Moose

Custer National Forest
The timbered buttes and grasslands of Custer National Forest are scattered across three states: Montana, North Dakota and South Dakota. The Beartooth Mountains—massive blocks of Precambrian crystalline rock—provide habitat for mountain goats, moose, bighorn sheep, elk, white-tail deer, mule deer, mountain grouse, black bear, cougar, bobcats, an occasional grizzly and many other species. The forest houses one of the largest populations of Merlins (a small falcon) known in North America, as well as the largest known population of greater prairie chickens in North Dakota.

Like the other national forests surrounding Yellowstone, Custer is ravaged by livestock. Coal mining, oil and gas drilling have also occurred in the forest but no producing wells have yet been found. Another potential danger: The Stillwater Complex, a 26 mile block of rock in the Beartooth Mountains, contains the largest known platinum and chrome deposits and the second largest nickel deposits in the U.S. And according to the U.S. Geological Survey, at least “thousands of metric tons” of many metals “remain to be discovered.”

Bridger-Teton National Forest
Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest
Caribou National Forest
Shoshone National Forest
Targhee National Forest
Gallatin National Forest

Click here to read about the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem.