Welcome - to the Gallatin Wildlife Association website.

We certainly hope you become more knowledgeable about GWA as you wander through the pages of our website. We are a small, but vocal non-profit organization located in Bozeman, Montana advocating for wildlife, their respective habitat, and migration corridors across southwestern Montana, the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, and the northern Rocky Mountains. We advocate for wildlife and fisheries by utilizing science and the law. GWA, founded in 1976, has long recognized the intense pressures on our wildlife from habitat loss and climate change, and we advocate for science-based management of public lands for diverse public values, including but not limited to hunting and angling.   


To learn more about GWA, who we are, and what we've done: click here                                                      

In Memorium: Dr. David Mattson

It is a hard thing to begin a website such as ours with this sad news. Dr. David Mattson was an inspiration to me personally, even though I had not known him long. I admired his knowledge, his passion, and his zeal to do the right thing on behalf of our environment, especially in his fight to understand and advocate for grizzly bears. GWA relied on his science concerning many issues involving grizzly bears. His passing on Feb. 2, 2025 came as a shock, even though we knew he was in a fight for his life. It is hard to write words about this without becoming to emotional, but I always thought I had common ground with him, perhaps it was because we both had careers with the U.S. Geological Survey, but he was in a class of his own. He was way out of my league, but that left me thinking, I wish I had known him longer - who knows how my life would have changed even more for the better. That was the kind of person David was - he made us all better in what we do.


In Memorium Dr. David Mattson


Please read the article and newsletter version of the Grizzly Times with the link above. Learn more and do more with this wonderful opportunity that Dr. David Mattson and his beloved wife, Louisa Willcox have provided our community. He will be missed.



Senate Joint Resolution 14 Wants to Release Wilderness Study Areas (USFS and BLM) and Release Inventoried Roadless Areas back to Multiple Use!


The Hyalite-Porcupine Buffalo Horn Wilderness Study Area is in the cross-hairs of SJ14, no doubt about it. This WSA as well as 6 others managed by the US Forest Service, including those WSAs managed by the BLM and all the remaining inventoried roadless areas in Montana are on the chopping block to end protections. All in all, we are talking about the land management agencies of the USFS and BLM, agencies that manage 663,000 acres and 435,000 acres of WSAs respectively. The USFS also manages nearly 6.4 million acres of inventoried roadless areas. Over 7 million acres would be returned to multiple use via SJ14.


Senator Lee Metcalf worked his entire life protecting our wildlands. His “course of human events” left a legacy. We can become part of his legacy by continuing his course of events through our veins. Our story may be just beginning if we allow Senator Metcalf’s legacy become our inspiration.


We're living in a period of time that demands each of us to use our voice to speak out on behalf of wildlife, wilderness, and forest integrity. We need to be mindful that one of the most fundamental environmental laws, the Wilderness Act, just passed its 60 year old anniversary last year. Have we taken this law for granted? Are we still honoring that legacy today? When was the last time a piece of Montana wilderness legislation was passed before Congress? If SJ14 passes the state legislature and signed into law and then is transmitted to Washington DC as projected, this could easily pass Congress and signed into law by President Trump under this toxic, political atmosphere.


One more thing - there is an effort by other NGOs to get people to sign onto a resolution called the People's Resolution. We urge people not to do so because it contains only half measures of wilderness and protection. We need better and more protection than that. The People's Resolution caters to recreational advocacy, much more so than our wildlife and our wildlands can afford.

Call and/or write your House Representative

and State Senator to vote against SJ14.

You can call 406-444-4800, the Capitol Switchboard
or register and click on the following link -
https://participate.legmt.go

Montanans for Safe

Wildlife Protection: MSWP


Most of you should know, GWA has been involved with and are supporters of MSWP for several years now. Being as one representative on the MSWP Steering Committee, we try to propagate the energy and resources for wildlife infrastructure across the state of Montana.


Below is their most recent website:


Montanans for Safe Wildlife Passage


There is much to do in this realm of establishing wildlife connectivity across highways and railways, etc. Please help out in any way you are able.



Link Button

Climate Forest

Coalition:


Another alliance that GWA is participating in is that of the Climate Forest Coalition, an organization of likeminded NGOs across the country that are trying to change forest policy. We're trying to promote policies of protecting mature and old-growth forests in order to preserve biodiversity, ecological integrity and to use our forests as a mitigative approach fighting climate change by carbon sequestration. Here is their link:


https://www.climate-forests.org/


There is much material here for references and they have already testified before Congress.


We urge all members to follow this group and follow us as we try to incorporate their strategy into ours as appropriate.

30 by 30: 
What's it mean to you? 

By the way, we received notification and acknowledgement from the U.S. Forest Service of our proposal. That was goal one - to inform them of the importance of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem and to not forget the importance of the biodiversity and the potential of mitigating effects of climate change found in the region.

