Yellowstone's wildlife is more valuable than gold
A mine on Crevice Mountain, just north of Yellowstone National Park, would permanently and irrevocably alter vital wildlife habitat.
Along the northern edge of Yellowstone National Park, Crevice Mountain rises some 3,000 feet above the Yellowstone River. Cloaked in conifer forests and rich with wildlife, Crevice Mountain and the surrounding landscape exemplify much of what is extraordinary about the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem.
The area is home to grizzly bears, elk, bighorn sheep, and more. It is also one of the few designated places outside the park where Yellowstone bison can roam.
Here, in the heart of this important wildlife habitat, Crevice Mining Group is working to develop a gold mine.
This is no place for a gold mine.
Meet some of the wildlife residents and visitors on Crevice Mountain
The following trail cam footage was captured on the proposed mine site. Scroll down to get to know some of the mountain’s inhabitants.
Grizzly bears are perhaps the most iconic symbol of a wild Yellowstone. As a large and wide-ranging omnivore, they play a vital role in a well-balanced ecosystem.
Our trail cam footage captured this grizzly sow and her cubs roaming the landscape around Crevice Mountain in November 2022.
During the late fall, grizzly bears prepare for a 5 to 7 month hibernation by packing on fat to live off during the long, cold winter.
With the snow falling in this trail cam image, it's possible these bears were seeking a safe place to hibernate somewhere on Crevice Mountain.
Research has shown one of the biggest predictors of bear mortality is the proximity to human development.
If a gold mine was built on Crevice Mountain, these grizzly bears would be confronted with a sudden increase in people in their habitat. This could increase the likelihood of them having negative encounters with humans, possibly even leading to their lethal removal.
Grizzly bear survival rates improve in correlation to factors like elevation and remoteness, suggesting secure habitat is key to bears' ability to thrive.
Right now, Crevice Mountain is quiet, peaceful, and remote: an ideal grizzly refuge.
A gold mine would change that forever.
One of the many wonders of traveling through Greater Yellowstone is seeing the immense herds of elk that dot the landscape.
These herds are the heartbeat of the ecosystem, ebbing and flowing through valleys and across elevations with the seasons.
Our trail cam footage captured countless photos and video of elk traversing the wild lands around Crevice Mountain.
Greater Yellowstone's elk need vast, unobstructed range to meet their needs.
A gold mine on Crevice Mountain would create numerous barriers to elk migration, increasing stressors and making it difficult for elk to reach to resources they need to survive.
Keeping Crevice Mountain gold-mine-free is vital to preserving a healthy, connected landscape for elk migration.
One of Greater Yellowstone's most elusive creatures is the mountain lion. Many people spend their entire lives sharing mountain lion habitat without ever seeing one in the wild.
However, even if you haven't seen one in the ecosystem, it's likely one has seen you! Our camera traps captured many mountain lions throughout the seasons.
Mountain lions are incredibly important to the ecosystem. By killing and consuming prey, they provide carcasses that feed scavengers and nourish plant life.
By contributing to the balance and health of the food web, mountain lions are making Greater Yellowstone a more stable and resilient ecosystem.
Yellowstone's Northern Range, which encompasses Crevice Mountain, is the best year-round habitat for the park's mountain lions.
Yellowstone biologist Dan Stahler calls it some of the best cougar habitat in the Lower 48, or anywhere.
Steep, rugged landscapes like Crevice Mountain provide refuge for mountain lions and ensure they can play their vital role in the ecosystem.
This is another reason Crevice Mountain must remain intact.
One of the greatest images of Greater Yellowstone is a moment, frozen in time, of a red fox mid-air preparing to pounce on some unsuspecting prey beneath the snow.
Our camera traps captured a plethora of red foxes traversing Crevice Mountain.
These mostly nocturnal animals are a treat to witness, especially for those fortunate enough to watch a fox hunt in action. Biologists believe Greater Yellowstone’s red foxes are able to pinpoint their prey beneath the snow using their incredible hearing and the Earth’s magnetic field.
Red foxes are instrumental in the rodent control of the area they occupy. Left unchecked, rodents multiply quickly and can severely overgraze native vegetation, impacting countless species that depend on healthy plant life.
Balance is key to ecological integrity, and foxes are crucial ecosystem balancers.
It's a little difficult to confirm whether this individual roaming Crevice Mountain is a grizzly bear or black bear. The Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem is one of the few places in the Lower 48 where grizzly bears and black bears coexist.
We'll use this photo to tell the story of black bears on Crevice Mountain!
Black bears play an important role in seed dispersal and help keep our forests healthy and biodiverse. Most of their diet consists of nuts, berries, vegetation, and insects.
Overdevelopment has limited their access to natural foods in some places, causing black bears to turn to human communities to find sustenance like unsecured garbage.
Protecting places like Crevice Mountain will help bears stay wild.
This snowshoe hare was captured by our trail cams on Crevice Mountain.
Snowshoe hares are an important food source for coyotes, foxes, wolves, owls, hawks, bobcats, and the elusive Canada lynx.
Canada lynx are so reliant on snowshoe hares as a food source that their populations have booms and busts that line up with hare populations.
While a snowshoe hare doesn’t seem quite as mighty as a grizzly bear, they also call Crevice Mountain their home.
All the wildlife that occupy this remarkable area need secure habitat that allows them to thrive.
Countless other species - including bison, wolves, and bighorn sheep - occupy Crevice Mountain's landscape and are threatened by this potential gold mine. They just must be a bit camera-shy.
Time and again, gold mining has proven to be a destructive, polluting activity. Gold mining operations, such as the one planned for Crevice Mountain, are characterized by new roads, clear cuts, heavy equipment traffic, and a host of other industrial activities that permanently scar the landscape.
This mine would negatively affect the wildlife we caught in those trail cams and so many others. Luckily, the Greater Yellowstone Coalition (GYC) has a plan to stop it.
To remove the threat of this mine once and for all, GYC has entered into an agreement with Crevice Mining Group, LLC, to purchase the mineral rights, leases, and claims to 1,368 acres of land on Crevice Mountain. But to do so, we need to raise $6.25 million by October 1, 2023. We are currently more than two-thirds of the way there, but we can’t get to the finish line without your help.
Please consider giving today to help Yellowstone's wildlife and stop this mine, once and for all.
