A Framework for Collaborative Wolverine Connectivity Conservation

Abstract

In the Rocky Mountain West, maintaining connectivity between high-elevation public lands is important for wolverines and other species of conservation concern and depends on building collaborative partnerships with key landowners. However, prioritizing conservation areas that benefit wolverine connectivity and identifying key partners presents several challenges: 1) the wolverine metapopulation functions over a large spatial extent and 2) anthropogenic changes such as housing development and climate change may shift connective pathways for wolverines in the future. We prioritized areas important for wolverine connectivity under future climate conditions across western Montana using a systematic conservation planning framework. We solved our planning problem by optimizing 10, 15, 20, and 50% of habitat features that mitigated human threats and maintained ecological processes for wolverines using integer linear programming. We identified 369 privately owned areas in the 10% solution, 572 privately owned areas in the 15% solution, 822 privately owned areas in the 20% solution, and 3,996 privately owned areas in the 50% solution where voluntary landowner easements would greatly improve the long-term landscape functionality for wolverine connectivity. The median estimated easement value ranged from $8,762 to $12,220 across the four solutions, and the total costs ranged from $14,874,371 to $196,346,714 if all landowners agreed to voluntary conservation easements. This effort demonstrates the utility of optimization problems for conserving connectivity and provides a mutually beneficial and proactive tool to engage potential collaborators in wolverine connectivity conservation.