WildLivelihoods
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WildLivelihoods

Business-powered conservation · Park County, Montana

Turn it up.
This is the office.

We are 179 local businesses at Yellowstone's north gate. Spend with us, and part of it goes back into the wild you came to see.

Find a pledge business

Sounds of Yellowstone, stereo. Recording © Jeffrey T. Reed.

How you can help, in one picture

Take, or keep it going.
How to balance the books.

MemoTo the businesses: we make our living off this place. So we do more than take. Above the minimum, on purpose.

MemoTo visitors: your vacation is a vote. Spend it with the businesses that spend on the wild.

  1. 01 Withdrawn The view, the wildlife, the quietUs Why visitors come 
  2. 02 Spent At a business that signed the pledgeYou Find a pledge business 
  3. 03 Reinvested Profits and time, back into local projectsWe See the projects 
  4. 04 Carried forward Open habitat, a fair chance, room to roamThe wild What owners worry about 
  5. Balance carried forward to the grandkids. Paid in full

Put it back in the ground, so the grandkids get the same view. Not on a T-shirt. Out the window.

01 · Us · Withdrawn

Come for the wild

We all take from this place. Visitors come for it, and the businesses here make their living off it.

  • 90% of the businesses we surveyed say viewing wildlife is important to their customers.
  • 92% rate scenic resources as extremely or increasingly important to their business.
  • Follow the Money adds up what wild places are worth to Park County.

Source: "Sustaining Paradise", the Wild Livelihoods business survey (104 businesses, report 2025).

See the details 

02 · You · Spent

Spend it with the herd

Where you spend is a vote. Book the guide, the cabin and dinner with the businesses that put some of it back.

  • 179 businesses have signed the pledge, from Cooke City to Livingston.
  • Look them up by town and by what they do.
See the details 

03 · We · Reinvested

Put it back in the ground

Members put some of their profits and their time into local, boots-on-the-ground projects, and show up in Helena when wildlife decisions get made.

  • Living with grizzly bears
  • Montana Headwaters Legacy Act
  • Project Centinela
  • Restore sustainable wolf limits
  • Lead-free ammunition
See the details 

04 · The wild · Carried forward

Stays wild

So the place is still here when you come back, with the kids. Local owners told us what worries them most.

  • 75% expressed little or no optimism about how our natural resources are managed.
  • 77% feel a personal responsibility to give back to the resource.

Source: "Sustaining Paradise", the Wild Livelihoods business survey (104 businesses, report 2025).

See the details 

Business members

The herd is 179 strong.

Find a pledge business

Guides, lodges, saloons, ranches, galleries and a gas station or two. Every one of them signed up to say the same thing to visitors: we protect what we depend on. Nice work, neighbors.

We sell the view.
Let's be honest about that.

Every lodge, outfitter, saloon and coffee counter between Cooke City and Livingston is in the business of the Greater Yellowstone. The business is good because the wild is still here.

So we pay it back, on purpose and above the minimum. Clean air, clean water, public lands open to everyone, and wildlife policy built on science. Not because somebody made us. Because it is the best investment on the books, and because we would like our grandkids to see an elk that is not on a T-shirt.

We know tourism leaves tracks. Ours included. We would rather fix that than pretend otherwise.

Hear from the locals

Wild Livelihoods presents

A Wild Livelihood

a film by Kyle Dudgeon

Four towns, one river

From the end of the road
to the railroad town.

  1. Wooden false-front buildings including the Miners Saloon line a street below a rugged mountain.
    01

    Cooke City

    The end of the road, and the start of the Beartooths

  2. Park Street in Gardiner with a brick building and shop awnings, and the Roosevelt Arch and a snowy peak at the end of the street.
    02

    Gardiner

    The only year-round entrance to Yellowstone

  3. A snowy dirt road curves through dry grass toward snow-covered Emigrant Peak under a clear blue sky.
    03

    Emigrant

    Paradise Valley, under Emigrant Peak

  4. A row of historic brick and stone storefronts, including the Stockman, along a wide street with a mountain behind.
    04

    Livingston

    The railroad town on the Yellowstone River

Wildlife economics

Half a billion dollars
follows the wildlife.

$500M

What visitors, Montanans included, spend in Park County every year, at Yellowstone's only year-round entrance (coalition estimate).

$8M+

What we send Helena every year in lodging taxes. We are still waiting on the thank-you note. And the pothole guy.

90%

Of our businesses say seeing wildlife is important to their customers.

Sources: $500M is the coalition's 2025 estimate of visitor spending, Montanans included, from state lodging tax and ITRR data; $8M+ is Park County's lodging taxes (Montana Department of Commerce, 2025); 90% is from the coalition's 2025 survey of 104 local businesses. The details and the state's own numbers are on Follow the Money.

Follow the money

Tougher than anything
on cable TV.

The wolves, the bison and the grizzlies out here are more Montana than any TV ranch drama. They winter at forty below, raise their families in the open, and never once ask for a stunt double.

They also cannot vote, testify or buy a billboard. So we do it for them. When wildlife decisions get made in Helena, our members walk in as taxpaying businesses from the state's biggest employment sector, which is travel and tourism, at 18.3% of Montana jobs in 2025. We bring receipts.

Source: Institute for Tourism and Recreation Research (ITRR), University of Montana; author Melissa Weddell, The Montana Travel Industry - 2025 Summary (2026-06).

Protecting Paradise

You came for the wild.
We lie awake over it.

Local businesses told us what keeps them up at night. Not the wolves. Losing the place: too much building, too many people loving it to death, fish and wildlife slipping away. The same things you would hate to lose. Three out of four are optimistic about their business, and three out of four have little or no optimism about how the land and wildlife are managed.

So they are doing something about it. Your money is how.

Read what they told us
77%

feel a personal responsibility to give back to the land and wildlife

74%

want to raise new money for wildlife, together

After you visit

Say thanks.
They will remember it.

The owners behind these businesses are real people who wake up early, pay the bills, and still find a way to pay it forward. Tell them you picked them because they signed the pledge. Put it in your review. It means more than you think, and it tells the next business down the street something too.

Dear

Yours, a visitor who will be back

The other staff

Meet the coworkers.

They work long hours, commute a lot, and feed their families on whatever the day brings. Sound familiar? Our businesses run on their shift.

Join up

Two ways in. Pick your trail.

Passing through? Sign the register and we will tell you when the good stuff happens. Run a business here? Sign the pledge, and stand up in the directory for every visitor to see.