Maintaining Wildlife Movement and Migration
Helping wildlife and people safely reach their destination.
Grizzly bears, elk, moose, and other wildlife thrive in the northeastern Crown of the Continent because of high-quality habitat and their ability to move freely to find food and water, find security, and reproduce. Maintaining wildlife’s ability to move is essential to sustaining our world-class wildlife.Â
Unfortunately, roads, railways, fences, and new development increasingly fragment habitat and impede this movement. In response, Glacier-Two Medicine Alliance is working to enhance wildlife connectivity throughout the northeastern Crown by reducing barriers to wildlife movement. Our priority focus is the Highway 2 corridor along the southern edge of Glacier National Park.
The Highway 2 Corridor - A Growing Threat
U.S. Highway 2 between the communities of Browning and Columbia Falls is a breathtakingly beautiful drive beneath jagged mountains and along the Middle Fork Flathead river. For wildlife, crossing this increasingly busy highway has become a perilous undertaking, especially in the busy summer. The heavily-used adjacent BNSF railway and growing housing development add to the peril. Thankfully there are solutions like wildlife crossing structures that can make the highway safer for animals and people. Before the highway and railway divide the ecosystem in two,Â
Glacier-Two Medicine Alliance is working with partners to plan for, develop and fund new site-specific projects that improve wildlife movement.
Promoting Wildlife Connectivity in the NE Crown
Throughout the northeastern Crown, we are raising public awareness of the threat of roads and railways to wildlife connectivity. We support research to improve knowledge of wildlife movement patterns, a necessary prerequisite to identifying effective solutions. Outside the Highway 2 corridor, we monitor proposed transportation projects and land management activities to ensure they account for wildlife movement. Inside the Badger-Two Medicine, we are identifying old, barbed-wire fences that pose a risk of injury or entrapment to ungulates and making plans for their removal.
Help Report Wildlife Sightings and Collisions on Highway 2!
If you drive any stretch of Highway 2 between Browning and Columbia Falls, please report your observations of wildlife, alive or dead, along the highway. Your observations will help researchers, transportation officials, and conservationists better understand how animals move through the corridor and where the highest risk areas for wildlife-vehicle collisions are located, which will help develop solutions. Reporting observations is easy to do from your smartphone or tablet!
Our Central Crown Connectivity work is generously supported by the Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative.
News
Latest News Related to Wildlife Connectivity
Journalist Ben Goldfarb on wildlife crossings
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