near Salmon, Idaho. When Bill came to Wyoming for his master’s work on elk migration, he decided to devote the rest of his career to studying the state’s wildlife populations and using science to advocate for their continued conservation. This led him and his wife, Lorrain, to the Greys River drainage just south of Jackson Hole, where Lorrain was completing her own master’s degree in wildlife biology and studying moose in their winter range. “We spent our first winter in a cabin with no water, no electricity, and no heat and still survived it,” Bill recalls. Next, Bill started a 30-year career with the Wyoming Game and Fish Department, focusing on wildlife research, management, and conservation. He and Lorrain followed their own migration path — from Alpine to Pinedale to Saratoga to Green River to Cheyenne — as Bill moved from wildlife biologist to wildlife management coordinator, and ultimately, to deputy chief of the wildlife division where he oversaw much of the state’s wildlife management.