Clark Creek Maintains Key Corridor for Grizzlies

The Clark Creek project protects 160 acres in a key wildlife movement area connecting the Bitterroot Mountains
with wild strongholds to the north. | Photo: Mitch Doherty, Vital Lands Foundation

MISSOULA, Mont. — (23 December 2024 | Vital Grounds Foundation)

While western Montana’s grizzly bears den up for the winter, a new conservation agreement will protect an important habitat corridor that could improve the species’ ability to reconnect its isolated populations in the Northern Rockies.

In the Clark Creek drainage west of Lolo, Mont., The Vital Ground Foundation and local landowners partnered this week on a voluntary conservation agreement to protect 160 acres of forest and wetland. Lying north of U.S. Highway 12 and south of Interstate 90, the project adds an additional piece of conserved habitat to a corridor helping connect the mountains north and west of Missoula with the sprawling Bitterroot Range that extends west into Idaho and south toward the Greater Yellowstone area.

“It’s a real thrill for us to do this,” say the landowners, who wish to remain anonymous. “Wildlife is very important to us and we always had the intent of wanting to put a conservation easement on this property. It’s a very important wildlife corridor: we were looking at grizzly populations and the linkages and thought our property could be a small part of that.”

A Key Link for Grizzly Connectivity

Roughly 15 miles west of Lolo, the project site borders U.S. Forest Service lands that extend north through the Petty Creek and Fish Creek areas to the Clark Fork River and I-90 near the Ninemile Creek confluence area. That places the project at the southern end of a key north-south funnel for wildlife that reach the Bitterroots from the Ninemile Range and beyond.

The link could prove especially vital for grizzlies. Over the last decade, biologists have documented multiple grizzly bears — including the famed wanderer nicknamed Ethyl — that moved through the Clark Creek drainage from the Ninemile and other nearby areas as they ranged temporarily into the Bitterroot Ecosystem, a federally-designated grizzly recovery zone that remains without an established resident population of the bears. With the Ninemile Range at the southwestern toe of the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem (NCDE) that reaches all the way to Glacier National Park and also close the southern edge of the Cabinet-Yaak Ecosystem, protecting the habitat corridor between the Ninemile and Lolo Creek areas could help solidify the grizzly’s natural return to the Bitterroots from the north.

“It’s perfect for that north-south movement,” says Jamie Jonkel, Wildlife Management Specialist for Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks. “We’ve had several grizzlies that came down and spent time feeding on hawthorn in the Lolo Creek bottoms and Clark Creek, both from the Cabinet area and the NCDE. Everything about it is really good as an intact area with good connectivity.”

Meanwhile, the southern end of the Bitterroot Ecosystem could also see a returning grizzly presence before long, as bears continue to disperse farther west across southwestern Montana and into Idaho from the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (GYE). As recent studies suggest, this makes the Bitterroots one of the likeliest areas for the species to naturally reconnect the NCDE and GYE populations, a reunion that biologists consider essential to the grizzly’s long-term recovery in the Lower 48.

Against the backdrop of increased development pressure on the region’s private lands, especially those close to Missoula and other cities, a key component of protecting regional connectivity is projects like Clark Creek that prevent subdivision and dense development in established wildlife movement areas.

“These sites that are private that connect forestland to forestland are key,” says Jonkel. “They’re not glamorous, but they’re very, very important. It’s preserving linkage into perpetuity as Montana’s getting built up so quickly.”

Benefits Beyond Bears

In addition to its potential to aid regional grizzly connectivity, the Clark Creek project conserves rich forest and wetlands that provide seasonal habitat for a wide diversity of wildlife, from elk and deer to wolves, cougars and black bears.

“The riparian area has consistent spring-fed flows,” the landowners explain. “It’s heavily used by black bears in the hot summer. They’ll come in and splash around and drink, then come back to eat hawthorn and serviceberries in the fall. It also has elk wallows in it, plus mule deer, whitetail deer, and we have wolves coming through fairly often, as well as mountain lions and golden eagles.”

Under the new conservation agreement, the landowners will continue to steward the land to benefit wildlife. With future subdivision and development prevented by the agreement, the project also protects the wild and scenic character of the larger Lolo Creek area, leaving the landscape open and accessible for popular activities like hiking, hunting, fishing and skiing.

“Voluntary, private land conservation efforts by landowners like these at Clark Creek will ensure bears and other wildlife have secure habitat as they move across the landscape,” says Mitch Doherty, Conservation Director for Vital Ground. “These individuals recognize not just the value their land holds for wildlife, but for all of us that appreciate these open spaces.”

The project contributes to Vital Ground’s larger One Landscape Initiative, a conservation strategy focused on protecting the most crucial private lands that connect the Northern Rockies’ wild public land strongholds. Having already protected habitat in the Ninemile confluence area in 2018 and completed a new project in Evaro Canyon on the eastern edge of the Ninemile Range this fall, the Clark Creek effort extends Vital Ground’s impact in improving wildlife connections around Missoula’s growing human footprint.

In addition to the landowners, financial support for the project came from Atira Conservation, First Interstate Bank and many individual donors.