We are a Montana-based nonprofit working to connect, conserve, and share more than 3 million acres of Montana's Northern Great Plains.

Our goal is to connect 3.2 million acres of public and private land in north-central Montana to build and nurture a fully functioning shortgrass prairie ecosystem.

Our strategy is simple: We purchase private land to strategically connect large sections of fragmented public land, creating a collaboratively-managed network of protected prairie.

With our innovative and collaborative approach, a little goes a long way. With each new land acquisition we create critical wildlife corridors, ensure the longevity and biodiversity of a vital biome, and unlock more land for public recreation and enjoyment.

Today, we manage 603,657 acres—a habitat base comprising 167,070 deeded acres and 436,587 leased public acres.

Land. Wildlife. People.

Our organization has three pillars: land, wildlife, and people. Each is essential to our mission: to create a fully-functioning shortgrass prairie ecosystem, for wildlife and people, for generations to come. Each pillar plays a unique role, and the strength of our work depends on all three working together.

LAND
Temperate grasslands are the least protected biome on Earth. In the last 25 years, we’ve lost over 25 million acres of grasslands to plowing in the US alone. Globally, there are only four remaining temperate grasslands with enough intact, unplowed land to sustain a fully functioning ecosystem: Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Patagonia, and the Northern Great Plains.

Our vision is a wild and wide-open prairie, connecting 3.2 million acres—the amount of land leading scientists believe necessary to sustain a fully functioning short grass prairie ecosystem. Our model focuses on habitat conservation and connectivity, allowing natural cycles to restore ecosystem integrity.

WILDLIFE
No ecosystem is complete without wildlife. Wildlife helps shape the land: every animal, from grazing ungulates, to predators, down to even the smallest insects, influences patterns of vegetation, soil health, seed dispersal and overall biodiversity.

At American Prairie, we see wildlife is both a measure and a driver of ecosystem health. By restoring habitat for predators, prairie dogs, beavers, and other native prairie species, we hope to see the return of ecologically meaningful populations of all kinds of prairie wildlife. In other words, our management philosophy goes like this: if we build it, they will come.

PEOPLE
For thousands of years, people have been a part of the prairie. That’s why we are committed to public access—for you, your children, and your children’s great-great grandchildren.

At American Prairie, we believe that both wildlife and people benefit from access to wild and wide open spaces. We are proud to contribute to the long and important legacy of public lands and public access in Montana.

Our land is always open to the public. Every year we welcome thousands of visitors who enjoy activities ranging from wildlife watching and wandering, to hiking, hunting, biking, paddling and horseback riding. We offer several seasonal and year-round hut, campground, and dispersed camping options, and we enroll 82,000 acres in the FWP’s Block Management hunter access program (BMA), making us one of Montana’s top five BMA participants by acre.

We are working to restore and rewild the Northern Great Plains, so you can experience the prairie as it was meant to be—wild and wide open.

As a keystone species, bison play a huge role in the prairie ecosystem. In fact, they are considered ecosystem engineers—they alter their physical environment, creating habitat and affecting the availability of resources for other species. In other words: they help make the prairie, the prairie.

Bison are a keystone species, meaning their ecological behaviors — grazing, trampling, depositing dung, wallowing, creating micro‐habitats, and more — help re‐establish habitat heterogeneity, nutrient cycling, and ecological complexity.

How exactly do bison shape the ecosystem?

Bison and Grass: Bison graze selectively, creating diverse plant communities that help prevent certain grasses from outcompeting others. This selective grazing also creates a mosaic of short and tall grasses, creating a patchwork of habitat for prairie wildlife and room for other plans to grow.

By consuming plants and returning their nutrients to the soil as urine and manure, bison help shorten the slower process of nitrogen mineralization that occurs when plant matter decomposes naturally.

As bison move across the landscape, seeds collect on their fur and get dispersed across the prairie. In turn, their hooves and wallows disturb the soil, which help seeds take root by pressing them into the soil.

Bison and Wallows: Wallowing, or rolling around in the dirt, is a very common bison behaviour that helps the bison do everything from shed their winter coat, get rid of insects, and cool off. Bison are big, and when they wallow they cause saucer-like depressions in the ground, removing grass and compacting the dirt as they roll.

