Adopt A Wildlife Acre

It has taken an incredible amount of work over the past decade to get us to the point we’re at today. NWF has focused on voluntary grazing retirements, and this approach has won strong public support as a proactive, free-market method to solving conflicts involving wildlife and livestock. Our first key retirement for bison was the Horse Butte allotment, which resolved a significant conflict on the western side of the park.  We then retired the Cache-Eldridge and Wapiti allotments in the Gallatin River drainage, which opens up a substantial area suitable for bison. Then we retired the Slip and Slide allotment north of the park by Gardiner.

But perhaps our most important grazing agreement involved private land.  Working in partnership with Fish, Wildlife and Parks, NWF negotiated an agreement with the Church Universal and Triumphant to cease cattle grazing on the church-owned Royal Teton Ranch, near Yellowstone’s northern entrance.  This has been a bottleneck for bison movement north of the park.

These retirements have led to the current situation where the risk of contact between bison and livestock is very low.  And we know that the potential for disease transmission between bison and cattle is extremely low if separation is maintained during birthing periods.

Wildlife advocates, of course, see the value of opening more habitat to bison. But the livestock industry should welcome the move as well. Why?

As long as bison are effectively confined within the borders of the national park, managing the species’ population and movements will remain extremely difficult.  And, as history has shown, it’s only a matter of time before the next bad winter sends bison into troubling territory—resulting in the untenable situation of hazing, capturing and slaughtering wildlife.  By allowing bison to occupy sizeable habitat outside the park year-round, Fish, Wildlife and Parks, interested tribes, and Montana sportsmen will have the opportunity to play their constructive, traditional and socially acceptable roles to help manage the bison to a population that is suitable to livestock interests.

Less conflict, less risk, more opportunity and more room for bison to roam free: We have a historic opportunity to resolve a frustrating and longstanding conflict. The hard work’s been done. Now it’s just a matter of encouraging state officials to say “yes” to the win-win solution before them.

Help us give bison room to roam by taking action now! 

Learn more about our symbolic adoption program.

We thank you for your help in retiring this critical acreage! 

National Wildlife Federation’s Adopt-A-Wildlife-Acre Project Update:  February 2014

National Wildlife Federation’s Adopt-A-Wildlife Acre program continues to see incredible success. To date, the program has succeeded in retiring more than 680,000 acres of vital wildlife habitat, securing safe areas for wildlife to roam. Most recently, thanks to successful NWF negotiations in 2013, we eliminated conflict between domestic and wild bighorn sheep by retiring grazing privileges on 12,000 acres of Montana’s Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest. This retirement will prevent domestic sheep from spreading fatal disease to two herds of bighorn sheep.

Thank you for your help in retiring this critical acreage! Retirement of these domestic sheep allotments is also important for enhancing trout habitat and rebuilding a wildlife corridor between the Greater Yellowstone and Salmon Selway ecosystems.

Removing domestic sheep allows riparian vegetation to flourish, which improves water quality and cool streams during Montana’s hot summers. The end of sheep grazing and the wildlife conflicts they created also allows large carnivores such as grizzly bears and wolves to move more freely across the mountain ranges between Montana and Idaho.

The efforts of Adopt-A-Wildlife-Acre are on-going to retire more acreage across the region in order to give wildlife the opportunity to roam and thrive in their native habitat. Thank you for making our project a success!

Hello Friends!

National Wildlife Federation is making great strides in our efforts to protect wildlife and we are so grateful for the support of our generous donors and friends at Global Giving who are helping us reach our goals.   To date, NWF has already secured more than 620,000 acres of vital wildlife habitat.  NWF has restored 61 wild, Yellowstone bison to the Fort Peck Indian Reservation in March 2012, and since then, more than 20 calves have been born to the herd. This was the first-ever return of wild bison to tribal lands after more than a century of being absent from their native prairie habitat. Through these efforts and more, bison have slowly begun to recover and thrive.  With the help of our supporters, we will continue to move forward with our Adopt-a-Wildlife-Acre program to restore bison to the expansive Charles M. Russell National Wildlife Refuge (CMR).

