On Montana’s Rocky Mountain Front, the mountains meet the prairies in a dramatic convergence of rocky cliffs and the vast grasslands of the High Plains.
Rocky Mountain Front
This unique area is one of the most biologically rich regions in the entire country. It’s one of the last places where grizzly bears still venture out onto the open plains, and many other animals that no longer exist on much of their historic range still roam freely here.
The greatest threat to the Front is the subdivision and development of large ranches that maintain open space and habitat on private lands. The low profit margins in agriculture can leave some ranchers with few options but to sell land at the high values offered by second-home and other developers.
Subdivision and development threaten wildlife by fragmenting vital habitat. Grizzly bears use vast territories on the Front—up to 250 square miles for males—and their need for privacy can truly be hampered by dividing even a portion of a large ranch. It also increases the odds of human-bear conflict. Scattered development also interrupts the migration of pronghorn, elk and moose.
Wildlife of the Rocky Mountain Front
Conservation in Action
Partnership is the solid foundation on which The Nature Conservancy has built an extremely successful conservation strategy. Although the mountainous portions of this region are largely public land, the grasslands remain dedicated largely to private ranching. The commitment of local ranchers to good stewardship, to co-existing with wildlife and to resisting development has made them extraordinary partners in this effort. They’ve also agreed to put tens of thousands of acres into conservation easements. The contributions of information, expertise and funding by public agencies and non-profit organizations provide another essential link for community-based conservation on the Front.
The Nature Conservancy’s goal is to ensure that all the plant and animal species here will thrive long into the future. We focus both on critical core habitat and the essential links between public and private lands that enable animals to reach the places that sustain them throughout the changing seasons. To protect these extraordinary places, we work in concert with our partners to employ a suite of tools ranging from direct purchase of land to securing conservation easements.
Our close partnership with communities has also resulted in unified efforts to effectively manage noxious weeds and influence public policy that supports our mutual conservation goals.
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More about Pine Butte Preserve
The preserve offers some of the finest bear habitat left in the Lower 48 states. Learn more here.
Pine Butte Preserve
The Nature Conservancy continues an ambitious project to protect Montana’s Pine Butte Swamp: the largest wetland complex along the Rocky Mountain Front and one of the grizzly bear’s last strongholds on the plains. The area is part of the larger Crown of the Continent, a 10-million-acre landscape in the Northern Rockies that includes Glacier National Park and straddles the Montana-Canada border.
Over the last four decades, Pine Butte has enabled our conservation work to reach a much bigger scale and encompass the entire Rocky Mountain Front. It continues to be a proving ground of how partnerships, on-the-ground stewardship and science can combine to achieve conservation outcomes. Our on-the-ground work provides shared experience and goals with our community partners—an essential part of our ongoing conservation efforts.
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