United States
- Teshekpuk, Alaska Video
- Alaska's northern coastal plain is the home to millions of migratory bird species.
- ©WCS
- The Adirondacks Video
- Very little conjures up imagery of the wild so vividly as the call of the loon. Yet these enigmatic birds face serious threats even in their nesting grounds in the Adirondack Park.
- ©WCS
- The Path of the Pronghorn Antelope Video
- An icon of the American West faces new obstacles as it travels an ancient route through sagebrush plains.
- ©WCS
- Musk Oxen Photo
- Working in the western Alaskan Arctic, WCS scientists are investigating the decline of the muskox, a social mammal that lives in very complex herd societies.
- ©Joel Berger
- Telemetry Photo
- ©Sean Matthews
- Yellowstone Landscape Photo
- The Greater Yellowstone ecosystem holds the highest concentration of large
mammals in the contiguous United States along with a complete assemblage of
native carnivores.
- Julie Larsen Maher ©WCS
The United States harbors a great diversity of landscapes, from polar ice to semi-tropical jungles, from wind-blown prairies to temperate rainforests, from alpine peaks to deserts and coral reefs. Its habitats include some of the most fertile on Earth, such as the Mississippi River bottomlands, as well as some of the most sterile—the western salt flats. Magnificent and diverse wildlife still flourish in many parts of this country, including bald eagle, moose, musk ox, caribou, elk, wolverine, bison, grizzly bear, mountain lion, polar bear, and wolf. Thousands of species of fish, amphibians, reptiles, and birds also live here.
The United States has a rich history of conservation innovation. In 1872, the very concept of national parks was established in the U.S. with the creation of Yellowstone, the crown jewel of parks. This was followed in 1932 by the first International Peace Park, Glacier-Waterton National Park along the border with Canada. Though the country's wild places are protected through a vast system of public lands—ranging from national parks and wilderness areas to fish and wildlife refuges and state lands—some management activities on the public lands present major conservation challenges. Often, more productive private lands are an important part of long-term conservation success.
Fast Facts
- Throughout the 20th century, WCS has helped create more than 30 U.S. parks and reserves, including the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and Olympic and Wind Cave national parks. In 2008, our work in Wyoming led to the first federally-protected migration corridor, known as “the Path of the Pronghorn.”
- The headwaters of the Missouri, the Columbia, and the Colorado Rivers all begin in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, one of the only areas in the U.S. where the full set of large native carnivores still roam freely. WCS’s Yellowstone Rockies program is committed to ensuring the future of these carnivores.
- The largest intact temperate forest in the world is in the Adirondack State Park. WCS is working to preserve the integrity of this forest despite growing threats of development and pollution.
- Originally founded in 1905 by pioneering conservationists Theodore Roosevelt and William Hornaday, the American Bison Society helped save the bison from extinction. One hundred years later, the American Bison Society was re-launched by WCS to secure the species' ecological future.
- At 23 million acres, Alaska's Teshekpuk Lake region is the largest single piece of public land in the U.S. WCS works to protect this key nesting site for migratory birds and other wildlife in the Arctic.
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Threats and Challenges
National parks, refuges, and wilderness areas are often too small to protect biodiversity, given the immense challenges of today. The expanding human footprint is shrinking available habitat and limits prospects for wide-roaming species like grizzly bears, wolverines, and pronghorn. Valuable habitat outside protected areas is being rapidly degraded and destroyed, overtaken by second homes and tourism infrastructure, and a growing human population. Simultaneously, intensified mining and hydrocarbon development are invading previously untouched wild areas. Accordingly, many natural areas are becoming isolated by adjacent human development; land-use decisions are being made on a piecemeal basis; and policy affecting wildlife and wild places is not keeping pace with the magnitude of change.
Climate change exacerbates these challenges. As temperatures and climate variability increase, wildlife ranges are shifting. As a result, protected lands and protected species may cease to overlap, requiring an urgent need to identify and protect new areas that can act as refuges and wildlife corridors. There will be a need for new public policy that can dynamically shift how lands are categorized. And there will be hard work to do in engaging local communities as allies.
WCS Responds
Since its creation in 1895, the Wildlife Conservation Society has played a central role in protecting American wildlife and wild places. At the turn of the 20th century, WCS saved the American bison from extinction by successfully restocking reserves across the West. WCS supported the Murie expedition in Alaska in the 1950s, which led to the protection of the National Arctic Wildlife Refuge. Throughout this past century, WCS has supported pioneering field studies of key species such as bighorn sheep, black-footed ferrets, grizzly bears, mountain lions, and bald eagles, and helped create more than 30 U.S. parks and reserves.
