Celebrating 35 Years of Conservation Leadership
Dear friend of conservation,
While the urgent work of wildlife habitat protection has kept Vital Ground moving rapidly forward through the first half of 2026, each summer the publication of the past year’s Annual Report provides a worthwhile opportunity to pause and reflect on the organization’s ongoing impact and stability, made possible by supporters like you.
That impact—felt on the ground by grizzlies, countless other species, and the human communities of the Northern Rockies as well—reached a new level in 2025. As Vital Ground celebrated our 35th Anniversary, the organization completed its largest-ever conservation easement, along with several other key habitat protection successes from the Idaho Panhandle to the I-90 Corridor in Western Montana. We also supported more crucial coexistence work than ever before, with 18 different partners completing essential projects across the region to prevent conflicts between bears and people.
Through both prongs of our mission, your support is making a highly tangible and lasting contribution to grizzly recovery in the Lower 48 and the broader push for biodiversity conservation. Over 35 years, you’ve also given Vital Ground the organizational stability to grow into a recognized conservation leader that collaborates broadly, grounds itself in good science and channels its supporters’ passion and commitment straight into on-the-ground delivery of a crucial mission.
From all of us on Vital Ground’s staff, board and advisory council, we give you a griz-sized round of thanks for carrying the organization to the forefront of grizzly bear and large landscape conservation. We invite you to continue scrolling through this report to see where and how your contributions made a positive impact across the landscapes of grizzly country last year.
With deep gratitude,
Ken Hick, Board Chair
Ryan Lutey, Executive Director
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2025 Conservation Accomplishments
Vital Ground protected more acres in 2025 than any year before and partnered to support more conflict prevention projects than ever before, too. Keep scrolling for photos, videos and links to the stories of all that your support accomplished for wildlife last year. We couldn’t do it without you! As the map below shows, in 2025 you:
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Habitat Protected: Rocky Mountain Front
Just before New Year’s, Vital Ground, the Fellows family and the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) completed a landmark project years in the making, conserving the Fellows Ranch in Montana’s Rocky Mountain Front region from future subdivision and development. At nearly 4,500 acres, it’s our largest conservation easement ever, protecting more than seven miles of frontage and rich habitat along the Teton River and a tributary creek, part of the mountains-to-plains corridor that grizzlies and other wildlife follow. The project also maintains a multi-generation ranching operation that coexists with grizzlies and other wildlife through diligence and new practices. Read more…
Note: The video above was produced before project completion to highlight multiple Vital Ground projects. _____________________________________________________________________________________________________
Habitat Protected: Interstate 90 Corridor
In partnership with landowners and the Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative (Y2Y), December also saw two major wins for wildlife connectivity in Western Montana and beyond. East of Missoula along Interstate 90, the Brock Creek Project protected habitat in a crucial regional linkage zone. These 50 acres abut an existing underpass used by diverse wildlife—including bears—to cross beneath the highway and connect habitat in the Garnet and Flint Creek mountain ranges. Farther west, the 160-acre Nellie Creek Project conserved another key site near an interstate underpass. A few miles outside the town of Superior, these acres help form an important linkage zone between the Northern Continental Divide, Cabinet-Yaak and Bitterroot ecosystems. Read more…
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Habitat Protected: Idaho Panhandle
In the rural and rugged Panhandle region of northern Idaho, wildlife move between the Selkirk, Cabinet and Purcell mountain ranges, where the two smallest grizzly populations in the Lower 48 persist. Against the backdrop of unrelenting development pressures, our Idaho Panhandle Initiative aims to protect several key habitat areas that will allow safer passage for wildlife across this landscape. We conserved the first of these sites in late 2025, protecting 200 acres of wetlands and upland forest in an important buffer zone along Ruby Creek on the eastern edge of the Selkirks. Read more…
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Habitat Protected: Yaak Valley