 To expand on our efforts, NWF’s Adopt-A-Wildlife Acre is also focusing on wild bighorn sheep In Montana.  They are facing devastating, deadly outbreaks of pneumonia when coming into contact with domestic sheep carrying the disease. The diseases are highly contagious and often fatal, leading to slow and painful deaths. The situation is complicated because scientists don’t fully understand how these diseases spread.  As long as domestic sheep continue to graze on public lands near major herds of bighorn sheep, the bighorns will remain at risk of catastrophic illness.

Another problem - bighorn rams roam far and wide in search of a mate, often onto public lands where domestic sheep grazing is permitted. Entire herds of bighorn sheep are at risk of contracting deadly diseases if they come into contact with those domestic sheep. One recent study found a single domestic sheep caused more than 86 bighorn deaths between 1997 to 2000.

Fortunately, we have chance to resolve these conflicts.   Just as we are doing for bison, we now have the chance to “retire” domestic sheep grazing privileges in key areas adjacent to bighorn sheep habitat, including two critical allotments spanning 12,000 acres in southwest Montana. The two bighorn herds that are adjacent to these domestic sheep allotments have suffered two 75-percent reductions in their populations in the last thirty years due to disease outbreaks. Retiring grazing privileges would be a huge improvement for the health of local bighorn herds.

NWF is taking advantage of this rare opportunity and with the support of our donors will be able to purchase domestic sheep grazing allotments that border bighorn sheep habitat, and retire these lands from grazing by domestic animals. 

We at NWF, along with our wildlife friends, cannot thank you enough for your help and support!

Links:

• To Learn More About Adopt A Wildlife Acre

Our major accomplishment of the past year has been retirement of two domestic sheep grazing allotments on the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest in southwestern Montana. These bands of domestic sheep have been causing serious disease problems for two separate bighorn sheep herds – resulting in upwards of 75% mortality – for more than three decades.

Bear Canyon (4,586 acres) and Indian Creek (7,483 acres) lie in the headwaters of the Beaverhead River, southwest of Dillon, Montana. Bear Canyon lies on the west face of the Tendoy Mountains, while Indian Creek stretches across the Continental Divide on the Idaho/Montana. This area is a key corridor that connects the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem with the Salmon-Selway Ecosystem to the north in Idaho.

For the last several decades, the Forest Service has permitted domestic sheep (1,200 ewes and lambs) to use these areas in the summer. Much of this area is dry, high-elevation grassland with aspen groves and conifer stands. The conflict arises because domestic sheep are known to transmit diseases to bighorn sheep that can result in dramatic die-offs of the wild sheep.

These two allotments have precisely that history. Bighorn sheep were introduced to the Tendoys in 1984; the herd thrived for its first decade, but then experienced a die-off in 1993 that killed 75% of the herd (which then numbered close to 100). The herd began to build back up again, only to experience another devastating reduction in 1999, when 75% of the herd was again lost to disease. The bighorn sheep herd adjacent to Indian Creek, which lives part of the year in Idaho, has also experienced die-offs, though not as severe as Bear Canyon.

It cost NWF $50,000 to retire these two allotments from domestic sheep grazing. Our agreement with the rancher allows him to graze a small number of cattle for a short period of time on one of the allotments. There’s no conflict between the small number of cattle and the bighorn sheep herds. It’s a solution that worked not only for the bighorns, but for the rancher, as well.  

While our Adopt-an-Acre program has often centered on conflicts with grizzly bears and wolves, bighorn sheep are another important wildlife species that frequently have been a focal point of our efforts. When domestic sheep come into contact with bighorn sheep, there's strong potential for disease transmission. Bighorns do not seem to have resistance to many of the pathogens that are carried by domestics. Consequently, bighorn sheep herds that range near areas that have domestic sheep frequently have large die-offs. Over the last decade these episodes of mass mortality have occurred in numerous locations. The conflicts between bighorn sheep and domestic sheep became so severe on the Payette National Forest in Idaho that environmental groups filed lawsuits to remove the domestic sheep. The National Wildlife Federation believes our approach of negotiating agreements is a superior approach if livestock producers are willing to meet us halfway. To date, we have retired over 600,000 acres surrounding Yellowstone National Park.