American Wildlands’ Corridors of Life program focuses on keeping large, protected areas of wildlife habitat, like national parks and forests, connected throughout the U.S. Northern Rockies. Our work helps restore and maintain wildlife movement corridors between these protected lands for the benefit of all wildlife.
Within the U.S. Rockies, development and public lands management increasingly fragment critical wildlife habitat. This fragmentation makes it difficult for wild animals to roam, forage and breed.
Man-made structures, like fences, highways and housing subdivisions, can impede the normal movement patterns of wildlife. For many animals, development has made the landscape a hostile place by virtually eliminating their ability to move between core habitats. A frequent result is that wild animals become isolated and unable to find food or mates.
National parks, refuges, forests and other protected landscapes—while critically important—have created a series of ‘habitat islands.’ Limiting conservation to these large blocks of land is not enough to sustain viable, genetically healthy populations of wildlife. From elk to grizzly, wild animals require a unique combination of environmental conditions to survive and thrive. They must be able to move safely between large tracts of habitat.
