Yaak Valley Landowner Places Conservation Easement on Homestead in Critical Grizzly Habitat
CarolAnn Berg Jackson, whose grandparents homestead the Yaak in 1916, said the 40-acre property serves as a natural movement corridor for one of the smallest grizzly bear populations in the Lower 48
By Tristan Scott
A landowner in the Yaak River Valley of northwest Montana has placed a 40-acre conservation easement on her family’s homestead as a way to preserve a migration corridor for one of the smallest grizzly bear populations in the Lower 48.
CarolAnn Berg Jackson completed the conservation easement with the Vital Ground Foundation last week, helping to secure the grizzly habitat while maintaining the rural character of land that her grandparents homesteaded beginning in 1916.
“I am seeking to protect this acreage in part to honor my grandmother,” Berg Jackson said in a prepared statement distributed by the Vital Ground Foundation. “My grandfather found work with the Forest Service but died in 1941, when I was 4. The family was able to maintain ownership because of my grandmother’s strength, courage and resourcefulness. Now I hope that my grandchildren and great-grandchildren will learn to love and appreciate this very special part of the world.”
Located along the Yaak River between the communities of Troy and Yaak, the site includes the Yaak River’s confluence with Meadow Creek, making it a natural movement area for wildlife, including members of the isolated Cabinet-Yaak Grizzly Bear Ecosystem.
“It’s only in the last decade or so that we’ve started to see movement from the Yaak to the Cabinets and vice versa, with a recent detection of gene flow in both directions,” according to Wayne Kasworm, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologist who has led grizzly recovery in the Cabinet-Yaak since 1983. “When it comes to easements and protection of private lands, we talk about things that outlive those of us that are here now. That’s an important thing for wildlife going forward into the future.”
Girded by the Purcell Mountains and extending from Montana’s northwest corner into British Columbia, the Yaak is home to an estimated 25 to 30 grizzly bears, one of the smallest enduring populations south of Canada.
Conserving habitat in movement areas like Meadow Creek maintains an open, connected landscape, Kasworm said. For the Yaak’s grizzlies, the population’s long-term survival depends on increasing its genetic diversity through breeding with bears from elsewhere. With a recent uptick in grizzly movement between the Yaak and the Cabinet Mountains to the south, conservation of habitat linkages provides resilience for wildlife against the backdrop of numerous climate impacts and region-wide development pressures.
Beyond grizzlies, the Meadow Creek area provides habitat for bull trout and Canada lynx, species listed as threatened by the Fish and Wildlife Service, as well as numerous other native fish and the region’s full suite of fauna, from wolves and wolverine to moose, elk, black bears and mountain lions.
“Anything I can do to protect these magnificent creatures I am hoping to do,” according to Berg Jackson, whose family previously placed a separate 38-acre conservation easement on adjacent property to the north. With Forest Service lands bordering the properties on three sides, the area will serve as a crucial linkage for wildlife moving between the higher country on either side of the river valley, according to Tanner Williams, conservation project manager for Vital Ground.
“This is an exciting addition to the already-conserved Meadow Creek property to the south,” according to Williams. “Connectivity between the Yaak and the Cabinets is very important for wildlife, so this is a big conservation win for wildlife as well as anyone who appreciates rugged, rural places like the Yaak.”