Adopt A Wildlife Acre

One of NWF's key campaigns over the past decade has been the enhancement of wildlife habitats in the High Divide eco-region, not only to sustain resident wildlife populations within this magnificent landscape but also to improve landscape connectivity between the Greater Yellowstone and the Salmon-Selway ecosystems in central Idaho. NWF initiatives have triggered new BLM planning to protect key wildlife habitats, catalyzed sage grouse habitat mapping and protection, removed livestock from areas with high potential for conflicts with wildlife, and advanced balanced federal legislation to protect hundreds of thousands of acres of wilderness while underwriting restoration of working landscapes. Through voluntary grazing retirements we have eliminated wildlife / livestock conflicts on over 140,000 acres along the High Divide. In turn, we are reconnecting wildlife to landscapes where they’ve been absent nearly a century. 

This immense swath of high elevation public lands runs west out of Yellowstone Park, including the Centennial Mountains and the south Beaverhead Mountains on the Montana/ Idaho border until joining the Salmon / Selway Wilderness in central Idaho.  For the past 20 years, NWF has worked collaboratively with ranchers, agencies and other conservation NGO's to highlight the importance of the region as an essential wildlife corridor.  However, we still have much work to do to ensure wildlife can utilize this important corridor without running into trouble.  

In addition to NWF's grazing retirement work on the High Divide, we continue to fight efforts to end domestic sheep grazing on the United States Department of Agriculture's Sheep Research Station (ARS) lands.  The ARS lands amount to 16,600 acres of prime habitat for a variety of species and is not a suitable place for grazing research to be conducted.

Of particular importance is the role of this wild country for expanding Yellowstone's grizzly population.  Grazing domestic sheep on the high elevation pastures in the Centennial Mountains will continue to limit the potential expansion of grizzly bear populations as more conflict arises. In addition, domestic sheep limit the ability for wild sheep populations to expand into the region as domestic sheep often can pass on deadly bacterial pathogens to wild sheep. 

Over the next year we see incredible opportunity to work collaboratively to find solutions that will allow wildlife populations to fully utilize this valuable ecological corridor.  

Links:

• Our collaborative work with our affiliate organization

Over the past fifteen years, the National Wildlife Federation has worked to eliminate conflict between wildlife and livestock on public lands- primarily those located within the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, including Montana, Idaho and Wyoming. We do this by cooperating with public land managers and conservation partners to identify and retire grazing allotments that experience chronic conflict with wildlife—a wholly voluntary market-based transaction with willing ranchers.

To date, through our Adopt a Wildlife Acre program, we've protected over 1.1 million acres of habitat on public lands for bison, bighorn sheep, wolves, grizzly bears, elk and native fisheries. These grazing retirements have helped wolf and grizzly bear populations to recover across the northern Rockies and bighorn sheep and bison to roam freely without livestock conflict. Watch the video below about an incredibly important area just protected in the Salmon-Challis National Forest, home to the largest herd of bighorn sheep in Idaho.

Check out a video of our most recent work!

While we have plenty of important work remaining in the Yellowstone ecosystem, we believe it is more important than ever to expand the program to other areas of the west where wildlife and traditional livestock grazing continue to be at odds. 

Adopting Acres for Wildlife in Colorado and Nevada

The official state animal of Colorado, the iconic bighorn has dwindled to less than 8,000 and is under continuous threat of disease.  Separation between wild bighorns and their domestic counterparts is the key to security and to their success.  

We recently completed a Colorado bighorn sheep assessment that confirms bighorn populations face a high risk of disease: our research documented over 90 federal domestic sheep grazing allotments that overlap with occupied bighorn sheep habitat.  We are confident that targeted negotiations with local sheep producers will support substantial recovery and protection of Colorado's bighorn population over the next decade. 

Our vision is to restore bighorn populations in Colorado over the next 10 years by eliminating major risk areas on public lands. 

In Nevada, bighorn populations have faced a tumultuous past and with over 80% of the state in public land.  We see tremendous opportunity to expand our efforts to not only secure Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep populations, but California bighorn and desert bighorn populations as well.  Drought, invasive weeds, fire and expanding domestic livestock operations have put wild sheep populations in a precarious balance.  By targeting specific conflict areas, our proven approach will can give Nevada bighorns a fighting chance.

In a time when wildlife is facing increased threats of development, disease and habitat loss, it’s more important than ever to expand our work and increase our efforts. We thank you for your continued support of NWF's Adopt a Wildlife Acre program.

Please Adopt a Wildlife Acre TODAY.