Waiting For Elk To Disappear From 'The Last Hundred Acres'
Greater Yellowstone resident Rob Sisson pens an essay about his sorrow in watching a wapiti migration route vanish on the outskirts of Bozeman, Montana
Looking toward Gallatin Canyon that divides the Gallatin Range from the Madison mountains, this sweep of ag land provides key habitat for migratory elk and mule deer moving between the Gallatins and Ted Turner's Flying D Ranch, visible in the upper right of the photograph. As author Sisson notes, a proposed development could result in closure of the crucial migration corridor. The issue also exposes how the government bodies of both Gallatin County and Bozeman have no coordinated strategy for saving the best remaining wildlife habitat in the face of high population growth. Photo courtesy Rob Sisson
EDITOR'S NOTE: Mountain Journal welcomes this thought-provoking essay from Rob Sisson. Of worthy note is the fact that a dozen years ago, Sisson was president of an organization called Republicans for Environmental Protection that today is called ConservAmerica. A longtime friend of this publication, Sisson identifies as both a political conservative and a conservationist who hunts, fishes and is devoted to safeguarding wildlife and its habitat. The following piece was written literally from a place in the southern Gallatin Valley where development is on the verge of eliminating an elk migration corridor that may have existed for thousands of years. Also, make sure you read author's note at end.
by Rob Sisson
Week after week here at Mountain Journal, writers from a broad cross-section of our ecosystem community opine about the desperate need to protect, save, and conserve the last fragments of open spaces in Gallatin County and valleys throughout our region.
Citizens in Gallatin have shown their support by voting for and renewing a tax on themselves to buy conservation easements to try to preserve some semblance of Montana and to forestall totally morphing into a suburbia like the outer rings of Chicago.
The annual State of the Rockies poll, conducted by Colorado College and released recently, reports that 58 percent of Montanans want their elected leaders to take bold action to conserve nature; some 71 percent support the goal of protecting 30 percent of our land and water. A whopping 90 percent of our neighbors believe elected officials at every level of government (including county) must find more money to conserve land.
Back in the first half of the last century, Jackson Hole, Wyo ranchers were up-in-arms when they discovered John D. Rockefeller Jr had acquired much of the valley to conserve it in perpetuity by deeding his acquisitions to the federal government and helping to create present-day Grand Teton National Park. Heck, a posse was formed to ride out and meet the interlopers, and it was led by future governor and US Sen. Cliff Hansen.
Years later, Hansen and nearly everyone else involved apologized and thanked the conservation interests who conspired to protect the valley. As the person charged with shepherding the state’s economic welfare, Hansen discovered that natural beauty and having abundant wildlife around are economic engines that is sustainable long after building and mining booms evaporate into the annals of history.
On the north side of the Greater Yellowstone region, in its most bustling place, the Gallatin County Commission is at an inflection point today. Development is devouring the county’s iconic landscapes at such a fast rate that county staff and other officials who must review proposals can’t keep pace. Will those elected to the Commission and the professional support staff press the pause button, to digest recent rapid growth, and to better plan for our future?
Migratory elk that have moved through the Gallatin Valley for millennia each year find it tougher going to navigate their way through a maze of sprawl and leapfrog development, especially as open ag lands disappear. If conservation is going to happen, it needs to do so fast, and there needs to be a strategy that has been lacking not only from city-county government but there's been no plan put forth by conservation organizations. Photo by Rob Sisson
In Gallatin Gateway, once a railroad gateway to Yellowstone National Park, a new dense housing project is under-construction to provide 354 “front doors” according to the developers. Assuming each “door” houses an average family of three people, this single project will more than double the 2019 population of Gallatin Gateway. That pace of growth is not sustainable from an infrastructure, tax, and public services basis.
The development represents backfill and infill of sorts, being built north of Cottonwood Road between the former Buffalo Jump restaurant and downtown Gateway. We do need affordable housing. And, as neighbors, we hope for the best. So, too, does the wildlife that has existed here before the establishment of Bozeman in the early 1860s. What it needs is habitat.
