CONSERVATION

As part of its overall mission, Earthfire Institute is committed to supporting and enhancing programs and initiatives designed to encourage conservation and habitat protection. Many of these programs are discussed throughout this web site, or simply click below for updates on three of our current initiatives.

Interconnections: Wildlife By-Ways
The Yellowstone-to-Yukon Corridor
Problem Bears

Interconnections: Wildlife By-Ways

As development encrouches on wilderness areas, critical wildlife habitat is threatened. However, it is not just loss of habitat that threatens our wildlife but also loss of crucial travel corridors. Long-term survival of wildlife depends on the ability of genes to flow over space and time. Pronghorn antelope, cutthroat trout, Big Horn sheep, buffalo and grizzlies are just a few of the many species whose ultimate survival depends on travel corridors. By allotting only islands of land or interrupted travel corridors, we are forcing inbreeding, decreasing genetic resilience and adversily affecting the ability of wildlife to adapt to local catastrophes, drought, disease and development.

Earthfire has received two $2000 start-up grants from the Yellowstone-to-Yukon Partner Grants Program and Targhee Institute Environmental Foundation, towards making a 20-minute film entitled Interconnections: Wildlife By-Ways. The film is a broad-based, positive, community-oriented project. Earthfire has interviewed local biologists including Mike Whitfield and Rob Cavallaro of the Teton Regional Land Trust, and Lyn Benjamin of Friends of the Teton River. However, the film is designed to include input from a wide variety of people and interests, including developers, real estate agents, land owners, land use planners, local government and others.

To read the script for the film, Interconnections: Wildlife By-Ways, please click here.

Anyone with ideas for the film, recommendations for people to interview, or access to footage or stills that will help further this educational effort, is asked to contact Earthfire.  

Yellowstone-to-Yukon Corridor

A major goal of the institute is to promote recognition for and preservation of the Yellowstone-to-Yukon (Y2Y) Wildlife Corridor.The land for the Rehabilitation Center sits strategically at the southern base of the corridor and will include an Education Center, dedicated to educating visitors about wildlife corridors and how their role as biologically effective, and apositive way for people and animals to co-exist.

Many of the animals at Earthfire are representative of species that use the Yellowstone-to-Yukon corridor. These animals will act as ambassadors adding reality to the teachings. The Institute will also include scientific and artistic displays to help people fully understand the importance of the corridor.

For more information about wildlife corridors, click here to read Susan B. Eirich, Ph.D.'s  article "Wild Writings." For more information on the Y2Y corridor, visit http://www.y2y.net or click here.

Problem Bears Retraining Program

Humans are the largest cause of grizzly bear mortality in the  Northern Rockies.  Conflicts on private land, largely food-related, including bears eating bird seed, or dog food, constitute the biggest cause of death. Some 15-20 bears are killed each year by people in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem.

Earthfire Institute is researching an innovative approach to human/bear conflicts that will not harm the animals, may offer a more permanent solution than relocation, and ultimately bring together science and public participation in a way that benefits both humans and bears. This is a multi-year research project to test, modify and hone proven animal training techniques applied to wild grizzly and black bears, training them to avoid human sources of food. The initial stages of this project have been supported by grants from Earth Friends, the Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative, individual donors, and volunteers.  For further information on this web site about the Save the Bears project, click here.

For more information call Earthfire at 208.456.0926. Or click here to become a program supporter.