The Source January 2024

THE SOURCE

GYC AND SUPPORTERS ADVOCATE FOR MONTANA WOLVES

Gray wolves are an icon of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. Elusive and enigmatic, wolves keep our ecosystem in check, ensure our landscape is healthy, and draw visitors who provide millions of dollars to local communities.

But the management of wolves has been contentious in the West. After a long history of aggressive predator management policies and outcompetition for prey species, wolves were eliminated from Yellowstone National Park by 1926. They remained absent until the mid-1990s, when ecologically minded biologists led efforts to reintroduce them to Yellowstone and central Idaho. Since then, populations of this keystone species have expanded across the Northern Rockies, leading to the removal of federal protections and a return of wolf management responsibilities to the states.

With wolf management in state hands, the wolf policies of Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming have a substantial impact on the wolf population of the Yellowstone region. Even Yellowstone wolves, protected within the park’s borders, are subject to state policies if they cross the park boundary. This is why it is important for GYC to engage in state policy-making processes.

One such opportunity arrived in October 2023, when Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks (FWP) released a draft Montana Gray Wolf Conservation and Management Plan (wolf plan) and an accompanying draft Environmental Impact Statement (EIS). Once finalized, these documents will guide wolf management actions in the state of Montana for years to come. During the subsequent public comment period, GYC’s wildlife team thoroughly reviewed FWP’s draft wolf plan and EIS and submitted formal comments.

Specifically, we advocated for improvements to the plan that account for differences in economic, ecological, scientific, and cultural values of wolves across Montana. We also asked that management actions were based on the best available science, and that the plan provide specific guidelines for how wolves would be managed at different population levels – and allow for public input when tactics change.

Importantly, we asked you to submit comments as well – providing FWP with broad-based feedback and showcasing public support for balanced, science-based state management policies that ensure wolves continue to play their critical role on the landscape. Amazingly, more than 2,000 people answered our call to action and submitted comments on the wolf plan to FWP after hearing from us.

On February 2, 2024 the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) found a petition by some conservation groups to add Northern Rockies wolves back to the Endangered Species Act (ESA) was not necessary, identified Western States wolves as a distinct population, and committed to initiating a process to develop a new national recovery plan for wolves. The agency has also initiated an effort to foster a national dialogue around how communities can live with gray wolves. We applaud FWS for these efforts. At the heart of the debate about wolf status under the ESA are concerns with state-level policies that guide how wolves are managed, which FWS acknowledged in its decision. It’s clear that the states need to live up to their commitments to responsibly manage wolves and protect key populations like those in Yellowstone National Park.

Photo: Bobs Creek Photography/ Shutterstock

HOSTS FIRST INDIGENOUS YOUTH CULTURE AND CLIMATE CAMP

Just 40 miles east of Yellowstone National Park in the southeast corner of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem is the Wind River Indian Reservation, home to the Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho Tribes. Sweeping sagebrush steppe, lush riparian corridors, sandstone buttes, and snowcapped mountains characterize this culturally and ecologically significant landscape.

Connecting Wind River youth to this dynamic landscape and their cultures was the inspiration for a first-of-itskind, land-based education event held on the reservation in September 2023. Hosted by the Greater Yellowstone Coalition, in collaboration with several partners, the three-day Indigenous Youth Culture and Climate Camp gathered youth, Elders, and educators at the Eastern Shoshone Buffalo Herd pasture.

More than 100 students from Wyoming Indian Schools attended and

traipsed through knee-high sagebrush to stations facilitated by cultural knowledge-keepers, scientists, educators, and others.

Tribal Elders facilitated stations to pass down oral traditions. Community knowledge-keepers held sessions in Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho languages. Representatives from Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks spoke with the youth about national parks and the wildlife that live there. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as well as Shoshone and Arapaho Fish and Game presented.

Events like these bring youth together on the landscape, joining natural resources with education, culture, relationship, community, and relatives. Students were able to see the low waters of the Big Wind River while listening to climate scientists speak of drought. They passed roaming buffalo after they heard Tribal Elders speak of their reintroduction.

Through this living classroom, students were able to take away more than what a book could give them.

Indigenous people have stewarded the lands, waters, and wildlife of Greater Yellowstone since time immemorial. But for far too long, the Western conservation movement has ignored and excluded Indigenous voices. Today, GYC is working with Tribal partners to support Indigenous-led conservation, which is strengthened by connections among youth, Elders, and the lands they call home – connections deepened by events like this one.

GYC’s Wind River staff plan to host additional culture- and climatefocused camps with the involvement of all reservation schools in the coming years.

Your generous support makes events like this possible. Thank you for helping steward the next generation of conservationists.

GYC

More than 100 students participated in the Indigenous Youth Culture and Climate Camp - Photos: GYC /London Bernier

Photo: Danita Delimont/ Shutterstock

NEW WILDLIFE CROSSINGS COMPLETED!

In October 2023, we celebrated a remarkable victory for wildlife migration and movement in Greater Yellowstone. The completion of the Dry Piney Connectivity Project created nine underpasses along a 19mile stretch of highway in Wyoming. These underpasses will allow wildlife to move more easily throughout the seasons and keep people safe while driving along this bustling road.

Connected landscapes are what keep Greater Yellowstone’s wildlife healthy and thriving. Situated within the migratory path of the iconic Wyoming Range mule deer herd, U.S. Highway 189 presents one of the largest barriers between alpine summer habitat and the sagebrush steppe ecosystem where thousands of deer spend the winter. Other ungulates including elk, pronghorn, and moose also access seasonal habitat by crossing U.S. Highway 189. With countless animals attempting to cross, this section of highway has historically represented a hotspot for wildlife-vehicle collisions.

Amazingly, wildlife have already been reported using the nine underpasses!

To see this project to fruition, GYC assisted in raising the $17 million needed to build the underpasses, along with 33 miles of fencing to encourage wildlife to move toward the underpasses, and two miles of new road.

This included helping the Wyoming Department of Transportation secure a $14.5 million BUILD grant with the Federal Highway Administration and secure an additional $400,000 in grant funding through the Knobloch Family Foundation, The Volgenau Foundation, and National Fish and Wildlife Foundation.

GYC is committed to preserving connectivity and restoring the ability of wildlife to move within and across the landscape to meet their needs.

Thanks to donors like you, GYC is able to support the construction of wildlife crossings like the Dry Piney Connectivity Project’s nine underpasses and lead other opportunities to preserve wildlife migration and movement across this remarkable ecosystem.

WILL YOU TAKE ACTION FOR YELLOWSTONE BISON?

Yellowstone bison deserve a forwardlooking bison management plan that treats bison as wildlife, allows them to migrate, and supports healthy numbers for future generations

Montana Governor Greg Gianforte disagrees and needs a reality check. Head to our website at greateryellowstone.org/ protectbison and sign your name to ask Governor Gianforte to join the majority of Americans who want Yellowstone bison managed as wildlife.

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THANK YOU for all you do to protect the wild heart of North America, now and for future generations.

Photo: WYDOT