Rivers are the lifeblood of Montana. A low snow year, coupled with the impacts of population growth and climate change, are stark reminders that our rivers need our help. That’s why now is the time to pass the Montana Headwaters Legacy Act (MHLA). As we anticipate the bill’s hearing this spring, we critically need Senator Daines to support the MHLA.

Yellowstone National Park’s Bison Conservation Transfer Program continues to make history. In early February, Yellowstone relocated the largest number of live Yellowstone bison to American Indian Tribes to date. One hundred and sixteen healthy bison were loaded onto secure trucks and moved from Yellowstone National Park nearly 500 miles north to the Fork Peck Indian Reservation where they will complete their final year of testing before being transferred on to Tribes across North America.

Over two brilliant fall days in October, almost 100 people came together in Jackson, Wyoming for the Jackson Hole InterTribal Gathering – a follow up to the Wind River Inter-Tribal Gathering GYC co-hosted with the Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho Tribes in 2022. More than 14 Tribal Nations met with a host of federal agencies and non-governmental organizations to bring further discussion to the management of federal lands and how Indigenous values and beliefs can merge into stewardship of lands that were once aboriginal homelands to many Tribes and Bands.

During the summer of 2023, GYC assisted with a study using trail cameras to better understand grizzly bear and livestock interactions in the Gravelly Range of southwest Montana. After snapping images for almost five months, the trail cameras were collected in October and GYC staff discovered the incredible range of wildlife that call these mountains home.

For three days in September, the Greater Yellowstone Coalition, in collaboration with several partners, hosted a land-based Indigenous Youth Climate and Culture Camp in Morton, Wyoming, at the Eastern Shoshone Buffalo Herd pasture. In total, over 100 students from Wyoming Indian Elementary, Middle, and High Schools arrived amongst the buffalo and traipsed through knee-high sagebrush to lessons facilitated by cultural knowledge-keepers, scientists, educators, and others.

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.