Vital Ground Foundation

Company Bio

If a landscape can support grizzly bears it can sustain countless species. Our mission is to protect and restore North America’s grizzly bear populations for future generations by conserving wildlife habitat and by supporting programs that reduce conflicts between bears and humans. The Vital Ground Foundation is a land trust that conserves and connects habitat for grizzly bears and other wildlife. We also team up with communities to prevent conflicts between bears and people.

We imagine connected landscape from Yellowstone into Canada in which bears and other wide-ranging wildlife have room to roam safely between wild strongholds. Connecting large blocks of public land with private lands, we envision Vital Ground as the leader in ensuring the survival of grizzly bears and countless other species throughout the Northern Rockies.

Geographic Focus

Northern Rockies and Pacific Northwest

Featured Campaigns

The Right Place

Vital Ground connects and protects crucial grizzly habitat by making connections with landowners and communities. This unique approach “strikes the perfect balance between the needs of nature and the spirit of humans.” Photo by: Thomas D. Mangelsen

Vital Ground contributors help connect and protect grizzlies and other wide-ranging wildlife from Greater Yellowstone to Alaska’s Bristol Bay. Photo by: Thomas D. Mangelsen

Last year, over 1,000,000 actions were taken by Clean Water Action members to help protect water from waste. We are involved in the politics that result in protecting this.

Bears need room to roam. Decades of tracking data reveal that when they can do so safely, an individual bear may traverse a home range as large as 1,500 square miles. Photo by: Ryan Lutey

On the U.S. side of the Selkirk and Cabinet-Yaak ecosystems are at dangerous lows and number less than 50 bears each. Photo by: Jamie Scarrow

More Info

A land trust for grizzly bears? It might sound like a strange combination, but the truth is this: bears are just the beginning. From wolverines to loons to wildflowers, the whole natural community benefits from grizzly conservation. Why? Meet Ursus arctos, the grizzly bear, the Rocky Mountains’ largest predator and its barometer of healthy and connected landscapes. Wherever they roam, grizzly bears are monarchs on the land. From the Yellowstone high country to the coasts of British Columbia and Alaska - grizzlies cast broad impacts over the plant and animal communities with which they share space.

Despite their predatory capability, grizzlies are opportunistic omnivores, not carnivores. In most places, their diet relies significantly on plant foods, as bears dig for roots and browse for berries from spring to fall. Aside from the fish-loving coastal brown bears, the meat grizzlies eat often comes from grubs and moths, or from scavenging animals that died from other causes. When grizzlies kill larger animals for food, they are opportunists, picking off the weakest prey from a group in order to save energy. The presence of grizzlies keeps deer and elk herds on the move, preventing them from lingering in an area so long that they overgraze its shrubs and grasses.

It adds up to a simple biological truth: where grizzly bears walk the land, other plant and animal species are healthier. In scientific terms, this wide-reaching impact makes the grizzly an umbrella species. Our entire ecosystem depends on them.

Learn more about The Vital Ground Foundation at https://vitalground.org/