Beyond the boundaries of Yellowstone National Park is the extension of an ecosystem whose heart resides within the Park.  The Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (GYE) encompasses Yellowstone and its surrounding National Forests and lands.  Current and recently completed studies by Dr. Garrott and his graduate students in the GYE and Montana are considering the implications of management policies on wildlife as well as evaluating the habitat requirements of key species.

These studies are important, in part, because animals know no boundaries.  Grizzly bears require large home ranges that may be far from Yellowstone; pronghorn find the best winter habitat along the Northern Range--in and out of the Park; bison may leave the Park in winter in search of food at lower elevations; and wolf packs, dispersing from Yellowstone, establish territories in nearby valleys.

In Montana and the GYE, five diverse studies--three of them currently underway--are involved with researching hunting management strategies, grizzly bear habitat and resource needs, wolf-ungulate dynamics on managed land, winter range requirements of pronghorn, and brucellosis transmission from bison to elk.  Click on the links or those on the maps above to learn more about these projects.