NFWF Grant Profile

This project will conserve in perpetuity 155 acres of riparian wetland habitat and rich farmland along the Flathead River in northwest Montana at risk of being lost to development. It will help connect two major ecosystems for grizzly bears, a threatened species, and other wildlife; protect vital stopover habitat used by thousands of migratory birds; and an intact aquatic ecosystem used by bull trout, a threatened species; and westslope cutthroat trout, a species of special concern. The project will add to a stronghold of conserved private and public lands that are critical to sustaining the water quality, healthy function, and quality wetland and riparian habitat in the Flathead River, the life blood of the Crown of the Continent Ecosystem with headwaters in Glacier National Park and the Bob Marshall Wilderness, and Flathead Lake, the largest freshwater lake in the West and one of the cleanest lakes in the world.