HELENA – Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks, along with partners at the Heart of the Rockies Initiative, will be working over the next five years to help landowners proactively reduce conflicts with grizzly bears using nearly $12 million in federal funds.
FWP has been awarded nearly $5 million in Department of Interior funding from a National Fish and Wildlife Foundation grant. This new funding complements more than $6 million provided by a Regional Conservation Partnership Program grant from the U.S. Department Agriculture’s Natural Resources and Conservation Service (NRCS). Together, these two programs significantly ramp up resources to support working lands and Montana communities.
“A key pillar of FWP’s grizzly bear management is conflict prevention,” said FWP Director Dustin Temple. “However, conflict prevention for working lands can be expensive. This funding will be a welcome boost for landowners and communities who are learning to live and work around grizzlies.”
The Heart of the Rockies Initiative will work in partnership with FWP and NRCS to help landowners and producers implement non-lethal conflict prevention tools aimed at avoiding problems with grizzly bears. Examples of available tools include carcass removal programs for livestock producers, electric fencing, range riders and the expanded use of bear-resistant garbage infrastructure.
This historic investment in working lands is the result of a diverse public-private partnership of landowner-led groups, nonprofits and federal and state agencies who are working to expand the use of conflict prevention tools.
“These resources help meet a growing demand from producers and landowners who are on the frontlines sharing landscapes with expanding populations of grizzly bears,” said Nathan Owens, policy director for Heart of the Rockies Initiative. “Preventing wildlife conflicts before they happen can help maintain the long-term viability of Montana’s agricultural producers and make it easier for wildlife to move from one place to another.”
Heart of the Rockies Initiative was founded in 2002 as a partnership of local, regional, and national land trusts with the goal of increasing the pace of voluntary conservation of the most biologically, agriculturally and culturally important private lands in the Northern Rocky Mountains. The initiative’s work through the Carnivore Conflict Reduction, Rural Initiatives, Keep It Connected and High Divide Collaborative programs supports connected habitats and working lands for people and wildlife.
Scaling Up Wildlife Solutions
Conflict prevention tools such as electric fencing, range-riding and carcass removal programs have become more prevalent in Montana as grizzly bears and other large carnivores have expanded into new areas. For example, in Montana’s Blackfoot Watershed, these tools have helped landowners reduce reported grizzly bear conflicts by 90 percent, even as bear populations in the area grew by 3 percent annually.
Despite their effectiveness, broader adoption of these programs has been hindered by financial constraints. Since 2021, the Landowner-Led Conflict Reduction Partnership - a coalition of nine landowner-led organizations and the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes - has identified inconsistent funding as a primary roadblock to wider implementation.
However, Jim Stone, owner-operator of Rolling Stone Ranch near Ovando, says this dynamic is changing as landowners strengthen partnerships with state and federal agencies.
“Ranchers across the West are faced with increasingly complex challenges,” said Stone. “Our ability to ‘neighbor up’ and coordinate with a host of partners including USDA, DOI and FWP is helping landowners put new tools on the ground to make agriculture more resilient. I am very grateful for this partnership-based approach and the investments in our working lands that these conversations can yield.”
Spreading the word
To ensure Montana landowners know how to access these funding opportunities, Heart of the Rockies Initiative will be teaming up with local producers, as well as agency and nonprofit partners to host a series of community workshops across western Montana this winter and spring. More information can be found at the Heart of the Rockies Initiative’s website (heart-of-rockies.org/ccr/grants/).
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