Maintaining the ecological connections, or wildlife movement corridors, between major wildland habitats is one of the most pressing challenges for habitat and wildlife conservation in the Northern Rockies today. The designation of national parks, refuges, wilderness and roadless areas – without conserving the habitat that ties them together – tragically creates a series of core habitat “islands”. These islands of habitat may eventually spell extinction for resident wildlife because of negative influences common amongst small, isolated populations of wildlife – such as inbreeding, the effects of natural disasters and the inability for wildlife to re-colonize an area.

American Wildlands’ latest focus on wildlife corridors and habitat connectivity at a regional scale is grounded in the sciences of conservation biology and road ecology. American Wildlands is best known for our pioneering work of mapping the core habitat areas and connecting wildlife corridors across the Northern Rockies. Our promotion of maintaining “cores, corridors and connectivity” has helped these concepts become part of conservation terminology and goals. Our corridors analysis and mapping have been used by government and non-government organizations of all stripes, including being used as a model for the larger scale Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative.

American Wildlands’ Corridors of Life program focuses on keeping these large protected areas – the core habitats – ecologically connected within the U.S. Northern Rockies. AWL works to restore and maintain the wildlife movement corridors between these protected core habitats for the benefit of wide-ranging or migratory animals. Our work is the ecologically-necessary complement to the work of local, state, regional and national NGO’s that focus on conserving the large core habitats of this region – keeping the pearls of habitat in the U.S Northern Rockies linked together.

American Wildlands addresses habitat connectivity at both the regional scale (connecting the region’s four major ecosystems) and at a more localized “landscape” level (addressing the need of wildlife to be able to move about within these regional corridors). The regional context addresses the needs of wide-ranging species such as grizzly bear, wolf, lynx and wolverine, while the landscape context addresses wildlife that have more localized movement patterns, such as elk, moose, antelope and bighorn sheep.

Learn more about our Regional and Local project areas.