The Yaak Valley in Montana’s northwestern corner is sometimes called the wildest place in the Lower 48, with nearly all of its pre-settlement species still present and none of the major human traffic that accompanies a national park. But the Yaak’s tiny grizzly population needs connected habitat—both within and beyond the ecosystem—to avoid blinking out. The confluence of the Yaak River and Meadow Creek is a natural bottleneck for wildlife moving across this landscape, and our first project of 2025 protected 40 acres of rich habitat in this zone while continuing the Berg family’s century-old legacy of land stewardship. Read more…
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Conservation Partners: Landscape Connections through Conflict Prevention
Protecting and connecting key habitat isn’t enough to ensure a resilient future for grizzlies and other wide-ranging wildlife in the Northern Rockies. We also must ensure these animals don’t get into trouble with people along the way. That’s why conflict prevention partnerships form the second prong of Vital Ground’s mission alongside habitat protection. From Wyoming to Washington, from electric fencing to bear-proof garbage to bear safety education, our 18 conservation partner projects in 2025 laid the groundwork for coexistence in vital locations across the region. Read more…
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2025 Financial Position
Thanks to the generous contributions of supporters like you, The Vital Ground Foundation ended 2025 in a strong financial position. Public support and revenues totaled $10,778,659.
During this period, 87 percent* of all expenditures were spent on conservation and education programs. Land held for preservation by Vital Ground represented an asset of $13,861,385 as of December 31, 2025.
Vital Ground depends on private contributions to finance our conservation work. As a charitable nonprofit organization, our success depends upon the generous support of our many individual donors, foundations and business partners. Donations to Vital Ground qualify as charitable contributions and may be tax-deductible.
* The Better Business Bureau’s Wise Giving Alliance Standards for Charity Accountability suggest that a charity should spend at least 65% of its total expenses on program activities.
Note: The transaction cycle in land conservation can take several years to complete. Consequently, program expense ratios vary significantly from year to year depending on how many transactions are actually finalized during the fiscal year, and the value of donated real estate and conservation easements. Additionally, in accordance with Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP), the purchase price of land, which is a significant mission delivery expense for many land trusts, is not included in program expenses, but is recorded as an asset on the organization’s balance sheet. Due to these unpredictable factors and accounting practices, Charity Navigator no longer evaluates land trusts.
In addition to individual supporters and charitable foundations, some of Vital Ground’s most important partners in conservation are companies that align their brands with our conservation mission through Vital Ground’s Business Partners Program. Special thanks to these stalwart 2025 business partners:
- Kodiak
- Montana Coffee Traders
- UDAP
- Grizzly Adams
- Grizzly Broadband
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Looking Ahead: Meeting the Urgent Conservation Call
Your support in 2025 continued Vital Ground’s leadership in grizzly bear and large landscape conservation, capping the organization’s first 35 years in impressive fashion as we added vital protected acres and community-led coexistence partnerships to the Northern Rockies’ conservation footprint. Check out the graphic at right to see just how much your contributions have accomplished for all things wild through 35 years of work together.
We’re hitting the ground running on the next 35, too. The need for Vital Ground’s work has never been greater as development pressures and climate impacts continue to affect wildlife and people alike in the Northern Rockies. Vital Ground is meeting the moment, with the Falls Creek and Warm Springs Creek projects protecting important habitat in the Cabinet and Garnet mountain ranges during the first half of 2026. We’ve also added new staff to our conservation team, ensuring we have the capacity to take on and complete key projects at a faster pace.
Several more crucial habitat protection efforts are approaching completion this summer, and your support through the rest of the year will ensure their success. You can sponsor an acre of habitat protection today or become one of our crucial sustaining supporters by setting up a monthly giving plan.
However you support wildlife and wild landscapes with Vital Ground, we are deeply grateful to have you as a part of our conservation community.
Thank you for enabling a brighter future for grizzlies and all things wild. Just like the wild places we protect together, you inspire us every day!
Click here to download a printable PDF version of this report…