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Spotlight: Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem
Elk, moose, bison, grizzlies, bighorn sheep and hundreds of other wildlife species thrive within this wild country, which covers an area roughly the size of West Virginia. With Yellowstone National Park at its core, the ecosystem extends beyond the park's boundaries to include Grand Teton National Park, parts of seven national forests and a huge swath of public land managed by the Bureau of Land Management. The headwaters of three major river systems -- the Green, the Snake and the Yellowstone -- flow from high granite peaks, as do countless blue-ribbon trout streams. Yet Greater Yellowstone is only as healthy as the sum of its parts. Wilderness designations protect much of the landscape, but some areas of vital wildlife habitat remain vulnerable to the industrial effects of oil and gas development.
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Outside in Greater Yellowstone
Greater Yellowstone is a place where you can see America as the pioneers did. Here's a taste of its offerings:
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Go Horseback Riding into the Wind River Range:
A weeklong packtrip on the southeast side of Yellowstone takes you through wide, glacial valleys to high mountain meadows carpeted in lupine, columbine, Indian paintbrush and other wildflowers. Trek through the granite peaks of the Wind River range, or visit Union Pass, a critical link in the winter migration route of moose, elk and other big game.
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Go Flyfishing in the Shoshone National Forest:
From a lodge in scenic Gunbarrel Canyon, choose from more than two dozen streams flowing into the north fork of the Shoshone River. Rainbow, cutthroat and brown trout are abundant, averaging 14 to 16 inches. "There's fast water and slow water," says Scott Bates, owner of the Absaroka Mountain Lodge, which was built in 1910 and lies 12 miles east of Yellowstone National Park. "I don't know if the fishing ever gets below good."
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Take a Greater Yellowstone Photo Safari:
The Yellowstone region is perhaps best known for its full complement of Rocky Mountain wildlife, from bison and wolves to bears, moose, elk and antelope. These creatures and many more are by no means confined to the national parks -- in fact, they couldn't survive without the vast national-forest patchwork that, together with Grand Teton and Yellowstone, provide the continuum of largely wild lands they need. A backcountry trip into the Wyoming, Gros Ventre or Wind River ranges will likely bring you into camera range of elk, trumpeter swans, bald eagles, black bears, and many other species -- and in wild surroundings, rather than from a traffic-choked park road.
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For details on these and other adventures in Greater Yellowstone, visit the websites in the Local Information section at right. Don't wait long, though; if the energy industry and its friends in the Bush administration have their way, this area's timeless appeal will be marred in many places by oil and gas development.
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Another Special Area at Risk
The Red Desert:
In the southwestern corner of Wyoming, this high-desert landscape -- formed where the Continental Divide splits to create a basin -- features towering buttes, ancient rock art and the largest moving sand dunes in North America. It's also home to more than 50,000 pronghorn antelope, and provides birthing areas for elk and mule deer. Parts of the Red Desert are under study for possible wilderness designation, but the oil and gas industry and the Bush administration have another vision for this arid land -- turning it into the largest natural gas-producing region in the United States.
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The Upper Green River, which lies between the Shoshone and Bridger-Teton national forests, has been extensively leased for oil and gas, with more than 3,000 wells already drilled and industry is pushing for still more leases and drilling permits in this biologically crucial area. And the Bush administration is working hard to fulfill their requests. The administration's latest plan for the area calls for tripling the current number of wells as well as opening for development swaths of biologically important big game habitat for development. This plan will harm more than wildlife; Wyoming residents will suffer further declines in air quality. Conservationists and concerned state wildlife officials have succeeded in forcing the administration to halt a number of lease sales and to withdraw to areas offered for sale over the past several years. And legislation was recently introduced in Congress -- the Wyoming Range Legacy Act -- that would prevent any new leasing in the Wyoming Range. Nonetheless, the Wyoming Bureau of Land Management continues to push to increase development, even as it acknowledges the damage that drilling and associated activities have already inflicted on mule deer, sage grouse and other wildlife species that make this area such a treasured place.
To learn more about this special area and how oil and gas development would change it forever, visit the websites in the Local Information section, below.
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Photos, from top: No. 1 © Dan Sherwood; No. 2 © Absaroka Mountain Lodge; Nos. 3, 4 © Erik Molvar/Biodiversity Conservation Alliance
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