Sitting atop the Continental Divide like a crown on the head of the U.S. Northern Rockies lies a 10-million-acre internationally important ecoregion in western Montana and southern Alberta - the Crown of the Continent. As a testament to the intact and wild nature of this region, nearly all of North America’s large mammals are still found here, including the densest and largest grizzly bear population left in the Lower 48. The Crown also contains the full complement of North America’s predators, including grizzlies, wolves, mountain lions, black bears, wolverines, bobcats, Canada lynx, fisher and marten. WCS has been actively working to protect the remaining roadless forests surrounding Glacier National Park and wilderness areas in the Montana section of the Crown of the Continent ecoregion. These lands are essential to ensuring the future for sensitive wildlife species but are continually jeopardized by industrial development and natural resource extraction. The next few years, however, present a window of opportunity to decide whether or not these landscapes are allocated to more extraction or preserved for future generations.
Goals
WCS is working to evaluate highest-quality, roadless habitat for a suite of sensitive species including grizzly bears, wolverines, lynx, elk, mountain goats, bull trout, and westslope cutthroat trout. Connectivity between important habitat locales is also being assessed. The ultimate goal of this work is to achieve long-term protection of these special natural areas as federally-protected Wilderness areas.
Activities
Maintaining Habitat Connectivity For Large Carnivores
WCS works to maintain habitat connectivity for wide-ranging carnivores along the Yellowstone-to-Yukon corridor, a core anchor of which is the Crown of the Continent. A particularly sensitive area is Crowsnest Pass (Alberta/British Columbia divide), where a major highway bisects the narrowest section of the Canadian Rockies. Roads, residential development, oil-and-gas exploration, logging, and unregulated ATV use all combine to fragment and degrade this critical corridor for bears, wolves, lynx, cougars and other predators. WCS completed two projects that collectively worked to ensure the survival of large carnivores in the Crowsnest Pass region. We generated important information for six carnivore species (grizzly bear, wolf, wolverine, lynx, bobcat, and badger) that have different ecological niches and scales of landscape use and provided planners with detailed information regarding wildlife movements. Nature Conservancy of Canada and forestry company Tembec Inc. used this information to create a protected matrix that includes 1,200 hectares purchased by the Conservancy, 2,900 hectares put under a conservation easement and 35,200 hectares that will be under a 10-year residential development moratorium.
Roadless Lands and Wilderness Assessment
WCS is undertaking research in this region to assess the ecological importance of the remaining roadless areas for a special group of keystone fish and wildlife species. Focused on grizzly bears, wolverines, lynx, elk, mountain goats, bull trout and westslope cutthroat trout, we are examining the species distribution and relative abundance of these species while taking a closer look at the effects of climate change, species’ movements and connectivity relative to other Wilderness/Park lands. The results of the study will ideally prompt more protected Wilderness lands to harbor these vulnerable fish and wildlife.