In an important grizzly bear recovery zone and wildlife corridor in Montana’s Yaak Valley, another 315 acres of vital habitat for grizzly bears and other wildlife are now a permanently protected safe haven. You can take pride in your support of a land trust that helps keep such wildlands safe for wildlife. Acquisition of this particular land was made possible, in part, by a generous gift from the estate of Carol Ann Hodge, which funded a Trust grant to the Vital Ground Foundation toward its purchase.
The permanent protection of this new safe haven honors Ms. Hodge’s love of wildlife and her strong desire to protect habitat. As with the Broadie Habitat Preserve, which we helped protect in this same crucially important area in 2020, a collaborative agreement between the Trust and the Vital Ground Foundation ensures that hunting and trapping will forever be prohibited on this land. Thus, grizzlies and other wildlife living here will have permanent protection from these hazards. This new safe haven will be known as the Fowler Creek Reserve, named after the tributary of the Yaak River on which it’s located. Fowler Creek forms part of the wildlife corridor connecting the Cabinet Mountains with the Yaak Valley and surrounding Purcell Range.
If not permanently protected, this scenic rural valley land would have been at risk of development and the inevitable increase in human presence would have created hazardous obstacles for wildlife, which, in turn, would have led to unnecessary human-wildlife conflicts. You can celebrate the new Fowler Creek Reserve as an important win for grizzlies in Yaak Valley, as well as for wolverines, Canada lynx, wolves and other far-ranging wild animals living here.