In late July, the Western Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies received the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation’s Conservation Impact Award during RMEF’s Big Game Days in Missoula, Montana. The award honors outstanding service to wildlife, its habitat, and its management. WAFWA was recognized for facilitating collaboration and advancing RMEF’s conservation priorities among its member agencies in 23 states and Canadian provinces.

WAFWA Executive Director Zach Lowe was in Missoula to receive the award. “Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation’s dedication to the resource, their dedication to the men and women that hunt and volunteer their time and help improve that resource is second to none,” he stated in his acceptance speech. “Our chance to work with them continuously through the state fish and wildlife agencies is significant leverage. WAFWA represents about 17,000 state Fish and Wildlife agencies professionals that stretch from Texas to Alaska, and our partnership with Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation is a way that we can truly leverage those resources for all the things we hold near and dear.”

The two organizations have partnered extensively on a wide variety of issues, most notably WAFWA’s Wildlife Movement and Connectivity Initiative. In November 2023, RMEF committed $400,000 to support state-led, shovel-ready projects in 11 states in line with Secretarial Order 3362 as well as to the remaining six WAFWA-member states that can support landscape-scale big game movements and connectivity projects.

At Big Game Days, RMEF renewed their agreement to continue support WAFWA’s Wildlife Movement and Connectivity Initiative efforts for an additional five years.