The Hub Conservation Area - Montanans 4 Safe Wildlife Passage

Executive SummaryMaintaining the ecological connections, orwildlife movement corridors, between majorwildland habitats is one of the most pressingchallenges for habitat and wildlife conservationin the Northern Rockies today. AmericanWildlands’ Corridors of Life program plays acritical role in conserving the habitat linksbetween the “string of pearls” representedby our national parks, wilderness and roadlessareas, wildlife refuges, and other protectedhabitats. In 2007 and 2008 AWL conducted aPriority Linkage Assessment (PLA) to determinethe most important habitat connections, or“linkages,” in the U.S. Northern Rockies, in allfour of our conservation areas – the Cabinet-Purcell, Crown, Hub, and High Divide. Theobjective was to focus and prioritize ourprogram work, and provide much neededinformation to other NGOs and agencies. Thisassessment focused on the movement needs ofwide-ranging carnivore species (grizzly bear,wolf, wolverine and lynx) and wide-rangingungulate species (elk, moose, pronghorn, andbighorn sheep), although additional informationabout other locally-significant species was alsocollected.The Hub conservation area is the interfacebetween the densely forested, mountainouslandscape of northwestern Montana and thebasin and range geography of southwesternMontana. For the Priority Linkage Assessment,American Wildlands interviewed thirty-onebiologists in the Hub conservation area toidentify critical habitat linkage at multiplescales, as well as the threats to, andopportunities for, conserving these fifty-sixwildlife linkage areas. Based on this data eachlinkage is prioritized into one of five hierarchicalgroups of threat and opportunities (very high,high, intermediate, low, very low). Ecologicalquality considers the importance of the linkageto local or regional wildlife connectivity and thecurrent condition of the linkage.Wildlife connectivity in the Hub conservationarea is changing dramatically with increasingsubdivision, development, highway traffic, andother human activities. Throughout the region,the greatest threat to habitat connectivityidentified by the Priority Linkage Assessmentwas private lands subdivision and/or conversionof agricultural or timber lands that currentlycomprise vast amounts of open space that arepermeable to wildlife. Loss of these agriculturalopen spaces to development can result inoverall habitat fragmentation for wildlife, andcan lead to a bottleneck for wildlife attemptingto disperse or migrate. Development increasesother related threats, including:•Sanitation/human conflict issues•Forest/forest roads management•Increasing highway traffic•Wildlife mortality on railroads•Forest highways•Mining•Public land management•Lack of hunter accessConservation opportunities include:•Conservation easements or land acquisition•Transportation mitigation, such as wildlifecrossing structures•Community groups/conservationpartnerships•Education and outreach to communities coexistingwith wildlife•National Forest planning processesNext, American Wildlands will workwith conservation partners to act on theopportunities identified for each linkage area.Our next steps include:•Identifying potential collaborative partners,such as other conservation NGOs, localcommunity groups, and agencies, for each ofthe identified linkage areas.