Much attention has been given to a glamping proposal literally steps away from the front door of the venerable Stacey’s Old Faithful Bar in "downtown" Gallatin Gateway. Critics are right to raise environmental concerns about the proposal. Yet, while everone’s eye is on that development, they’re missing what is, perhaps, the biggest threat to the way of life for residents, ranchers, and wildlife enthusiasts in the Gallatin Gateway area.
Much attention has been given to a glamping proposal literally steps away from the front door of the venerable Stacey’s Old Faithful Bar in "downtown" Gallatin Gateway. Critics are right to raise environmental concerns about the proposal. Yet, while everone’s eye is on that development, they’re missing what is, perhaps, the biggest threat to the way of life for residents, ranchers, and wildlife enthusiasts in the Gallatin Gateway area.
The development threat that should concern everyone in the valley is the one facing the last hundred acres of agricultural land located on the east side of US-191, south of the Wilson Creek Road intersection along the route leading from Four Corners southward into the Gallatin Canyon and eventually reaching Big Sky.
All of the land west of the busy highway on the road stretch I mention is owned by Ted Turner as part of his Flying D Ranch and the property is in a conservation easement, meaning it will never be subdivided and the protected open space will be enjoyed by people and animals for generations to come.
Who isn’t familiar with the large northern Gallatin elk herd seen grazing on the ranch grasslands? But, what you might not know is the last hundred acres on the east side of US Highway-191 provides crucial winter range and the safest migration corridor for elk and mule deer between the northern Gallatins and the Flying D.
This is the stretch of US Highway 191 between Gallatin Gateway and the Gallatin Canyon where wildlife often get killed in trying to cross the road between the southern Gallatin Valley and Turner's Flying D Ranch. More development could prevent wildlife movement from happening. Also needed, scientists say, is a wildlife overpass or underpass. Photo courtesy Rob Sisson
Over the past few weeks, I’ve watched out my dining room window as the herd pinched into itself to hazard crossing across US-191 just south of Wilson Road and Little Bear Creek. To the north are two housing developments, the Hart Ranch, and Gallatin Gateway’s growing sprawl.
To the south, at Williams Road, is a new commercial structure, the state highway garage, the Flying D’s bison pastures, and the north entrance to the Gallatin Canyon. In other words, this hundred acres being used by the elk is the last hundred acres available to them as a refuge and safe migration corridor. It is a pinch-point and the corridor is in danger of closing shut.
This last hundred acres has been identified by the Montana Department of Transportation as prime agriculture land, by the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife, and Parks as crucial wildlife habitat and winter grazing ground, and by several land conservancies as high value in need of protection. In a recent US-191 Corridor Study, it was reported that 253 deer were killed by automobiles immediately adjacent to this land during the study period. The study also reported more than 80 elk fatalities.
In a recent US-191 Corridor Study, it was reported that 253 deer were killed by automobiles immediately adjacent to this land during the study period. The study also reported more than 80 elk fatalities.
Unfortunately, the land has been divided into five parcels with commercial development planned. I find no fault with either sellers or buyers of the parcels—they have or are exercising their rights. But shame on me and the other residents of the four Home Owners Associations in the area and on county officials who should have had the foresight to negotiate conservation of this land while it was still in the hands of the original ranching family.
Click to make the image by Mountain Journal cartoonist John Potter larger
Developing this land will cause irreparable, irreversible harm to the elk and deer herds. It will shatter the iconic view residents and visitors alike enjoy of the Spanish Peaks and Gallatin Canyon. Drive south on US-191 and as the road curves toward the canyon, right at the Hart Ranch, take in the incredible view. Do it soon, for the view may be consigned to photo albums and memories of those fortunate enough to pass here before it’s too late.
In baseball parlance, it is the bottom of the ninth, with two outs, an 0-2 count on the batter, and the home team looks to lose another one. Like many die-hard fans, I’m not ready to give up hope, and won’t until the last out is in the books. If the corridor closes and the elk disappear we all will lose something extremely precious.
The Gallatin County Commission has two options available to it—if preserving the last hundred acres is of any importance to them. First, under state law, they can immediately enact emergency zoning to forestall development until such time that the Gallatin Gateway community speaks on its vision of zoning.
