Montana’s hot real estate market is making it harder and more expensive to conserve grizzly bear habitats. Nonprofit conservation groups trying to connect isolated bear populations face the challenge of a growing human population and the rising cost of land.

Driving down highway 93 south of Lolo, Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks (FWP) grizzly bear manager, Jamie Jonkel, points out a large swath of open ranch and farmland he says grizzly bears use to make their way across the Bitterroot Valley.

“This is the last connectivity available in the Bitterroot Valley,” he says.