Craighead Institute Wildlife Connectivity Program
Our Program Goal is to provide seamless wildlife movement corridors from the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (GYE) to the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem (NCDE) through the Gallatin, Bridger, Bangtail, Little Belt, and Crazy Mountains. These critical wildlife corridors are inadequately protected and all of them are hindered by major highways which are a significant barrier to wildlife. We work to protect wilderness and wildlands within corridors, protect wildlife habitat collaboratively on private lands, and help direct public lands management, with the overall goal of biological diversity conservation. This work is increasingly important as ecosystems are threatened by climate and land use changes.
Safe Highway Crossings for Wildlife Projects
Maintaining options for wildlife to move through these areas in response to population needs and environmental change is essential to protect biological diversity and wildlands. Helping local landowners understand the importance of their local efforts in the broader ecosystem is also important to our efforts. Creating a safe wildlife crossing is a complex issue; not only do the animals need a safe route over or under the highway, they need to have somewhere friendly to go on either side. Working collaboratively with diverse groups in Montana we have identified critical corridors that cross busy highways. Large landscape conservation efforts such as this can take many years to come to fruition.
This is a problem that can be solved; crossing structures work, and they work well.
This is a problem that can be solved; crossing structures work, and they work well.
Bridger Canyon
One of our Project Objectives is to identify, maintain and protect movement corridors on private lands along and across Bridger Canyon in Gallatin County to link up with the Gallatin Range to the south and the Little Belt Range to the north. We have completed a corridor mapping analysis last year and we have begun to input local ecological knowledge through mapping workshops and surveys to augment and explain the GIS habitat efforts and develop safe highway crossing strategies.
Bozeman Pass
Another Project Objective is to implement more wildlife crossing structures across Interstate-90 over Bozeman Pass. This would allow connectivity between the Gallatin Range to the south with the Bridger and Bangtail Ranges to the North. The Bridger Canyon - Bozeman Pass wildlife corridor has been identified through several scientific studies and modeling efforts as a primary, if not the primary, priority corridor between the GYE and NCDE. Here is a brief overview of the Bozeman Pass work.
Mission Creek
Another Project Objective is to study and prioritize highway crossing sites across Interstate-90 in Park County near Mission Creek between the Absaroka and Crazy Mountains. The Mission Creek wildlife crossing sites were identified by field visits and by discussions with local landowners where existing underpasses could be improved by wildlife fencing to make highway crossings safer for wildlife and motorists. Here is a brief overview of the Mission Creek work.