Millions of people have fallen in love with the sweeping landscapes, roaming bison, and wild animals featured in the hit television show "Yellowstone." But the real Greater Yellowstone ecosystem is not a television set. It is one of the largest nearly intact ecosystems in the world's temperate regions, providing vital habitat for wolves, bison, elk, pronghorn, bears, and hundreds of other species.
Now, lawmakers have introduced a bill that could transform U.S. Highway 287 into a massive federal interstate called "Trump Interstate" cutting directly through the heart of this extraordinary landscape. The world does not need a political monument running through one of America's greatest wild landscapes.
Sign the petition urging the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works to reject the I-47 Future Interstate Act and protect Greater Yellowstone's wildlife from dangerous habitat fragmentation.
Supporters say converting the highway into an interstate could increase economic growth and improve road safety. But wildlife scientists warn that a larger, faster, busier interstate could have serious consequences for the animals that depend on this connected landscape to survive.
Expanding the highway could mean more lanes, wider shoulders, new exit ramps, faster traffic, and more long-haul trucks. It could also bring more noise, light, air pollution, development, and wildlife-vehicle collisions.
For animals, roads can become walls that cut off necessary resources in their environment.
Wildlife throughout Greater Yellowstone must be able to move freely to find food, reach historic breeding and birthing grounds, survive harsh winters, and escape droughts and wildfires. Scientists have warned that larger highways can make these journeys more difficult, dangerous, or even impossible.
Research on Wyoming's Interstate 80 found that pronghorn were approximately 300 times less likely to cross interstates than state highways. Scientists fear that expanding U.S. 287 could create another enormous barrier through habitat that is already under growing pressure.
This proposal also comes during a broader push to weaken protections for some of America's most iconic wildlife, including wolves and bison.
Sign the petition now to urge the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works to protect Greater Yellowstone's wildlife, habitats, and migration routes from destructive expansion!