These wallows then collect rain water, creating temporary prairie ponds. These small ponds serve as a much needed water source for birds and other wildlife in an environment where streams and rivers can be a long ways away and rain only comes in small spurts. Wallows also provide crucial habitat for insects and frogs, as well as the perfect environment for pioneer plant species to take root.

Fun Fact: Prior to the near extinction of bison, experts estimate that there may have been five or more wallows per acre. This means that once, not all that long ago, the 500,000 square miles that made up the Great Plains could have been covered in over 1.5 billion wallows—that’s a lot of prairie ponds!

Bison and Birds: As bison graze, they transform uniform prairie into a patchwork of grasses at varied heights. This added variation provides a variety of nesting, foraging, and hiding spots preferred by grassland birds, such as the bobolink and grasshopper sparrow.

During seasonal shedding, bison leave large amounts of fur scattered across the prairie. Prairie birds will often use this fur in their nests, insulating fragile eggs from hot prairie days and cold prairie nights. The fur can also help camouflage nests from predators.

Bison and Predators: Bison were once a huge source of food for many of the prairie’s predators. In addition, by creating habitats for other prairie wildlife, they ensure that predators have access to a variety of prairie prey.

During the winter, bison use their horns and bodies to move away large amounts of snow, literally carving paths of grass for herbivores like pronghorn and elk to survive the colder months. By sustaining these populations of herbivores through tough winters, bison also ensure that animals like wolves and grizzly bears have food sources throughout the year.

Two decades ago, on a rainy October night, we reintroduced our first bison: a group of 16 from Wind Cave National Park. When their hooves hit the ground on our Sun Prairie Unit, it ended their 120-year absence from this region and marked the start of an exciting chapter for American Prairie.

Bison and Ecological Restoration: Today, our bison program is renowned for our work in bison conservation. Our herd, now over 900 in number, is central to our restoration work. For two decades, our bison have been shaping the land, returning important ecological processes to the prairie. We see birds using their fur to build nests, sage grouse and deer grazing behind them as they clear paths in the snow, and improvements in stream health where they graze. These changes — small but important — tell us the land is healing.

Our Bison Team: In that same time, our bison team has grown into a hardworking group of professionals, whose expertise and commitment to doing things differently have positioned American Prairie as leaders in bison conservation across North America.

We carefully manage our herd to ensure genetic diversity and long-term health. We source bison from disease free, conservation herds and monitor through periodic handlings where we conduct screenings and genetic sampling.

In addition to our commitment to ecological restoration and herd health, we are also committed to reconnecting people with this iconic prairie species. Every year, thousands of visitors come from all over the U.S. to view bison in their natural habitat.

Our Bison Management Philosophy

Our unique management philosophy is the product of thoughtful stewardship, meaningful collaboration, and countless hours of training.

Returning Dignity to the Bison
Every decision our team makes is guided by a shared commitment—to return dignity to the bison. Unlike conventional approaches informed by what managers need from the herd, our philosophy asks instead what the bison need from us. This shift transforms every decision we make, from herd size, to movement patterns to low-stress handling practices, setting us apart from many other programs in North America.

Keeping the Bison Wild
All bison in Montana, except those in Yellowstone National Park and herds on Tribal land, are legally classified as livestock. This means we must meet regulatory requirements like vaccinations and disease checks. But our team does not stop there. We go above and beyond what's legally required, all while working to honor the wild nature of bison. This has pushed our team to develop innovative management strategies that allow for a bison’s natural behaviors while prioritizing low-stress interactions.

Building Partnerships and Community
Since the beginning, our bison team has had the privilege of partnering with and learning from dozens of agencies, non-profits, and Tribal governments. These partnerships have allowed us to exchange more than 600 bison, resulting in increased genetic diversity for bison herds across the United States.

Creating and Sharing Knowledge
Because our herd is managed in ways that mirror wild behaviors, our land is able to serve as a living laboratory for world-class researchers. We’ve collaborated with institutions like the Smithsonian and leading universities to support research on genetics, ecology, and herd health. Their work not only helps us better manage our herd, but contributes to a larger body of knowledge that helps bison conservationists around the world.