Landscape connectivity is critical for wildlife passage—and survival. Yet the landscape of the American West is a patchwork of private and public lands that are rife with human created obstacles that prevent migrating animals from finding food and shelter: railroad crossings, high-speed roads with heavy traffic volumes, wide reservoirs and networks of fences.
The National Wildlife Federation’s Northern Rockies, Prairies, and Pacific region coordinates projects to modify fences so that wildlife populations are better able to move across the landscape to find resources. Fences can act as barriers to daily or seasonal movement and working with communities to create wildlife-friendly fences helps increase connectivity.
Our approach is a collaborative effort that engages state and federal resource agencies, landowners, community groups, and other NGOs. Wildlife tracking data helps us determine where to focus our efforts, and outreach and education in local communities helps us build support for on-the-ground projects. Our focus areas currently include the High Divide region of southwest Montana and northeast Idaho and the vast sagebrush and prairie steppe of northeastern Montana.
The High Divide is an important wildlife connectivity area between the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, the Crown of the Continent, and the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness complex. Large populations of big game and other wildlife traverse the patchwork of land ownership in the High Divide during migrations, and private lands provide important winter range.
The northern Great Plains host one of the longest-recorded ungulate migrations in the contiguous U.S., where pronghorn travel over 200 miles from Montana to Alberta and Saskatchewan. In both of our current focus regions we work with ranchers and other landowners to come up with solutions that help both wildlife and people, so that working lands are maintained as open spaces and wildlife can move to their preferred summer or winter ranges.
Above photos by Simon Buzzard.
Scientific Papers
- Modeling Fence Location and Density at a Regional Scale for Use in Wildlife Management
- Evaluating Responses by Pronghorn to Fence Modifications Across the Northern Great Plains
- To Jump or Not to Jump: Mule Deer and White-Tailed Deer Fence Crossing Decisions
- Fences reduce habitat for a partially migratory ungulate in the Northern Sagebrush Steppe
- Evaluating Responses by Sympatric Ungulates to Fence Modifications across the Northern Great Plains
- A fence runs through it: A call for greater attention to the influence of fences on wildlife and ecosystems
For more information about the National Wildlife Federation's fencing for wildlife program in Southwest Montana & northeastern Idaho, please contact Simon Buzzard at buzzards@nwf.org.
