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Room for Grizzlies and Ranchers

Prime Grizzly habitat on the Rocky Mountain Front © Dave Hanna/TNC

This fall, a long awaited dream came true on the Rocky Mountain Front. With funding from the Conservancy and our partners at the Conservation Fund and the US Fish and Wildlife Service, the 12,130 acre Crawford ranch is now under easement.   It’s the largest ever completed by the USFWS in the continental US and extends protection of the Teton River from the forest boundary to 17 miles onto the plains. It also consolidates a swath of habitat that runs from the Pine Butte Swamp Preserve and across the 20,000 acres conserved with the Hirschfeld, Gollehon, and Rice easements. That is very good news for grizzlies.

This part of the Front helps sustain the highest seasonal densities of grizzly bears anywhere in the continental U.S.   The shrub fields and cottonwood stands on the Crawford Ranch provide a banquet for bears emerging from their winter hibernation. They find both food and shelter in the ranch’s “edge” habitat – the zone where the grassland meets the streamside vegetation of the Teton River. During the daylight hours, a mother grizzly and her cubs can feast on cow parsnips and horsetail within the protective plant cover along the river. As night falls, they’re more secure extending their foraging out onto the open grasslands.

Unlike areas where grizzlies have more interaction with human activity, such as the Greater Yellowstone region, the bears on the Front mostly keep their distance from people.  The Conservancy works with landowners and partner agencies to minimize conflicts that arise when grizzlies begin to associate humans--in particular their trash and livestock -- as an easy source of food.  You can read more about how we do that, and a profile of the owner of the Crawford ranch in the latest edition of Big Sky Landmarks.

Over the last year, nearly 33,000 acres were preserved on the Front – four times more than in any previous year. And landowners have already approached the Conservancy about extending easements on more than 90,000 additional acres. 

Remember, your gift to our work on the Front will be matched by The Richard King Mellon Foundation and The Conservation Fund.