The Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation (RMEF) recently awarded a $400,000 grant to the Western Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies (WAFWA) to fund three state-led projects aimed at conserving, restoring and enhancing big game seasonal habitat and migration corridors in Nevada, Washington and Wyoming. The grant follows a memorandum of understanding RMEF signed with longtime partner WAFWA in 2023 to help launch the association’s Wildlife Movement and Connectivity Initiative, a multi-year strategy to address the needs and risks facing wildlife movement and habitat connectivity across western North America.
“Wildlife, especially big game in Western states and provinces, needs to be able to move freely across the landscape to adjust to seasonal changes in habitat and forage,” said Blake Henning, RMEF chief conservation officer. “Research shows the health of many herds is dependent on these migrations, yet maintaining quality, connected habitat that permits large-scale wildlife movement poses multiple challenges. RMEF is committed to working with WAFWA and other partners to ensure big game species have the habitat they need to thrive year ‘round.”
The foundation for the Wildlife Movement and Connectivity Initiative is built upon state-defined priority seasonal habitats and wildlife movement, migration and connectivity corridors. It complements Secretarial Order 3362, issued by the Department of the Interior in 2018 to enhance and improve the quality of big game winter range and migration corridor habitat on federal lands, by expanding the focus to state-identified wildlife species and conservation opportunities on both public and private lands.
“WAFWA and RMEF recognize the importance of conserving seasonal habitat critical to the health of big game herds and other wildlife,” said Dr. Zachary Lowe, executive director of WAFWA. “RMEF’s partnership in this initiative will further WAFWA’s strategic approach among member agencies in supporting vital projects that utilize sound science and optimize land management practices.”
The RMEF grant supports three state-agency-led projects identified by WAFWA and RMEF as meeting the highest priority objectives outlined in the partners’ memorandum of understanding.
In northeastern Nevada, the Nevada Department of Wildlife will enhance sagebrush habitat in the Management Area 7 mule deer migration corridor, stopover habitat in the northern Pequop Mountains and winter habitat on Murdock Mountain by removing encroaching pinyon and juniper trees and restoring forage quality. The project will include treatments on up to 28,000 acres across Bureau of Land Management and private lands, which also provide habitat for elk, pronghorn antelope and sage grouse in an area RMEF is working with the state and a private landowner to conserve mule deer habitat between wildlife highway crossings.
In the Golden Doe Unit of north-central Washington’s 35,000-acre Methow Wildlife Area, the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife will restore 85 acres of shrubsteppe habitat vital to migratory mule deer. Seeding native bunchgrass, planting beneficial shrub species and treating noxious weed infestations will significantly augment large-scale habitat enhancement efforts in the unit, part of the strategy outlined in the state’s action plan for “Improving Habitat Quality in Western Big Game Winter Range and Migration Corridors.”
Along the Green River in southwestern Wyoming, the Wyoming Game and Fish Department will capture 10 to 15 moose via helicopter and fit them with GPS collars to map seasonal movement corridors, determine home range size and overlap, assess preference for habitat types, and estimate density and distribution. Project data will inform riparian forest restoration efforts in the Seedskadee National Wildlife Refuge, which encompasses 36 miles of the lower Green River and serves as an important seasonal movement corridor for moose.
The WAFWA Wildlife Movement and Connectivity Initiative includes 23 states and provinces, which cover nearly 3.7 million square miles of North America. A multitude of federal agencies, non-government organizations, tribes and private landowners are involved in the effort. RMEF plans to support the WAFWA Initiative and Secretarial Order 3362 with additional grants for other projects in the future.
