The Animals Of Montana

Section 01

The Only Place With The Full Set

Montana is the one state in the lower 48 where every large mammal that lived here before European settlement is still present. Grizzly bear, gray wolf, mountain lion, wolverine, lynx, bison, elk, moose, bighorn sheep, mountain goat, pronghorn, and both deer species all persist as wild populations. No other contiguous state can say that.

That completeness is a function of scale and of what was left alone. Montana is the fourth largest state, with roughly a million people spread across 147,000 square miles, and it contains the Bob Marshall Wilderness complex, the northern Continental Divide ecosystem, and the Montana portion of Greater Yellowstone. The Bob Marshall alone runs to over 1.5 million acres with no roads.

Geographically the state splits at the Continental Divide. The western third is mountainous, wetter, and forested, with Pacific-slope drainages and species like bull trout and inland redband. The eastern two thirds is Great Plains: shortgrass and mixed-grass prairie, badlands, and the Missouri Breaks, dry and continental and holding an entirely different fauna.

Montana is also where bison conservation began and where it remains most contested. The Yellowstone herd is the only population that has continuously occupied its native range since prehistoric times, never having been entirely reduced to captivity. Because Yellowstone bison can carry brucellosis, a disease affecting cattle, animals leaving the park into Montana are subject to hazing, capture, and culling, which makes the state's most emblematic animal also its most disputed.

Section 02

Montana's Official State Animals

The westslope cutthroat trout is the more fragile symbol. It occupies a small fraction of its historic range, squeezed out by hybridisation with introduced rainbow trout and competition from brook and brown trout. Genetically pure populations survive mostly in headwater streams above barriers, and conservation often means deliberately keeping non-native fish out rather than adding anything.

Section 03

Habitats By Region, And Who Lives In Each

1. Northern Continental Divide and Glacier country

Steep glaciated mountains, larch and spruce-fir forest, and alpine tundra. This is the densest grizzly country in the lower 48, along with gray wolf, wolverine, Canada lynx, mountain goat, bighorn sheep, harlequin duck on fast streams, and bull trout. See Glacier National Park.

2. Bob Marshall and the wilderness core

Over 1.5 million roadless acres along the Divide, with the Chinese Wall escarpment and extensive elk winter range. Grizzlies, wolves, elk, and mountain goats use it, and it is one of the few places where a wolverine can live out a full life without crossing a road.

3. Western valleys and Pacific-slope forest

Lower, wetter valleys with ponderosa pine and larch, plus the Flathead and Bitterroot systems. Black bear, mountain lion, moose, and the state's only Pacific-drainage fish fauna including bull trout and westslope cutthroat. Flathead Lake is the largest natural freshwater lake west of the Mississippi.

4. Greater Yellowstone, southwest Montana

The Gallatin, Madison, and Absaroka-Beartooth ranges, with high plateaus and famous trout rivers. Grizzly, wolf, bison, elk, bighorn, and mountain goat, plus trumpeter swans on spring creeks and the Yellowstone cutthroat trout. Related: Yellowstone National Park and surprising Yellowstone facts.

5. Central Montana island ranges

Isolated small mountain ranges rising from the plains, including the Little Belts, Snowies, and Sweet Grass Hills. They function like sky islands, holding forest species surrounded by prairie, and several hold isolated bighorn and elk herds.

6. Eastern plains, badlands, and the Missouri Breaks

Shortgrass and mixed-grass prairie cut by the Missouri River and its badlands. Pronghorn in large numbers, black-tailed prairie dog colonies, swift fox, sage-grouse, mountain plover, and burrowing owl. The American Prairie reserve is assembling a large private and public grassland complex here with bison.

Section 04

Grizzlies, Wolves, Bison, And Wolverines

Four species define Montana's wildlife politics, and each is at a different stage.

Grizzly bear. Roughly 2,000 in Montana across the Northern Continental Divide and Greater Yellowstone ecosystems, up from a few hundred at listing in 1975. Bears have expanded onto the plains east of the Rocky Mountain Front for the first time in a century, and the two core populations are beginning to exchange animals. Delisting has been proposed and litigated repeatedly. Conflict management, including bear-resistant containers and range riders, is now a major part of rural life along the Front. Background: where grizzly bears live and what grizzly bears eat.

Gray wolf. Wolves recolonised northwestern Montana naturally from Canada in the 1980s, before the Yellowstone and Idaho reintroductions, which makes Montana's population partly self-restored. The state now holds well over a thousand wolves, they were federally delisted in 2011, and recent legislation substantially liberalised harvest methods, which has drawn legal challenge and petitions to relist.

Bison. The Yellowstone herd is the only bison population that has continuously occupied its native range, and Montana's brucellosis concerns drive an Interagency Bison Management Plan involving hazing, capture, quarantine, and hunting outside the park. Separately, the Blackfeet Nation, Fort Peck and Fort Belknap tribes, and American Prairie are establishing bison on tribal and private land, which is the more likely route to genuinely free-ranging Montana bison. Related: why bison vanished and state parks where bison still roam.

Wolverine. Perhaps a few hundred in the lower 48, most of them in Montana. They need deep spring snowpack for denning, which makes them one of the species most directly exposed to warming, and they were listed as threatened in 2023 after years of litigation. See wolverine facts.

Section 05

Mammals Of Montana

Montana has around 110 mammal species and the most complete large-mammal assemblage in the contiguous United States.