On January 27, 2021 President Biden signed Executive Order 14008, an order entitled “Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad”. Within that order, President Biden has committed his administration (in Section 216) to a conservation goal of protecting 30 percent of land and 30 percent of ocean waters by 2030. According to Ryan Richards’ article: “Measuring Conservation Progress in North America” published in Center for American Progress, currently 12% of lands are protected, and 26% of ocean waters. Scientist believe that 30% is what’s necessary to fight climate change and protect species from extinction. Protected lands increase resilience to the impacts of climate change and better conserve the biodiversity of our lands. 

 - - - - - -

In the recent news, Governor Gianforte has told the Biden Administration they did not want to participate in the Admins proposal to help secure lands and waters to the objective goal of this program. See link here!


Montana Free Press - Amanda Eggert


To Learn More

See how you can help.


We Need Help in Keeping the Gallatin Range

Wild as in True Wilderness!


We are asking all to help participtate in a letter writing campaign to write letters to the Bozeman Chronicle Opinion Page and to Senators Steve Daines and Tom Sheehy urging them to support the minimal standard of wilderness, the HPBH WSA. The Gallatin Forest Partnership (GFP) is trying to undermine the existing HPBH WSA by minimizing the size and designating land uses toward recreation rather than leaving the existing land classification as wilderness. 


Make no mistake, the HPBH WSA has all the characteristics of true wilderness. In fact, there are an estimated 270,000 acres of potential wilderness lands within the Gallatin Range, but the GFP is only recognizing 102,000; leaving the remainder of landscape for potential recreation. This is exactly the opposite of what is needed.


Wildlife within the Gallatin Range are getting squeezed out from all of the increased recreation and visitation use. It is time, once again, to make our wishes known. Here are the links to Montana's Senator's web page and the Bozeman Chronicle to send a letter to the editor.


Bozeman Chronicle:

BDC - Letter to the Editor


Senator Steve Daines:

https://www.daines.senate.gov/services/email-steve/ 


Senator Tim Sheehy:

https://www.sheehy.senate.gov/


Here are some bullet points to include as well.


Here is where the Gallatin Forest Partnership (GFP) wilderness proposal falls short compared to the current Hyalite Porcupine Buffalo-Horn Wilderness Study Area (HPBH WSA).


  • It has been determined that the GFP wilderness proposal will contain 102,000 acres compared to the current 155,000 acres.
  • There is an estimated 270,000 acres that could be designated within the Gallatin Range.
  • The GFP proposal leaves out two critical areas of the current HPBH WSA.


  1. Buffalo Horn Porcupine region and the West Pine.
  2. These two areas are designated as “Wildlife Management Areas” of which there has not been a previous designation that has been time-tested and there is no legal precedent.  
  3. Even though they say they limit recreational use, there are no assurances the Forest Service will do so or that they can be enforced. 
  4. The Buffalo Horn Porcupine region is prime habitat for elk and many other species such as grizzly bear, wolves, bighorn sheep and wolverine, species that do well with some seclusion.
  5. West Pine region offers a corridor, a very important corridor for wildlife to migrate to the north from the Gallatin/Yellowstone region of the GYE. To open this area up to the possibility of mechanized or motorized recreation could all but completely diminish the potential of wildlife, making that connection to the north via this well documented and scientific route.


  • At the northern most part of the Gallatin Range, the GFP have designated this area as the “Hyalite Watershed Protection and Recreation Area”. This designation would essentially make recreation the primary use for visitors, thereby once again, displacing wildlife and leaving very little chance for wildlife to safely inhabit this landscape.
  • The Gallatin Crest is run amok with those willing to exploit the landscape for personal enjoyment, without giving thought to the wildlife that inhabits the area. Wildlife needs more than just “rock and ice” landscapes for existence. The best wildlife habitat is found at the mid and lower elevations, of which many of those elevations have been removed away from the HPBH WSA. 


This is why wildlife

connectivity is so important.


View this link and see how

this grizzly bear is wanting

to cross I-90.


The Link is here!



GWA's Facebook page is Going Strong!

Check us out - 

Thanks to Angelo Roman for managing our Facebook page.

GWA's Podcast on KGVM - 

Wildlife and Wilderness - 
take a listen!

After Christmas of last year (Dec. 30, 2020) Clint Nagel of GWA was fortunate enough to be interviewed by J. Shell, host of the program Wilderness and Wildlife on KGVM, 95.9 on the radio dial. 

 

Wilderness and Wildlife, presented by the Gallatin Wildlife Association, features discussions of issues involving the wildlife of southwestern Montana, and the wilderness habitat that makes this area appealing to adventurous people from around the country. You'll hear interviews with wildlife experts and naturalists reporting on species they have studied, which are threatened by the pressures of a rapidly growing populace in the Greater Yellowstone Region. 
 
For other shows presented, simply click the following.


The Gallatin Wildlife Association also produces the short Wildlife Capsules. 

Thanks to John Shellenberger for taking the initiative to establish this mechanism of outreach for GWA. 
Share by: