We recap our 2024 favorite conservation moments and wins in Greater Yellowstone.

Modern gold mining often involves stripping hillsides, crushing rock into dust, and using cyanide solutions to extract gold from low-grade ore. Although this method of heap-leaching is economically efficient, it poses substantial environmental risks. Numerous catastrophic mining failures in the U.S. in recent decades offer a cautionary tale of what could go wrong if the financially unstable foreign mining company currently exploring for gold in the Centennial Mountains above Kilgore, Idaho are permitted to mine.

A growing number of Idaho hunters, anglers, farmers, ranchers, outdoor recreationists, families, and conservationists have joined the Clean Kilgore Coalition to protect the precious water, land, wildlife, and outdoor heritage that Excellon’s toxic gold mine would threaten.  

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Upper Snake Field Office recently released a plan that defines and manages travel and recreation on its lands in southeast Idaho. The plan –the Upper Snake East Travel Management Plan – is the first of its kind in this corner of Idaho. The GYC team is continuing to evaluate what this plan means for BLM lands in southeast Idaho and the wildlife and natural resources they support.

Spring has officially sprung! Migratory antelope, deer, elk, and moose are beginning their journeys from winter refuge throughout public lands across southeastern Idaho to summer habitat, primarily in Yellowstone National Park and Grand Teton National Park. And here at the Greater Yellowstone Coalition, our Idaho team is eagerly preparing for the Bureau of Land Management to release the final plan for the Upper Snake East Travel Management Planning Area later this season – a landscape that includes winter wildlife refuges and migratory corridors to summer habitat.

When bears wake up in Greater Yellowstone, we know spring is on its way. This month, GYC celebrated the return of bears with a project to keep bears alive and people safe in Montana and hosted a film screening about grizzly bears in Idaho. We also have an upcoming event in Bozeman on May 2 that we hope you’ll attend.

The BLM released the most significant change in the management of BLM lands in 50 years with the final Public Lands Rule, which puts conservation on equal ground with other uses like mining and energy development.

Buckle up! It’s going to be a big year for GYC and the lands, waters, and wildlife of Greater Yellowstone.

Join us for a journey down memory lane and let’s celebrate all we did together for the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem.

During the summer of 2023, GYC Wilderness Inventory Technician Andrew Jakovac traversed the High Divide landscape in search of areas with wilderness character. The photos, data, and GPS points he collected will help the Caribou-Targhee National Forest and GYC protect critical wildlife corridors, wildlife habitat, and open space in future forest planning processes.

Water is a defining, dynamic, and driving force in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. The ecosystem’s wild rivers are so significant to its identity that Greater Yellowstone is often called “the headwaters of the West.” But what does it really mean to be “the headwaters of the West?”

Last week, a U.S. District Court sided with the U.S. Forest Service and Canadian mining company Excellon Resources in a ruling that allows Excellon to proceed with the five-year Kilgore Gold Exploration Project, greenlighting exploratory drilling that puts the wildlife, rural character, and water quality of the foothills of Idaho’s Centennial Mountains and all those downstream at serious risk.