Vermejo Headquarters aerial view. Image credits: Ted Turner Reserves
The ranch’s conservation agreements also brought state and federal agencies into long-term habitat work in 2013. At Vermejo, the restoration programme eventually brought the bison population to more than 1,200 animals. A 2024 University of Nebraska-Lincoln master’s thesis examined the spatial ecology of American bison on Vermejo Park Ranch and documented a population of around 1,200 bison during 2022-23. Additionally, early conservation reports documented the restoration of riparian areas along about 30 miles of streams, while NASA and government records verify long-term wetland stability and provide satellite imaging confirmation of these remote mountain ecosystems.
Because costilla Creek acts as an interstate waterway, the native trout restoration initiatives spanned a shared watershed matrix, notably,. The New Mexico Department of Game and Fish reported that the park ranch, the department, Colorado Parks and Wildlife and the US Fish and Wildlife Service jointly signed an agreement to safeguard the Rio Grande cutthroat trout. Ted Turner’s conservation interests predated the Vermejo purchase, as he had already begun acquiring large Western ranches and building bison herds, but the newly acquired landscape gave him an unusually large area on which wildlife conservation, ranching and habitat restoration could occur simultaneously. The ranch was not converted into a conventional nature preserve; instead, the management approach opted to maintain productive uses while changing land-management practices to improve habitat and protect native species. This was reportedly a part of Turner’s broader effort to combine conservation with economic activity on his private ranches. The initiative included removing non-native trout in parts of the watershed while allowing the ranch to continue agricultural and recreational uses. Bison became one of the most visible symbols of Turner’s conservation efforts. The CNN founder considered the species both an important part of the Great Plains ecosystem and a practical component of large-scale ranch management. Independent academic research shed additional light on the size of the herd. The research analysed how bison movements and grazing patterns related to forage and landscape conditions on the ranch. Conservation expanded beyond the ranch’s bison restoration
Beginning in 2002, the work included wetland and riparian restoration and reintroduction of Rio Grande cutthroat trout in the Costilla Creek watershed. A NASA DEVELOP technical report , produced with Vermejo Ranch and Colorado Parks and Wildlife, noted that the ranch partnered with the US Fish and Wildlife Service and Colorado Parks and Wildlife on a large native-trout restoration project. Additionally, the project used satellite and other remote sensing data to identify wetland and riparian regions where additional habitat restoration could be undertaken.
