800,000 Acres and Counting: Celebrating the Success of the Migratory Big Game Initiative
Years ago, I was driving with my three small children through a fall snowstorm in Montana’s beautiful Madison Valley. The road was slick with fresh snow, and visibility was limited as we made our way south. We rounded a bend and suddenly a herd of 100 or more pronghorn came into view off to our right. They were moving with a sense of urgency as they encountered a fence along the highway. With few other cars on the road, we stopped to watch them crawl under the barbed wire fence and dash across the road in an almost single file line just beyond the hood of our minivan. We sat in silence, admiring their sleek bodies that are built for speed. Finally, my son asked, “Where are they going?” To which I replied, “They are migrating to lower country so they can survive the coming winter.”
Few places in North America rival the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem for its abundance of wildlife. Each year, hundreds of thousands of elk, mule deer, pronghorn, and other migratory ungulates (hooved mammals) move across vast landscapes in search of seasonal habitat, following migration routes used for generations. These migrations are among the last great wildlife spectacles in the Lower 48 and are essential to their survival.
A herd of pronghorn on the road in Yellowstone National Park. The famed Path of the Pronghorn is the longest land mammal migration in the contiguous U.S. (Photo NPS/Jacob W. Frank)
Protecting migration corridors and seasonal habitat requires more than conserving public lands. In Wyoming, many of the most important bottlenecks, stopover areas, and winter ranges occur on private working lands. Ranches and farms play a critical role in keeping migration routes connected and functioning. Conserving these landscapes is critical to ensuring that migratory wildlife—and the carnivores and scavengers that rely on them—can continue to thrive in Greater Yellowstone.
That understanding inspired the Migratory Big Game Initiative, a collaborative effort led by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the State of Wyoming, conservation organizations, and private landowners to increase voluntary conservation and restoration in priority wildlife corridors. What began as a pilot effort has grown into one of the most successful public-private conservation partnerships in the West.
Since 2022, the initiative has impacted more than 800,000 acres of private working lands in Wyoming through USDA Farm Bill conservation programs. Nearly 50,000 acres of new conservation easements have been completed in priority wildlife corridors, permanently protecting habitat from subdivision and development. Approximately 100,000 acres have been enrolled in multi-year habitat leases that support ranching operations while maintaining critical wildlife habitat. Additional investments have supported wildlife-friendly fencing, invasive species treatments, habitat restoration, and other conservation practices that improve conditions for migratory wildlife.
The initiative’s success reflects the power of partnership. Landowners have voluntarily stepped forward to conserve wildlife habitat while keeping working lands productive. Federal and state agencies have worked together to streamline programs and direct resources where they can have the greatest impact. Conservation organizations, including the Greater Yellowstone Coalition, have helped build support, identify priorities, and connect funding to landowners and projects on the ground.
A mule deer examines a fence in Wyoming’s Greater Yellowstone. Approximately 100,000 acres have been enrolled in multi-year habitat leases through the Migratory Big Game Initiative that support ranching operations while maintaining critical wildlife habitat. (Photo Mark Gocke)
A critical component of the initiative’s success has been the scale of investment. Between 2022 and 2026, approximately $45 million in federal funding has flowed through USDA programs to support voluntary private land conservation. An additional $8.5 million in private funding raised and pooled through GYC’s partners at The WYldlife Fund, created a powerful funding partnership that supports NGO staff capacity and on-the-ground projects.
We recently celebrated a major milestone when the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced the Migratory Big Game Initiative has transitioned from a pilot effort to an official conservation framework within its agencies, ensuring that this successful model can continue delivering strong results. The framework also expanded to cover 17 states across the West and Midwest. This action reflects years of hard work by landowners, agency staff, tribal partners, conservation organizations, and elected leaders who believe that voluntary, incentive-based conservation can work at scale.
The work is far from over. Federal funding and agency staff capacity have been reduced over the past year, creating bottlenecks and smaller financial incentives. GYC and our partners will continue to demonstrate the initiative’s success and support landowners in accessing these important programs. We are also advocating for a return to higher levels of federal funding needed to sustain our exciting momentum.
Collaboration and sustained effort among landowners, government agencies, and conservation partners can ensure seasonal migrations like the one my family witnessed in the Madison Valley years ago continue long into the future. Two essential pillars of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem—wildlife and open space on working lands—depend on our ability to work together.
And at GYC, we’re all in.
—Scott Christensen, Executive Director [Bozeman, MT]
