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Meet Travis Brammer, PERC’s Conservation Innovation Lab Director

[…] article on conserving migration corridors, partnered with some renowned legal, economic, social, and ecological scholars for a law review article as part of the 150th anniversary of Yellowstone National Park, and wrote a master’s thesis on the means of encouraging more young people to participate in agriculture through conservation.  After graduating from law school, […]

Published on: December 15, 2023

The Endangered Species Act at 50

[…] done pretty well since the act’s passage. It’s the obscure or downright homely ones that often have not fared as well. When wolves were reintroduced to the Yellowstone ecosystem in the 1990s, people bought posters featuring the carnivores to raise money for the effort. The funds helped compensate ranchers in the area when they […]

Published on: December 11, 2023

PERC Launches “Elk Rent” Payment for Presence Conservation Program

[…] programs do, PERC’s payments are based on the presence of elk to specifically mitigate elk-livestock conflict. Paradise Valley serves as an important wintering ground for the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem’s migrating elk herds. As rapid development threatens wildlife habitat in the valley, ranchers and their large, open land holdings play a valuable role in maintaining […]

Published on: November 16, 2023

A Path Forward for the Grizzly Bear

[…] species recovery. Read the full issue. It was a bison. At least, that’s what it looked like at first glance. We were deep in the backcountry of Yellowstone National Park fishing a creek that meandered through an expansive meadow. My wife was casting toward a cutbank across the creek, hoping to entice a rising […]

Published on: October 17, 2023

A Field Guide for Wildlife Recovery

[…] 48: 7,500 Listed in: 1978 Wolf pack area range: 25 – 150 square miles 3. Fix the Off-Ramp By Jonathan Wood In 1995, nearly 70 years after Yellowstone’s last wolf pack was killed by park rangers, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife reintroduced the species back to the region.31Yellowstone National Park, “Wolf Restoration,” accessed April […]

Published on: September 20, 2023

PERC Launches New Conservation Innovation Lab

[…] Compensation Fund, a privately funded compensation program that enhances wildlife tolerance by helping ranchers address the costs associated with disease transmitted from elk to cattle in the Yellowstone ecosystem. Recently, PERC also established a first-of-its-kind Grizzly Conflict Reduction Grazing Agreement supporting a rancher’s efforts to implement wildlife-friendly livestock grazing practices.  Rapid prototypes and partnerships […]

Published on: August 24, 2023

How States Shape Wildlife Conservation on Private Lands

[…] are generally of lower density than populations in the East, and they often spend significant amounts of time on private lands during hunting season.  In the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, for example, elk spend the warmer months in the high country, which is overwhelmingly public land, but spend 80 percent of their winters on private […]

Published on: June 26, 2023

The Biden Administration’s Proposed Roadblock to Species Recovery

[…] prevents extinctions but also succeeds in recovering imperiled species, explore the links below.  The Road to Recovery: How restoring the Endangered Species Act’s two-step process can prevent extinction and promote recovery “ Yellowstone” and the Endangered Species Act: Incentives for species recovery need more carrot and less stick Don’t Reject Trump’s Endangered Species Rules Outright

Published on: June 22, 2023
Elk in Paradise Valley

Are Conservation Leases the Key to Resolving Competing Demands on Public Lands?

[…] demands? On private lands, the answer is simple: They negotiate. When my organization, PERC, sought to conserve habitat for elk and other wildlife on private lands near Yellowstone, we worked with a rancher to come up with a deal. In exchange for setting aside a portion of their ranch for migrating elk, PERC paid the […]

Published on: May 24, 2023
Bull elk in snowy terrain.

This Earth Day, Let’s Put Markets to Work for Conservation

[…] as a cure not a curse on the environment. Harnessing private capital to sustain wildlife habitat With rapid regional growth, ranchers in Montana’s large working lands outside Yellowstone National Park face growing pressure to sell to developers for subdivisions, threatening iconic wildlife populations.  Migratory elk herds in particular rely on working ranches for up […]

Published on: April 22, 2023