The Gallatin Range south of Bozeman is the last major unprotected landscape in the northern Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. A minimum of 250,000 acres of the Gallatin Range as advocated by the Gallatin Yellowstone Wilderness Alliance should be designated wilderness under the 1964 Wilderness Act.
The Gallatin Range is a key area for wildlife, and home to grizzlies, wolves, elk, moose, bighorn sheep, wolverine and a host of other wildlife. It could be a significant area for recolonizing Yellowstone bison moving north out of the park.
Its reputation as a significant wildlife sanctuary started in 1910, when Gifford Pinchot, the first chief of the Forest Service, advocated making the southern part of the Gallatin Range a wildlife refuge.
In recognition of the Gallatin Range’s fabulous wildlife habitat values, the Montana Fish, Wildlife, and Parks created a wildlife management area (WMA) primarily in the Buffalohorn and Porcupine drainages in the southern Gallatin Range.
In 1977, Senator Lee Metcalf sponsored the Montana Wilderness Study Act legislation (S.393), which created nine wilderness study areas in Montana, including in the Gallatin Range known as the 155,000-acre Hyalite-Porcupine-Buffalohorn WSA.
The legislation says, “The wilderness study areas designated by this Act shall, until Congress determines otherwise, be administered by the Secretary of Agriculture to maintain their presently existing wilderness character and potential for inclusion in the National Wilderness Preservation System.
In the 1980s, the Gallatin Range was initially included in the legislation creating the Lee Metcalf Wilderness in the Madison Range. However, during the legislative debate, the Gallatin Range was removed due to a legacy of railroad checkerboard alternative sections of land that some felt would complicate wilderness protections.
In the 1990s, several legislative efforts led to the removal of railroad checkboards with the express purpose that the roadless lands would eventually be designated wilderness.
Biologist Lance Craighead did a biological assessment of the Gallatin Range noting it’s importance for wildlife.
Wilderness is the “Gold Standard” for conservation. Protecting the area as wilderness is the best way to preserve and ensure the ecological integrity of the Gallatin Range and, by extension, the northern Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem.
We need to create a Gallatin Range Wilderness more than ever. Watch this film to learn more about why we must protect the Gallatin Range, especially the Buffalohorn and Porcupine drainages.
The Gallatin Range wilderness effort must be viewed within the context of preserving the entire Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. An expanded Greater Yellowstone National Park that included the Gallatin north to Bozeman with a wilderness overlap would be the best option for maintaining the ecological and evolutionary processes.
Wilderness designation is about humility. It’s about giving Nature a place for ecological and evolutionary processes to function. It is about sharing the Earth with the rest of life.
Visit the Gallatin Yellowstone Wilderness Alliance, Gallatin Wildlife Association, and the Alliance for Wild Rockies to learn about the potential for designated wilderness on the Custer Gallatin National Forest.
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