• Elk: roughly 140,000 to 175,000, among the largest populations anywhere. See where to watch the elk rut.
• Mule deer and white-tailed deer: mule deer statewide with strong badlands populations, whitetails in river bottoms and the west.
• Pronghorn: a large eastern plains population that undertakes one of the longest land migrations in the lower 48, with some herds moving well over 100 miles between summer and winter range.
• Bighorn sheep: numerous herds, with disease transmitted from domestic sheep the chief limiting factor.
• Mountain goat: native in the northwest and introduced elsewhere, on the highest cliffs.
• Moose: in willow bottoms and subalpine fir, with some populations declining.
• Bison: Yellowstone-origin animals plus tribal and reserve herds.
• Predators: grizzly and black bear, gray wolf, mountain lion, bobcat, lynx, wolverine, coyote, swift fox, red fox, badger, fisher, marten, river otter, mink, and beaver as ecosystem engineer.
• Black-footed ferret: reintroduced on prairie dog colonies at Fort Belknap and UL Bend, one of the most endangered mammals in North America.
• Bats: 15 species. White-nose syndrome arrived recently, and Montana's caves and rock crevices are being monitored closely. See where bats live.

Gone: woodland caribou, which used the far northwest Selkirk region and no longer occur, plus the plains grizzly's full historic range and free-ranging bison herds numbering in the millions.

Section 06

Birds Of Montana

Around 440 species have been recorded, mixing mountain, prairie, and Pacific-influenced species.

• Prairie birds: greater sage-grouse, sharp-tailed grouse, mountain plover, long-billed curlew, Sprague's pipit, Baird's sparrow, chestnut-collared and McCown's longspurs. Montana's northeastern grasslands are among the most important remaining breeding areas for several of these declining species.
• Raptors: golden eagle, bald eagle, ferruginous hawk, Swainson's hawk, prairie falcon, peregrine falcon restored to cliff nests, and northern goshawk. The Rocky Mountain Front funnels a significant autumn golden eagle migration.
• Mountain birds: Clark's nutcracker, which caches whitebark pine seeds and is essential to that tree's reproduction, plus black rosy-finch, white-tailed ptarmigan, harlequin duck, American dipper, and boreal chickadee.
• Waterbirds: trumpeter swans restored to the Centennial Valley and elsewhere, plus American white pelican colonies at Medicine Lake, piping plover on alkali lakes, and sandhill cranes breeding in wet meadows.
• Whooping crane: passes through eastern Montana on migration between Texas and Canada in small numbers.

Section 07

Reptiles, Amphibians, And Fish

Cold and altitude keep the list short: around 17 reptile and 14 amphibian species. One snake is venomous.

Snakes and lizards: ten snake species, with the prairie rattlesnake the only venomous one, on the eastern plains and dry river breaks. Also bullsnake, western hognose, and the short-horned lizard and sagebrush lizard in dry country.

Amphibians: tiger salamander, long-toed salamander, Idaho giant salamander in the far west, plus boreal chorus frog, Columbia spotted frog, northern leopard frog which has declined sharply, and the boreal toad.

Fish: the divide splits the fauna. West of it, bull trout (federally threatened) and westslope cutthroat trout, both harmed by non-native competitors and warming water. East of it, the Missouri system holds pallid sturgeon, one of the most endangered fish in North America, plus paddlefish, sauger, and blue sucker. Arctic grayling persist in the Big Hole River as one of the last native fluvial populations in the lower 48. Montana's blue-ribbon trout rivers, including the Madison, Big Hole, and Bighorn, are largely built on introduced rainbow and brown trout.

Section 08

Dangerous Animals In Montana

• Grizzly bear: the animal that requires genuine preparation. Carry bear spray and know how to use it, make noise on blind trails, travel in groups, and store food properly. Most serious incidents involve surprise encounters at close range or females with cubs. Fatalities are rare but Montana records them.
• Bison: injure more people in Yellowstone than bears do. They are fast, unpredictable, and appear placid. Stay 25 yards minimum. Related: where bison injure the most visitors.
• Moose: aggressive when cornered and dangerous during the rut and around calves.
• Mountain lion: attacks are rare. Do not run, appear large, keep children close.
• Prairie rattlesnake: the only venomous snake, on the eastern plains. Bites are uncommon.
• Wolves: no verified fatal attack on a person in Montana.
• Cold, rivers, and weather: hypothermia, swift water, and winter driving cause vastly more harm than Montana's wildlife.

Section 09

Endangered And Protected Species

Montana's pressures are specific to a large intact state: subdivision of low-elevation valley bottoms that animals need for winter range, roads and highways severing migration corridors, sagebrush conversion and cheatgrass, disease transmission from domestic to wild sheep, non-native trout displacing natives, and warming that reduces the deep spring snowpack wolverines need and pushes trout out of warming streams. The advantage is that habitat still exists at a scale that allows recovery when the pressure eases.

Section 10

Where To See Wildlife In Montana

• Glacier National Park: mountain goats at Logan Pass, bighorn sheep, grizzlies on avalanche slopes in spring, and harlequin ducks on McDonald Creek.
• Lamar Valley, just inside Yellowstone: reachable from Gardiner or Cooke City, and the single best place in North America to see wolves and bison from a road.
• National Bison Range, Moiese: bison, pronghorn, and bighorn in a compact drive.
• Charles M. Russell National Wildlife Refuge and the Missouri Breaks: elk, bighorn, prairie dogs, ferrets, and badlands birds.
• Rocky Mountain Front, Pine Butte: the only place where grizzlies still use the plains, plus autumn golden eagle migration.
• Red Rock Lakes National Wildlife Refuge: trumpeter swans, moose, and high-valley wetlands.
• Medicine Lake National Wildlife Refuge: pelican colony and northeastern grassland birds.
• Freezeout Lake: enormous spring snow goose and swan migration.