Rocky Mountain Front Ranchlands Group PROJECT BRIEF

As grizzlies make their way back onto the beautiful, wide-open prairies that they once roamed widely, Vital Ground is following their lead by forging new partnerships on the Rocky Mountain Front. In 2022, we teamed up with the Rocky Mountain Front Ranchlands Group for the first time to support their range rider program that monitors wildlife and livestock across an impressive 27,000 acres. Just like the grizzlies who lived there for hundreds of years, many families along the Front have multi-generation legacies of working on the land. Along with this comes long-existing conservation practices held by these communities, and the Ranchlands Group is tapping into those values to build a future of coexistence for all. 

Range rider monitoring, among their other efforts to prevent conflicts with bears, makes it possible for these families to continue sustaining themselves through ranching and farming while allowing pioneering bears to keep expanding back into their historic range.