WCS provides technical assistance and biological expertise to local groups and agencies that lack the resources to tackle conservation dilemmas. WCS supports comprehensive field studies to gather information on wildlife needs, and works with local communities, conservation groups, regulatory agencies, and industries to create public backing for conservation. Parallel with its efforts around the world, WCS works with Native Americans in the United States to increase their capacity to conserve and manage biodiversity on native lands.
WCS is committed to conserving vulnerable species such as wolverines, musk oxen, and bison and three large ecologically intact landscapes: Adirondack Park, the Yellowstone Rockies, and Arctic Alaska. We extend our reach beyond these landscapes by addressing five conservation challenges—climate change, wildlife corridors, natural resource extraction, wildlife health, and rural sprawl.
WCS Projects
Once plagued by pollution and neglect, today the Bronx River is home to herring, egrets, and even a lone beaver. The return of native wildlife is proof of the waterway’s improving health, and a testimony to community restoration efforts by WCS and other local groups.
The Arctic coastal plain of Alaska serves as the spring nesting ground for millions of shorebirds, waterfowl, loons, and other types of birds. Climate change is interfering with their migration, nesting, and feeding patterns. WCS-North America conservationists study how the birds cope with the changing landscape, and identify key areas for conservation.
WCS’s long history in northern California began with a walk through the redwoods in 1917 by Henry Fairfield Osborn, one of our founders. Almost a century later, WCS conservationist J. Michael Fay undertook his own hike through the woods to continue a legacy of forest conservation.
The Wildlife Action Opportunities Fund provides competitive grants to
conservation organizations that are focused on implementing priority
actions and strategies identified in State Wildlife Action Plans.
From the Newsroom
WCS receives $100,000 for Arctic wildlife conservation and climate change research from Disney’s Friends for Change: Project Green.
Scientists from WCS and the Lava Lake Institute have found a new long-distance migration route for a population of pronghorn antelope in Idaho, hailed as the “true marathoners of the American West.”
A WCS-led study says some nesting bird species are declining near oil development in the Arctic. Infrastructure from oil drilling, coupled with edible garbage, creates “subsidized housing” for as opportunistic predators like foxes and gulls.
Millions of miles of streams, and the songbirds that depend on them, could benefit from new federal guidelines to help safeguard waterways.
Three Wildlife Conservation Society scientists were honored during the 23rd Annual Meeting of the Society for Conservation Biology, in Beijing, China, held in July.
WCS scientists working in northern Alaska spot a shorebird originally tagged 8,000 miles away, in Victoria, Australia. The bar-tailed godwit flew the length of the Pacific in an epic journey that underscores the importance of this northern breeding ground.
After a 90-year absence, a reclusive carnivore reappears in Colorado. WCS scientists have tracked the animal on a 500-mile odyssey.
A national survey says that the American public respect and love bison, but most are unaware that the animals are in trouble. The survey is part of an effort to spark public support for ecological restoration of the species.
A WCS study finds that the busy beaver’s signature dams provide critical habitat for a variety of migratory songbirds, particularly in the semi-arid interior of the West.
A WCS study conducted around Lake Tahoe, Nevada shows that a life of garbage-eating, early pregnancies, and violent deaths plague black bears in the big city.
During Annual Safety Day at Fort Drum, WCS teaches soldiers about illegal wildlife trade products to help protect endangered species in countries where they are stationed.
The U.S. Forest Service designates the nation’s first wildlife migration corridor to protect the movement of North America’s fastest land animal, the pronghorn. These swift creatures number nearly half a million in Wyoming alone, but the proliferation of gas fields and housing development has sliced up much of their territory.
Birds and other wildlife score protection from energy exploration in Alaska’s Teshekpuk Lake region. At 23 million acres, Teshekpuk is the largest single piece of public land in the U.S.
It will likely take a century, but conservationists believe they can restore the American bison to a surprising amount of its former range. Particularly important are the grassland ecosystems, both public and private, that might benefit from bison grazing, and local communities that might benefit from having herds flourish nearby.
A long-term study by the Wildlife Conservation Society, the BioDiversity Research Institute, and other organizations has found and confirmed that environmental mercury—much of which comes from human-generated emissions—is impacting the health and reproductive success of common loons in the northeastern U.S.
As western states debate removing the gray wolf from the Endangered Species
List, WCS researcher Dr. Kim Berger speaks out on behalf of an unsuspecting wolf ally: the pronghorn antelope.
What will it take to conserve the Path of the Pronghorn, a trail that our continent’s fastest land animal has used since the end of the last Ice Age? In a landscape as famous for its mountains as for its oil fields, WCS scientist Dr. Joel Berger is determined to find out.