A year’s delay can be a hardship to a developer. I get that—I spent 22 years in commercial banking, working with small business owners. I also have seen places where the loss of nature permanently does not become evident before it is too late. We are on borrowed time to act but act we must.
Some claim there must exist a clear and present danger to human health and life to enact emergency zoning. To this, I cite the growing number of traffic accidents on US-191 near the Williams Road intersection. To this, I cite the likely multiplication of ungulate/auto accidents if development is allowed to proceed. To this, I cite the scarcity of groundwater and likely impact on water quality, both groundwater and the Gallatin River, of commercial wells and septic systems, and surface run off from commercial sites.
The other option is one I despise, but is the final tool: condemnation of the land, paying market value to the current owners, and protecting the land for posterity. Condemnation is the last straw, but must be considered if we, as a society, value nature and future generations enough. Save the appearance of a conservation-mindedbenefector with deep, deep pockets, these are the only options left to save the last hundred acres.
We cannot afford to hold on to the mythical West, where the doctrine of Manifest Destiny imposes no boundaries or limitations on individual appetites. Zoning, covenants, and stronger incentives for landowners to protect the remnants of what made the West special are past due.
As Sisson and a growing number of nature-loving Gallatin County residents are asking, will this generation of elected officials and citizens stand by and allow a backyard elk migration corridor to go away forever? Photo courtesy Rob Sisson
Some might say any reduction in our individual freedom or liberty is not conservative, but, as President Reagan once asked, “What is a conservative after all but one who conserves, one who is committed to protecting and holding close the things by which we live? . . . And we want to protect and conserve the land on which we live—our countryside, our rivers and mountains, our plains and meadows and forests. That is our patrimony. That is what we leave to our children. And our great moral responsibility is to leave it to them either as we found it or better than we found it.”
Russell Kirk, author of The Conservative Mind, and the conservative conscience of Reagan, once said, “There is nothing more conservative than conservation.”
But, it is the American Patron Saint of Conservation, Theodore Roosevelt, who should have the last word regarding this, with the literal "Last Hundred Acres" that serves as a larger metaphor for the kind of change rapidly transforming Greater Yellowstone.
“Defenders of the short-sighted men who in their greed and selfishness will, if permitted, rob our country of half its charm by their reckless extermination of all useful and beautiful wild things sometimes seek to champion them by saying the ‘the game belongs to the people.’ So it does; and not merely to the people now alive, but to the unborn people. The ‘greatest good for the greatest number’ applies to the number within the womb of time, compared to which those now alive form but an insignificant fraction. Our duty to the whole, including the unborn generations, bids us restrain an unprincipled present-day minority from wasting the heritage of these unborn generations. The movement for the conservation of wild life and the larger movement for the conservation of all our natural resources are essentially democratic in spirit, purpose, and method.”
AUTHOR'S ENDNOTE: In this piece, I reference a high-density housing project approved for hundreds of units and now under construction between Gallatin Gateway and Cottonwood Road. To be clear, the last hundred acres that are the subject of this article are located two miles south of the high-density housing project. The housing project is mentioned as an example of the explosive growth in Gallatin County that is happening with no consideration of the consequences on wildlife and ongoing fiscal liabilities. If just half of the units in the new housing project have school-aged children, it will require Gallatin Gateway taxpayers to build a new school to increase capacity. The last hundred acres was recently owned by one ranching family, and has now been sold as five different parcels to five different owners. Since the parcels had existed since railroad days, the anticipated development on the land does not fall under subdivision rules which may require an Environmental Impact Statement. If only we could enforce the intent of the law, and not the letter. Elk in this area of the county historically migrate across US-191 in two places. One of those places was blocked by construction of a commercial building two years ago. That means the last hundred acres—again, the subject of this article—is ironically the last 'gateway' for elk migration. Fortunately, no construction has commenced or been permitted there. Gallatin County still has time to act to protect this land.
Rob Sisson is a resident of Gallatin Gateway and a product of the Upper Midwest. He served as president of ConservAmerica from 2009-2019, the national organization dedicated to restoring conservation as an ideal of the conservative movement.
