In The Bull's Eye: A Human Swarm Is Overwhelming The Yellowstone Region
Amid unprecedented development and outdoor recreation pressure, three experts say new strategies urgently needed to save America's most famous wildlife ecosystem
From the northern suburbs of Bozeman to the southern former ag lands of Jackson Hole (and including many valleys in-between) Greater Yellowstone has become a bull's eye for development and new waves of sprawl. On top of it: unprecedented levels of outdoor recreation that has overwhelmed the ability of some land management agencies to deal with it and it's causing displacement of wildlife from habitat on both public and private land. This photo of Montana's Gallatin Valley courtesy Holly Pippel
by Luther Propst, Dennis Glick and Randy Carpenter
The Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem spans some 3,500 square miles, encompassing two national parks, five national forests, and two national wildlife refuges in some 20 counties across parts of three states. This is one of the largest, mostly intact temperate ecosystems remaining on the planet.
While Yellowstone National Park and national forest lands constitute its core, by no means does the ecosystem stop at those public land boundaries. Rather, it reaches across tribal land, private ranches, and valleys chock full of rural sprawl, second home subdivisions, and some 83 towns and small cities home to about a half-million people.
For decades conservation advocates, public land managers, and local leaders have fought to keep the most damaging impacts of extractive industries at bay, with a fair amount of success. But today’s threats – including rural subdivisions, sprawling towns, and unprecedented levels of recreation and tourism – are proving to be every bit as threatening to the ecosystem and its communities as what Charles Wilkinson labeled the “Lords of Yesteryear."
For decades conservation advocates, public land managers, and local leaders have fought to keep the most damaging impacts of extractive industries at bay, with a fair amount of success. But today’s threats – including rural subdivisions, sprawling towns, and unprecedented levels of recreation and tourism – are proving to be every bit as threatening to the ecosystem and its communities as what Charles Wilkinson labeled the “Lords of Yesteryear."
So far, we have seen little success addressing these “new west” growth-related threats than the threats from extractive industry. Handling this newer generation of impacts requires a new approach for managing regional growth and an unprecedented level of advocacy, collaboration, and innovation of the kind that, like the ecosystem itself, reaches across local, state, and federal agencies and boundaries.
The Yellowstone region was hit hard by Covid-19 and associated lockdowns. The national parks closed their gates and experienced little visitation for several months. In Teton County, Wyoming, sales tax revenues—an indicator of the level of visitation—plummeted 23 percent from the previous spring. Even Jackson Hole’s notoriously expensive real estate market ebbed—but only for a moment.
A recent visual commentary from Mountain Journal cartoonist John Potter.
Then our collective consciousness determined that the danger was over, the lockdowns should be lifted, and the human hordes could go back to “normal.” Since then, visitation records at Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks fall with each passing month.
Even before the pandemic, Greater Yellowstone’s population was exploding, adding 125,000 people in the last two decades. “Covid refugees” and Zoom Boomers are now dramatically hastening the rate of growth, with no end in sight.
Most famously—or infamously— the real estate market has rebounded and then some, hitting an all-time high for sales volume and pushing home prices out of reach for even the highest paid locals. No longer can local workers drive over the pass or down the valley to affordability, either: Teton County, Idaho’s, median home price has shot up to more than a half-million bucks and it’s even worse in Bozeman, Montana.
In short, the challenges we were facing before the pandemic—wildlife habitat fragmentation and loss of winter range, declining water quality, disappearance of affordable housing, longer commutes, more wildlife-vehicle collisions, growing income inequality, increased impact of unmanaged recreation on the backcountry, a growing disconnect between the number of visitors and the facilities to serve them—are rapidly getting worse.
In short, the challenges we were facing before the pandemic—wildlife habitat fragmentation and loss of winter range, declining water quality, disappearance of affordable housing, longer commutes, more wildlife-vehicle collisions, growing income inequality, increased impact of unmanaged recreation on the backcountry, a growing disconnect between the number of visitors and the facilities to serve them—are rapidly getting worse. The result is an unprecedented and rapid decline in both wildlife habitat—the region’s defining asset—and the quality of life in Greater Yellowstone communities.
The result is an unprecedented and rapid decline in both wildlife habitat—the region’s defining asset—and the quality of life in Greater Yellowstone communities.
There was a time when it was possible to beat back the threats to the ecosystem by lobbying Washington and the public land management agencies to stop the mine, the logging operation, the overgrazing. That approach is now behind us.
Change in Greater Yellowstone communities is inevitable. Yet change should not mean losing the very qualities that make the region unique and attractive.
Just as these challenges reach across county, state, and agency lines, so too must the solutions. This is an ecosystem, after all, in which everything is connected, both in the natural and human-built world. Jackson is as intimately connected with Alpine and Driggs, and Livingston with Gardiner and Bozeman, as the grizzlies are to the whitebark pine.
Therefore, advocates for conservation and community throughout the region must work together to address the problems caused by the lack of integrated planning. Local governments should join them. As Ben Franklin said: We must all hang together, or most assuredly, we will all hang separately.
We don’t need to reinvent the wheel—not quite. Rather, we can learn from models elsewhere: the bi-state, multi-jurisdictional Tahoe Regional Planning Agency; the Roaring Fork Transportation Authority that connects Rifle to Aspen, Colorado; community-led highway planning in Sedona, Arizona; and many other effective regional efforts to better manage growth and change.
We need a new era of conservation and community planning in the Greater Yellowstone in which plans for public lands are developed in concert with local land use plans. Those plans would be integrated with cross-county, tri-state water quality, transit, and workforce housing plans. More importantly, we envision a new generation of meaningful measures and funding, such as affordable housing programs, regional efforts to protect wildlife migration corridors, increased attention to clean water, and highway planning that incorporates local values.
We also envision a future with diverse and attractive communities in which visitation is balanced with the carrying capacity of host communities, where visitation and real estate development is better managed – even limited – to ensure that we don’t exceed the capacity of the region to accommodate residents and visitors while protecting wildlife and quality of life.
Only with a wide-ranging, ecosystemwide, collaborative effort can we preserve and restore what we value about the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. It’s time to act and to do so as one regional community and as a single ecosystem.
NOTE: The opinions expressed in this column do not reflect the official views of any local government or other organization with which the authors are affiliated.
No media entity has devoted more coverage to explaining how human development is negatively affecting the ecological integrity of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. For just a sampling of Mountain Journal's reporting, interviews and commentaries, check out these original stories that provide context for thinking about the guest essay from Propst, Glick and Carpenter above.
A Primer For Pondering Growth Impacts On The Greater Yellowstone Region
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About Luther Propst, Dennis Glick and Randy Carpenter
Luther Propst founded and ran the Sonoran Institute, chairs the board of the Outdoor Alliance, and got elected in 2018 to the Teton County, Wyoming board of county commissioners. He lives in Jackson, Wyoming.
Dennis Glick is former director of the non-profit Future West and has been deeply involved in Greater Yellowstone conservation and growth management issues for over 30 years. He lives in Livingston, Montana.
Randy Carpenter is an urban and regional planner from Bozeman. He works for Future West, helping communities in the Greater Yellowstone region make informed decisions about growth and change. He is also City Planner for Manhattan and Three Forks, Montana.
