The Fenceline

For five months in 2022, a trail camera posted on a fence next to a riparian area caught the intimate travels of both predator and prey. Grizzlies, lions, elk, bobcats, mule deer—everything took a turn walking along, scooting under, hopping over, and plowing through this fence near Dupuyer Creek that runs along Montana’s Rocky Mountain Front. 

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Here on the Club’s Theodore Roosevelt Memorial Ranch, Boone and Crockett Fellow Chris Hansen has placed dozens of cameras to study the relationship between grazing and mammal communities in the western U.S. The data he collects will be used to inform land management and policy decisions.

“I think animals use this area often because it acts as a movement corridor that provides plentiful cover, water, and food,” Hansen says. “This spot is similar to the campsite.” The “campsite” is another spot on the ranch that attracts herds of elk, moose chasing grizzlies, and much more.  You can watch a year’s worth of visitors to this spot in this eight-minute video. But before watching that outstanding footage, take a few minutes to spy on five months on the fenceline. 

All images and associated video © 2021-2022 The University of Montana