Susan Bilo has a M.S. from Colorado State University in Natural Resources Management and Public Relations. She is an energy efficiency and renewable energy consultant that worked for the U.S. Department of Energy, National Renewable Energy Laboratory, and at Montana State University as an Extension energy project manager and instructor for Gallatin College and the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute. Susan understands the direct connection of drilling and mining, transporting, and combusting fossil fuels (oil, natural gas, and coal) to global climate change and the significant impact it has on wildlife and habitat. She cuts burdock weeds with Sacajawea Audubon, removes and alters fences with the National Parks Conservation Association to help pronghorn antelope migration, and writes and testifies in support of ethical and science -based wildlife policies and projects locally, nationally, and globally.
Welcome - to the Gallatin Wildlife Association's website.
We certainly hope you become more knowledgeable about GWA as you wander through the pages of our website. We are a small, but vocal non-profit organization located in Bozeman, Montana advocating for wildlife, their respective habitat, and migration corridors across southwestern Montana, the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, and the northern Rocky Mountains. We advocate for wildlife and fisheries by utilizing science and the law. GWA, founded in 1976, has long recognized the intense pressures on our wildlife from habitat loss and climate change, and we advocate for science-based management of public lands for diverse public values, including but not limited to hunting and angling.
To learn more about GWA, who we are, and what we've done: click here
The Times They Are A-Changin':
No truer words were spoken than those of Bob Dylan. Written in September and October of 1963, the song was published in 1964, spanning decades of historical events making those words just as applicable now as it was then - perhaps even more so. Dramatic change is all around, especially political changes affecting wildlife. We've recently ended one year and began another, proving that planet Earth continues to turn producing change in some way or another whether we like it or not.
As we move forward in our struggle to provide wildlife a voice, let there be no doubt, the work is endless as time itself. We've been fighting this good fight since 1976. Through our effort, I view our work as living on, and our dream shall never die. (inspired from sentiment of Sen.Edward Kennedy - 1980) But the Gallatin Wildlife Association needs you now more than ever. We can make that positive change individually or cooperatively. You get to decide, but truth be told, we need to do both.
It is obvious, we are stronger together than when we stand alone. When the Gallatin Wildlife Association speaks for you, we have a much louder voice for wildlife. Would you please join us in that effort for the new year.
Sincerely we thank you!
Clinton Nagel, President
Gallatin Wildlife Association
Our Family Continues to Grow!
Last year, we highighted the fact that our organization was growing. Well, we have done so again. We at GWA would like to announce the addition of two new Board of Directors, Susan Bilo and Dr. John Marzluff. A little bit about each one of them will be shown below. GWA is committed to advocating our best for wildlife - period. We love to tout our bona fides as an organization that is committed to use the best available science, and our adherence to the law when we fight for wildlife. But as President, I would like to add one more thing to that fight, moral character. I feel that morality and ethics makes our fight stronger, more principled.
If you believe that way too, we invite you to volunteer for us as we begin to move ahead in our passionate struggle to protect wildlife in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. We envision plans ahead, where we incorporate more hands to become engaged and stand along side us. Will you please join us.
GWA Welcomes - Susan Bilo, GWA New Board of Director
GWA Welcomes - Dr. John Marzluff, GWA New Board of Director
John Marzluff is an Emeritus Professor of Wildlife Science at the University of Washington. His graduate research (Northern Arizona University) and initial postdoctoral research (University of Vermont) focused on the social behavior and ecology of jays and ravens. He continues this theme, investigating the intriguing behavior of crows, ravens, and jays. His current research focuses on the interactions of ravens and wolves in Yellowstone. He and his wife (Colleen) have written together on their raven research and are parents to two grown daughters.
Much of Marzluff's research is motivated by a desire to inform land managers and the public how to live sustainably with Earth’s biodiversity. He has focused on birds' responses to human action because they are visible, reactive, and valued. By discovering how bird communities respond to urbanization, agriculture, wildland recreation, and military training, he has advised local, national, and international agencies and organizations on topics including the restoration of endangered species, park reservation and development, building form and neighborhood arrangement, farming practices, and the intensity and location of military training. Rather than simply relating such activities to the occurrence or abundance of birds, he seeks to relate human action to the reproduction, survival, and dispersal of birds. This approach is exemplified by his long-term and broad research into the ecology and evolution of birds in urban and suburban areas. To build understanding and empower individuals to coexist with birds, he speaks regularly to lay audiences and has synthesized my research and that of others in popular books on the ecology and anthropology of crows and ravens, as well as the effects of agriculture and urbanization on birds.
We Fight the Good Fight
Nationally and Locally!
Two local issues are ongoing as you can see below. We invite you to sign onto each of those petitions. But as we enter 2026, there are two national issues that are a carry over from last year, our forests and wolves. GWA just sent in comments on the latest attempt to guide our National Forests toward a commerical venture, an attempt to conduct post-fire treatments on burnt National Forest landscapes.
