Yellowstone’s Gallatin Wilderness contains some of the finest high-mountain country in the Park. The area also continues, year after year, to support a high concentration of Yellowstone’s most dangerous animal, the grizzly bear. Due to off-trail travel restrictions necessary to ensure the bears’ privacy (and hikers’ safety), much of this area seldom sees visitors.
Hemmed-in by Montana State Highway 191 on the west, Yellowstone’s West Entrance to Mammoth roads on the south and east and various National Forest roads to the north, the Gallatin Wilderness inside Yellowstone Park contains some 325,000 acres held in national trust. The Gallatin mountain range, however, doesn’t stop at the Park border, but extends farther north, providing a wildlife-rich corridor into Southwest Montana. The National Park Service recommends formal designation of over 318,000 acres of its land as wilderness, while approximately 156,000 acres of intermixed Forest Service, state and private lands north of the Park are a Congressional Wilderness Study Area.
Although large, this wilderness does feel the hand of man, especially on its outer fringes during hunting season. Grizzlies, busy fattening up for the winter, sometimes come out the loser during encounters with these hunters. Sometimes the hunter comes out the loser as well. The area also includes major areas where private land runs right up against Park boundaries, with only a narrow strip of National Forest land in between. This occurs in the Duck Creek drainage on the west side of the area as well as on and around the Mol Heron and Yellowstone River drainages to the north of the Park. These lands are used for livestock production, dream homes and commercial recreation, both motorized and non-motorized. Naturally, when uses like these occur on the edge of wilderness next to a National Park, within the largest natural ecosystem remaining in the world’s temperate zones, there will be conflicts involving resources. The problems run the gamut from groundwater pollution to poaching to bison management to the incessant pressure from livestock interests to control predators, all of these things having an effect on the quality of Yellowstone’s backcountry.
While addressing many of these conflicts in upcoming articles, the Yellowstone Wilderness Mag would like, while remembering the enormous value of a healthy Yellowstone and its wildlife, to make a suggestion which wouldn’t harm either private property rights or the Park itself. That suggestion would be for both the Park Service and the private citizens involved to try harder to see each others’ point of view, while both considering long-term ecosystem health as the number one priority. If someone is fortunate enough to own land adjoining Yellowstone, or any other National Park for that matter, it behooves them to assist the Park Service in perpetuating the overall biological integrity of that Park. Doesn’t it stand to reason that if, say, in the year 2030 the Park’s ecosystem is still healthy, with all its wildlife, big and small, thriving, then adjoining land would be worth more than if there were to be some disruption of the ecological balance, causing a loss of certain species? Pristine is pristine. And pristine is a commodity not easily found in today’s world, let alone the world of the future. Pristine adds value, and pristine is a major goal of the Park Service today. By the same token, however, anyone who has felt the crushing weight of the Federal Government upon them, even in the form of the National Park Service, can attest that justice can be heavy-handed and often blind. All too often government employees lose sight of what it’s like to struggle economically, owning a small business. None of the Park Service goals are better served by antagonizing local residents. Yet, does Yellowstone National Park really owe anyone a living?
So, maybe both sides should listen harder to each other and realize they both have more to gain by cooperation than by adversity. Yellowstone is an ongoing experiment. We, as a people, will have only one chance to preserve this great land for all time. Let’s make sure we do it right, if not for ourselves, then for future generations.
