The Council on Wildlife and Fish fights for environmental protections in the Wild Rockies region encompassing parts of Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, Oregon and Washington. It was originally founded in 1990 as the Montana Ecosystems Defense Council during a time when environmental groups were targeted by specious lawsuits. It was formed proactively to step into advocacy work should a lawsuit successfully target one of its peers. Since then, the organization, now the Council on Wildlife and Fish, has advocated for endangered species primarily through op-eds, advertising and litigation against government agencies and logging companies—a tactic that Council president Steve Kelly says is “controversial” but necessary. Kelly said, “We’re very busy doing things that everybody else says they’re doing, but either they aren’t doing it very well or not telling the truth, because there’s an endless amount of work to do. How many groups really comment on timber sales, for example?”
Bridger Mountains, which are part of the Rocky Mountains of southwestern Montana.
The organization is a small nonprofit with a tight-knit group of volunteers throughout Montana. The Council on Wildlife and Fish has come out against prescribed burns by the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management because their potential harms toward migratory birds, and against the stocking of non-native brook trout and brown trout by Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks, which can outcompete bull trout and cutthroat trout, species native to Montana which are vulnerable to extinction. It has also advocated against Montana and Wyoming’s proposal to remove grizzly bears from the Endangered Species List in the Greater Yellowstone and Northern Continental Divide ecosystems and is vocal against the practice of allowing hunters to kill bison that cross outside the Yellowstone National Park boundaries into Montana. It recently sued the Forest Service for approving a major logging project in a 9,000-acre forest area outside Whitefish, Montana, where Canada lynx and grizzly bears live.
The Council on Wildlife and Fish put up a billboard protesting the killing of bison (also known as buffalo), in partnership with the Alliance for the Wild Rockies and Roam Free Nation. Photo: Steve Kelly