Finding mental health - and elk - in Montana's Big Snowy Mountains
It’s not often to see one piece of property serve the needs of two such noble objectives. Twenty miles south of Lewistown, where the central plains of Montana rise to meet the trailing edge the Big Snowy Mountains, the causes of providing vulnerable children with mental healthcare, and preserving Montana’s century long elk hunting legacy intersect.
On Tuesday, representatives of Shodair Children’s Hospital, the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation and Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks gathered to promote and encourage public support for a proposed land sale that would greatly expand public access to the Big Snowy Mountains while simultaneously ensuring Shodair's ability to complete a new children’s hospital in Helena.
If approved by the Fish, Wildlife and Parks Commission and the Montana State Land Board, the sale would create a new 5,677-acre Big Snowy Mountains Wildlife Management Area on the southeast corner of the island mountain range. The “Big Snowy Mountain Acquisition” as it is currently referred to, would forever preserve critical elk habitat while adding access to more than 100,000-acres of public lands that is largely blocked by private property holdings.