The Project
Enhancing the safety of
Montana’s US 89
for people and wildlife
Yellowstone Safe Passages started out of recognition that a community-led partnership would be best equipped to address and resolve wildlife-vehicle conflicts in our watershed. We are a community of citizens who live, work, and play in the Upper Yellowstone watershed. Our partners include state and federal agencies, park county elected officials, private foundations, community groups, conservation groups, anglers, and local landowners, business owners, and individuals who are working to enhance the safety of people and wildlife traveling along US 89.
Learn more about
On US 89
What Has Happened So Far
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Community members with property adjacent to US 89 can play critical roles. For the past two years, Yellowstone Safe Passages has been convening community members to discuss opportunities and barriers to mitigating wildlife-vehicle conflicts. We invite community members to participate in developing lasting solutions and new partnerships between other locals and our agency partners. If you're a community member near the highway, please reach out to learn how you can support our work.
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Our fence line surveys were conducted as a way to ground truth high-conflict areas. To do this, team members walked the fence lines along US 89 looking for obvious game trails and other signs of high-density crossing.
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Since Spring of 2020, the team at Yellowstone Safe Passages has been monitoring Highway 89 with ArcGIS software and via game-trail cameras set up at unique locations near the highway. One of our staff members performs weekly surveys of the entire stretch of highway between Livingston and Gardiner, collecting data points where animal carcasses are observed on the shoulder of the road.
Our citizen science program is a standardized data collection system being implemented by locals right here in the community! By recording both live and road-killed animals we can better understand how wildlife are moving along the road corridor and identify the highest risk areas for wildlife-vehicle collisions. This system, called ROaDS (The Roadkill Observation and Data System), provides critical information for decision-makers to most effectively develop solutions to make roads safer for people and wildlife! -
Yellowstone Safe Passages partnered with the Center for Large Landscape Conservation and the Western Transportation Institute at Montana State University to develop a fine-scale Wildlife and Transportation Assessment of US 89 from Livingston to Gardiner. This assessment was an interdisciplinary collaborative process that brought together a diversity of stakeholders, data, and information to ultimately identify the areas with the greatest need to address wildlife-vehicle conflict and develop recommendations for potential short- and long-term actions to make Highway 89 safer for people and wildlife.
What We’re Working On Now
Engineering Feasibility Study
In May 2024, Yellowstone Safe Passages submitted an application for funding through the Montana Wildlife & Transportation Partnership (MWTP.) The application was targeting support for an engineering feasibility study for the Dome Mountain project area identified in our US 89 Wildlife & Transportation Assessment.
As of September 2024, we learned that the application was APPROVED!
So what does this mean? In short, we will be receiving support and completing an engineering feasibility study for the proposed wildlife overpasses! Once the study is completed, we will be able to approach larger federal grants for the actual buildout of the structures.
We have a lot of work ahead of us, but the wheels are in motion.
Stay tuned — we're so excited to share this journey with you!
Inspiring Action Through Storytelling
As of 2025, Yellowstone Safe Passages is over five years old and running! We are now recognized as the model for community-based partnerships in Montana seeking to make roads safer for people and wildlife. To anchor even further into "community-based," we are taking a deep dive with creative visual imagery (photography and videography) in an attempt to showcase the diversity of people who share our vision. We've already started filming in attempt to gather visual assets for use in mini-documentaries. Imagine: a cool youtube channel with periodic addition of video shorts for locals and visitors to view. This is a multi-year effort that began in July 2025, during Park County Community Foundation’s annual giving challenge GIVE A HOOT! Please consider donating today. Any and all funds will help.
Thank you!
The Road Ahead
More information coming soon
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