Climate change and encroaching development continue to threaten biodiversity. At the same time, Westerners saw dozens of success stories in 2024. Two national monuments were expanded in California, while conservation gained equal footing with mining and drilling under the Bureau of Land Management’s Public Lands Rule. Alaska saw half of the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska protected from new oil and gas leases, and the previous approval for the Ambler Road project in the Brooks Range was rescinded. Elsewhere in the region, fish returned to their former habitats and swam off the Endangered Species List, while wolf and gray whale populations continued to grow.
Salmon return to once-dammed reaches of the Klamath River
For over a century, dams blocked salmon from returning to their spawning grounds near the headwaters of the Klamath River. But the removal of four of the river’s six dams was completed this year, and in October, biologists saw several hundred chinook salmon above the dam sites. While scientists had expected salmon to return eventually, the appearance of so many fish so soon surprised and delighted the tribes who had ardently campaigned to remove the dams.
Fences come down
Every year, migrating elk, deer, pronghorn and moose are slowed, injured, and even killed by the West’s thousands of miles of barbed-wire fencing. Groups like the National Wildlife Federation (NWF) are working hard to remove barbed wire or replace it with more permeable barriers. According to the Mountain Journal, since 2021, the NWF and its partners have removed 40 miles of fencing from the High Divide region along the Montana-Idaho border. Sublette County, Wyoming, another leader in the wildlife-friendly fencing movement, has worked with state and federal partners to remove or improve more than 700 miles of fencing since 2017.
Gray whale populations rebound
Between December 2023 and mid-February 2024, researchers from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration estimated that 19,260 gray whales migrated along the Pacific Coast — a 33% increase from the previous season. “The numbers are trending up,” NOAA spokesman Michael Milstein told the Oregon Capital Chronicle. “The indications are consistent that the whales have gone from a decline to a recovery.”
Wyoming parcel approved for sale to Grand Teton National Park
Last year, it looked like an iconic parcel of state trust land outside Jackson, Wyoming, might be sold to a developer, prompting outrage from locals and conservationists. Known as the Kelly parcel, the land offers panoramic views of the Tetons and provides important habitat for migrating pronghorn and other wildlife species. But by law, state trust land must generate revenue for public schools. In November, Wyoming’s top-five state elected officials approved the sale of the parcel to the adjacent Grand Teton National Park for $100 million. The state will likely use the proceeds to purchase oil and gas-rich land in the Powder River Basin.
Wolves part of the pack discovered last summer in Tulare County called the Yowlumni Pack. The pack was found in the Sequoia National Forest near the Tule River Tribe of California’s reservation and ancestral lands.
California Department of Fish and Wildlife
Wolf populations boom
An estimated 70 wolves are now living in California, an increase of 26 animals from last year. Two new wolf packs formed in Northern California this year, too. Meanwhile, Colorado saw the formation of its first pack since wolves were reintroduced last year.
Washington river gets legal rights — and other ballot wins
In Everett, Washington, voters approved a ballot initiative that grants the Snohomish River watershed the rights to exist, regenerate and flourish. City residents, agencies and organizations can now sue on behalf of the watershed, and any recovered damages will be used to restore the ecosystem. Also in Washington, voters upheld the 2021 Climate Commitment Act by voting no on Initiative 2117. The act caps and reduces carbon emissions for the state’s largest carbon emitters and raises money for conservation, climate and wildfire resilience statewide. In California, voters passed a $10 billion climate bond that will fund climate resilience projects, protect clean drinking water and help prevent wildfires.
Bear River Massacre site restored
One of the deadliest massacres of Native people in U.S. history happened near what’s now Preston, Idaho, in January 1863. Over 150 years later, the Northwestern Band of the Shoshone Nation is reclaiming the site of the massacre, a place their people once lived, celebrated and danced. Along the Bear River, the tribe is replacing thirsty invasive vegetation with native plants and restoring degraded agricultural fields to wetlands. Eventually, they hope to return an estimated 13,000 acre-feet of water to the parched Great Salt Lake annually. “For thousands of years, this wasn’t a massacre site,” Brad Parry, the tribe’s vice chairman, told High Country News. “We want to make this a place to come to again.”
Apache trout removed from Endangered Species List
In September, after 50 years on the federal endangered species list, Arizona’s state fish — the Apache trout — was declared recovered and removed from the list. The first American sportfish to achieve delisting, it owes its recovery to the White Mountain Apache Tribe as well as to federal and state agencies and nonprofits. In a statement, Interior Secretary Deb Haaland paid tribute to “the transformational power that collaborative conservation efforts — grounded in Indigenous Knowledge — can have on fish and wildlife.”
Extra wetland habitat created for birds
California’s Central Valley is vital to migrating birds, but its wetlands have been almost destroyed by agricultural and urban development. BirdReturns, a program that started in 2014, pays the valley’s rice farmers to create “pop-up” wetland habitat by flooding fields earlier in the fall and leaving them flooded later in the spring. Since its inception, BirdReturns has created 120,000 acres of temporary bird habitat.
Tribally led projects win big
TheAmerica The Beautiful Challenge funds voluntary conservation and restoration projects around the country, consolidating funding from federal agencies and the private sector. Numerous projects led by tribes in the West received money from the program this year, including the Summit Lake Paiute Tribe, which received $2.5 million for fish passage and riparian restoration projects in Nevada; the Pueblo of Jemez, which received $2.1 million for stream and wetland restoration in New Mexico; the Native Village of Tazlina, which received $2 million to incorporate Indigenous knowledge of migratory birds into state and regional meetings and management in Alaska; the Hoopa Valley Tribe, which received $4.5 million to remove invasive barred owls across Northern California; and the Eastern Shoshone Tribe, which received $3 million to expand the Yellowstone Bison Conservation Transfer Program.
This story is part of High Country News’ Conservation Beyond Boundaries project, which is supported by the BAND Foundation.
