The Hub Conservation Area - Montanans 4 Safe Wildlife Passage

90, or Highways 200, 287, or 93. Improvementsin transportation mean easier access anddecreased commuter times to major cities,and thus facilitates exurban development intorural communities outside the four major cities.Increasingly, resource managers have to considerthe effects transportation systems have on theviability of wildlife populations.Priority Linkage AssessmentMethodsThe Interviews and Rating SystemThe bulk of this assessment involves AmericanWildlands staff interviewing experts fromstate, tribal, and federal agencies, andindependent biologists within the region toidentify, catalog and prioritize linkage areas inthe regional corridor. In the Hub conservationarea, we selected 33 biological experts fromMontana Fish, Wildlife and Parks, the U.S.Forest Service, the U.S. Fish and WildlifeService, the Confederated Salish and KootenaiTribes, Montana Department of Transportation,Idaho Transportation Department, Idaho Fishand Game, and four non-profit/independentcontractor experts with proven knowledgeof wide-ranging wildlife in the Hub corridor.American Wildlands gathered expert opinionsthat are based on scientific data, ratherthan more anecdotal traditional ecologicalknowledge. As wildlife connectivity in specificlinkage areas is further defined, we will broadenour queries to other knowledgeable people suchas landowners, highway maintenance workers,and commuters to learn more about specificwildlife movement.To ensure equal coverage of the area of interest,geographic distribution of experts’ “areas ofexpertise” were considered during the selectionof participants to promote a uniform samplingeffort of the study areas. Individual interviewswith experts were preferred although in fourcases, due to time restraints and the preferenceof the interviewees, interviews were conductedin small groups of two or three biologists.The PLA process collected data on a variety ofungulate and carnivore species, as well as a few26avian/small mammal species. While this doesnot include all wildlife living in the NorthernRocky Mountains, the species selected representa wide variety of habitat requirements, scalesof movement, and life history requirements.By collecting data on all these species, habitatrequirements and linkages of many functionallevels and scales were captured. This approachmaximizes the usefulness of this data collectioneffort to a wide variety of resource managementagencies, conservation organizations, andcommunities. Interviewees were questionedabout wide-ranging ungulates (such as deer andelk) and wide-ranging carnivores (such as grizzlybears, black bears, wolves, wolverine andlynx). Information was collected about otherspecies if appropriate. The connectivity lensshifts for each of these species. This assessmentconcentrates on the areas that overlap andare common for wide-ranging wildlife species.Areas with the highest ecological ratings usuallycorrespond to movements by multiple wildlifespecies in topographically important areas,such as riparian areas linking multiple mountainranges.The interviews followed a standardizedprocedure with one of the authors conductingthe interview and a second acting as recorderwith minimal participation; both made everyeffort not to influence the experts’ opinions orresponses. The purpose and procedure of theproject were described in detail. Experts wereasked to use previous professional and personalexperience in the field to answer questions.They were encouraged to share as muchinformation as possible, but not to extrapolatebeyond their expertise. Each expert was given alarge map (~60x50 cm) of the study area (scale1 cm = 5 km) with vegetation, roads, cities, andpolitical boundaries demarcated and asked todelineate the area they considered their areaof expertise. Next, a series of standardizedquestions prompted the expert to 1) delineateimportant habitat linkages and 2) rate theecological quality (EQ) of each from 1 (lowquality) to 10 (high quality) while consideringa range of qualifications (e.g. seasonal,migration path, dispersal path) and species(e.g. forest carnivores, ungulates, migratory