But this spring, there is an anticipated comment period on the Roadless Rule Rescission, a decision that was announced via the Federal Register on August 29, 2025. However this spring, GWA will join a national grass-root campaign to urge membership to write letters opposing this effort to rescind approximately 45 million acres of inventoried roadless areas, landscapes that were identified during the 2001 Roadless Rule. This spring, predicting March, it is expected the U.S. Forest Service is going to release their draft environmental impact statement (DEIS). This means an all out effort to gather comments. We urge our membership and all others to stay tuned to this channel for more information.
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The other story is the gray wolf. It seems as if the Gray Wolf can't catch a break, not in this society. There have been two recent news stories on this species lately. Let's begin with the one that demands your attention, your energy, your involvment. You have probably heard by now that U.S. House Rep. Boebert of Colorado had her legislation (HR 845) voted on in the U.S. House to delist the gray wolf. Unfortunately this bill passed the House.
The legislation now moves to the U.S. Senate. We must defeat this in the U.S. Senate. If not, this legislation will go to the President's desk for signature, something which he most assuredly will do. Friends of GWA, we cannot let this happen. We urge each of you to contact our U.S. Senators and have them vote against this legislation.
U.S. Senator Steve Daines - Washington D.C. office: 202-224-2651
https://www.daines.senate.gov/services/email-steve/
U.S. Senator Tim Sheehy - Washington D.C. office: 202-224-2644
https://www.sheehy.senate.gov/contact/
The Hyalite/South Cottonwood Hazardous Fuel Reduction Project -
Concern over the future of South Cottonwood Canyon continues as the U.S. Forest Service project lingers on in the hearts and minds of residents of Gallatin County. Many residents have been through this agony once, if not more.
We at GWA have already claimed one victory. We achieved the right to have a public open house on the issue. That has come and gone, but we've learned some valuable information, too much to go into detail in this format.
But we feel the Forest Service is listening, whether they can be responsive to the public's viewpoint is an unknown. A large part of this effort was the collection of 1000 signatures to make a claim to the Custer Gallatin National Forest that the people are watching. We feel that has already made a difference, as to how much, it is to soon to tell as the Environmental Assessment is still be carried out.
To sign on to our petition, click the link below and sign your name to be one of those with a voice to fight for wise management of our forest not based upon fear, demagoguery, or pressures from Washington D.C., but to have our forest be managed as a forest.
It's time to Protect the Hyalite Porcupine Buffalo-Horn Wilderness Study Area!
The Gallatin Wildlife Association has been in service to the community for 49 years, leaving next year as our 50th anniversary. In all that time, one of the most frustrating and incomplete tasks that lie before us is the lack of wilderness designation for the HPBH WSA.
There are many reasons for that frustration, politics has definitely been one, but now we are fighting the attempts of once fellow green NGOs who now want to take the easy way out and carve out pieces of this WSA and make those susceptible to mountain biking interests and other activities that will fragment an already endangered landscape.
This coalition known as the Gallatin Forest Partnership is determined to reduce the size and scope of the HPBH WSA by 40%. That 40% is invaluable for wildlife security and habitat. It will surely affect the ecological quality of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (GYE) as we know it.
Sign in the button box below if you would like to see this beautiful and critical wildlife habitat secure for all time. We will continue to gather signatures as necessary.
Montanans for Safe
Wildlife Protection: MSWP
Most of you should know, GWA has been involved with and are supporters of MSWP for several years now. Being as one representative on the MSWP Steering Committee, we try to propagate the energy and resources for wildlife infrastructure across the state of Montana.
Below is their most recent website:
Montanans for Safe Wildlife Passage
There is much to do in this realm of establishing wildlife connectivity across highways and railways, etc. Please help out in any way you are able.
Climate Forest Coalition:
Another alliance that GWA is participating in is that of the Climate Forest Coalition, an organization of likeminded NGOs across the country that are trying to change forest policy. We're trying to promote policies of protecting mature and old-growth forests in order to preserve biodiversity, ecological integrity and to use our forests as a mitigative approach fighting climate change by carbon sequestration. Here is their link:
https://www.climate-forests.org/
There is much material here for references and they have already testified before Congress.
We urge all members to follow this group and follow us as we try to incorporate their strategy into ours as appropriate.
GWA's Facebook page is Going Strong!
Check us out -
The link is here!
Thanks to Ben Churchwell for managing our Facebook page.
GWA's First Ever Instagram Account
Thanks to Ben Churchwell for managing our Instagram page.
GWA's Podcast on KGVM -
Wildlife and Wilderness -
http://kgvm.org/program/wilderness-and-wildlife/
Wilderness and Wildlife, presented by the Gallatin Wildlife Association, features discussions of issues involving the wildlife of southwestern Montana, and the wilderness habitat that makes this area appealing to adventurous people from around the country. You'll hear interviews with wildlife experts and naturalists reporting on species they have studied, which are threatened by the pressures of a rapidly growing populace in the Greater Yellowstone Region.
For other shows presented, simply click the following.
The Gallatin Wildlife Association also produces the short Wildlife Capsules.
Thanks to John Shellenberger for taking the initiative to establish this mechanism of outreach for GWA and keeping at it for these past seven years. Also thanks to our new Communication Director for taking over a smooth transition for this operation.
