Rocky Mountain Front Initiative: Grizzlies on the Front

Where Montana’s dramatic peaks give way to the Northern Great Plains, the Rocky Mountain Front forms a landscape unlike any other in America. The Front represents some of the nation’s rarest wildlife habitat – where grizzly bears still roam freely from the mountains to the plains, as they have for centuries.

A HAVEN FOR WILDLIFE

• The world’s last Plains grizzlies

• Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep & goats
• 21 raptor species
• Thousands of elk & mule deer
• Nesting pairs of trumpeter swans
• 40,000 Wrangle Island snow geese

Challenge

Recent demand for recreational property and vacation homes in this scenic area threatens the Front’s wildlife habitat. For generations, family ranchers have owned large swaths of the land, enabling wildlife to freely migrate. But as financially-strapped ranchers sell off their land, this landscape gets fragmented.

In Montana, more than three million acres have been subdivided over the past 15 years. New homes and roads disrupt wildlife migration routes, cutting off the animals’ access to breeding grounds, food and safe haven.

Solution

The Conservation Fund joined with The Nature Conservancy, the US Fish and Wildlife Service and the state of Montana in an unprecedented five-year effort to protect 220,000 acres along the Rocky Mountain Front while maintaining the region’s traditional ranching heritage.

Results

In its first year, the Rocky Mountain Front Initiative has moved forward with four projects, protecting 21,274 acres of critical migratory corridors for grizzly bears and a wide variety of other species that depend on the Front’s rich ecosystem.

Read more about our successes to date »