Southern Yellowstone Program

Yellowstone
© Thomas Mangelson

All of the West’s best wildlife and wilderness qualities can be found in this region, south of the world’s oldest national park. Its qualities now are infinitely rarer and more precious than ever before.

By 1872, the West was vanishing rapidly. The once vast hordes of bison were melting like a summer snow and their natural predators—grizzlies and wolves—appeared to be on the same road to extinction. That year Congress set aside a huge piece of remaining wild country, one so overwhelming that it deserved an entirely new kind of designation—national park. Now, well into its second century, Yellowstone National Park retains much of its wilderness quality because of the immense amount of wild land—mostly national forest—that surrounds and protects its borders. No where is that protection more vital than the landscape south of Yellowstone.
Still, encroaching development is taking its toll on this last remaining part of the Wild West.

Location
Northwestern Wyoming

Size
over 6 million acres

Plants
Yellowstone is the largest intact temperate zone ecosystem on Earth. It boasts an incredible diversity of life. About 80 percent of the landscape is draped in forest, from the bluish-green of Douglas-fir stands to the yellowish green of lodgepole pine stands to the Engelmann spruce. Grasses dominate the sagebrush-steppe, while grass, forb, rush and sedge species are found near its wetlands. Wildflowers grow in abundance in meadows.

Animals
The adjacent Yellowstone National Park is home to the largest concentration of mammals in the lower 48 states. In all, 60 different mammals call this park and much of the surrounding landscape home, including the largest herd of elk in America, grizzly and black bears, mule deer, bison, bighorn sheep, and pronghorn.

Why the Conservancy Selected this Site
Although this landscape features extensive tracts of conserved lands, the ecological integrity of the greater Yellowstone area is eroding. Many of the region’s foothills and river corridors that harbor unique plant communities, migration corridors and winter ranges critical to wildlife are privately owned. Large private holdings are melting away into subdivisions, fragmenting the health and biodiversity of the entire Yellowstone ecosystem.

What the Conservancy Has Done/Is Doing
Working with public land agencies, ranchers and other private landowners, and utilizing a full array of conservation tools, the Conservancy is dedicated to protecting the biodiversity of the largest intact wild ecosystem remaining in the continental United States.

Contact
Southern Yellowstone Program
Wyoming Field Office
258 Main Street, Suite 200
Lander, Wyoming 82520
Phone: (307) 332-2971
Fax: (307) 332-2974