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

As news spreads that Grizzly bear 399 was struck and killed by a vehicle this week in Wyoming, it’s worth pausing to recognize how a single bruin in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem made such an impact on how people connect with the species.  

GYC and the WYldlife Fund teamed up to raise $2.7 million in donations to help keep people safe and wildlife alive along U.S. Highway 26 in Wyoming. This substantial fundraising effort will strengthen the state’s application as it competes for highly competitive federal grant funds.  

After four years of collaborating with partners, meeting with landowners, hosting community workshops and events, collecting data, and investigating tangible solutions, Yellowstone Safe Passages is proud to announce that their proposal for two overpasses at the Dome Mountain priority site along US Highway 89 has been awarded state funding to complete an engineering feasibility study. 

Yellowstone Safe Passages (YSP) is celebrating a milestone in their work toward making Highway 89 safer for people and wildlife. On March 11, 2024, YSP released the US 89 Wildlife and Transportation Assessment to the public. The assessment offers proven solutions for seven areas with the highest rates of wildlife-vehicle collisions and detailed explanations why those sites were identified.

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.

On October 12, 2023, the Wyoming Department of Transportation hosted a ribbon-cutting ceremony to celebrate the completion of the Dry Piney Connectivity Project – a wildlife crossing project that will help address the issues of wildlife permeability and human safety along a 19-mile stretch of U.S. Highway 189.

GYC’s work in southwest Montana exemplifies the wide range of strategies we deploy to protect the lands, waters, and wildlife of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. From buying gold mines, to working with ranchers to protect grizzly bears, and supporting programs to restore bison, we work with all people to find common ground and develop innovative solutions to protect this ecosystem we all love. Join GYC’s Conservation Director Craig Benjamin on an epic road trip across southwest Montana as he visits the incredible places we work in and people we work alongside to protect this corner of the ecosystem now and for future generations.

To create safer roads for people and ensure wildlife can move and migrate more easily in Teton County, wildlife crossing structures are being built. Wildlife crossing structures—both overpasses and underpasses and their associated fences—are reliable, long-term solutions for reducing wildlife-vehicle collisions. 

The United States Department of Agriculture and the state of Wyoming formalized a new partnership to invest significant new resources and funding toward conserving habitat in the state’s most important big game migration corridors.

Ground was broken at the Dry Piney Connectivity Project, which includes a wildlife crossing to reduce wildlife-vehicle collisions and enhance wildlife movement.