| Fast Facts |
location
125 miles northwest of Helena
ecoregion
Canadian Rockies, Northern Great Plains Steppe
project size
5 million acres
preserves
Pine Butte Swamp, Crown Butte
public lands
Lewis and Clark National Forest, Bob Marshall Wilderness Complex, Glacier National Park, Waterton National Park, Canadian Crown lands
partners
U.S. Forest Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Blackfeet Indian Land Conservation Trust, Boone and Crockett Club, landowners and ranching community, Montana Fish, Wildlife, and Parks, Southern Alberta Land Trust, Nature Conservancy of Canada
conservancy initiatives
Invasive Species
natural events
grizzly bears move from mountains to plains to forage, early summer | |
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| Where high plains meet mountain wilderness, private lands are the thread that could unravel a wild tapestry of grizzlies and their wide-open expanses. |
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Grizzly bear and bighorn sheep.
© Joel Sartore |
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Rising from the Great Plains as far as the eye can see, the mountainous wall of the Rocky Mountain Front looms jagged and brooding. Along this natural divide Native Americans traveled north and south for thousands of years, their ancient journeys etching the Old North Trail into the hard earth. For the Blackfeet people the mountains are the miistakis—the backbone of the world.
The Rocky Mountain Front, running from Alberta south through Montana, marks the easternmost edge of a functioning wilderness. This is the only place in the world where you can still see grizzly bears in their native plains habitat just as Lewis and Clark encountered them. In summer, the bears descend onto the plains to feed on chokecherries and serviceberries growing thick along streams. To the west the bears thrive in the Bob Marshall Wilderness Complex and other wild strongholds of public land. With the exception of bison—the former lifeblood and currency of the Blackfeet and other plains tribes—all of the native mammals that inhabited this land when Lewis and Clark passed through survive here. |
Ear Mountain.
© Harold E. Malde |
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The grizzlies’ timeless migrations are today at risk as their routes of passage are cut by fences, roads and other developments that threaten to overtake the private lands along the Rocky Mountain Front. More people moving in means more encounters with bears—encounters that can be more fatal for bears than for people. In general, ranchers |
| have tolerated bears on their rangelands. But if and when those ranches are sold and vacation-home “ranchettes” sprout in their place, the big territories needed by bears will be further divided—a shrinking habitat for a wide-ranging animal. | |
It is in these private lands that The Nature Conservancy works to protect prime bear habitat along the front. We have facilitated conservation easements on working ranches, a mutually beneficial arrangement that gives tax breaks to cash-strapped ranchers. On the Blackfeet Reservation, we assisted in the creation of a tribal land trust to secure easements. These efforts are just a few of many designed to give the bears the freedom to roam.
Learn more about The Nature Conservancy's work in Montana. |
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| Conservation Profile |
targets
grizzly bear, native prairie, streams and wetlands, fens, grassland birds like long-billed curlew, rough fescue grasslands
stresses
invasive weeds, habitat fragmentation from development, altered fire regime
strategies
secure conservation easements, combat invasive species, restore ecosystems through fire management, encourage conservation management of public and private land
results
46,000 acres in conservation management; Blackfeet Indian Land Conservation Trust launched; cooperative fire and weed management projects in place | | | | |
