Sending Cheerful Seasons Greetings from all of us at Yellowstone Forever

We hope you enjoy some of our favorite images and video taken by Yellowstone Forever staff this past year!

In 2025, Yellowstone Forever supporters made meaningful impacts in the following projects and programs. These, among many others, truly could not happen without your generosity. Thank you! We look forward to working with you in 2026 to continue to ensure Yellowstone National Park remains protected and preserved, forever.

• A new film, Guardians of Yellowstone: The Yellowstone Cougar Project, premiered in the fall of 2025. Produced by the fStop Foundation in partnership with Yellowstone Forever and Yellowstone National Park, this film reveals the hidden world of Yellowstone’s cougars – from their powerful presence to the science and people working to understand them. Showings will continue at venues in the Greater Yellowstone region in 2026. Learn More
• During summer 2025, videos from 140 remote cameras were pulled from the field through the Yellowstone Cougar Project for data review, tagging, and organization to add to the wealth of ongoing research.
• January 2025 marked the 30th Anniversary since wolves were reintroduced to Yellowstone. Research, monitoring, and education outreach through the decades-long Yellowstone Wolf Project continue. Beyond pure research, Yellowstone’s Wolf Project team is often out in the field connecting with visitors of all ages about the impact of wolves on the ecosystem. There is nothing like seeing a wolf in the wild for the first time, and this incredible team strives to be there to help elevate that experience even more.
• This year the Bison Conservation & Transfer Program successfully calved 63 bison in the quarantine facility. They began initial screening of 80 bison that entered the facility in March 2025. These animals are in the 300-day screening period, will breed in summer 2026, and calve in summer 2027.
• In its third year, Yellowstone Tribal Heritage Center completed another fantastic season. Programming included photography, beadwork, moccasin making, dancing, storytelling, quillwork, and more from 33 Tribal presenters representing 19 associated Tribes.
• With an eye toward sustainability and modern efficiency, Yellowstone Forever continues to support long-overdue renovations of employee housing in the park. Yellowstone Forever oversaw the design and engineering for all housing locations planned over the next several years. Sites include Mammoth, Norris, Madison, Canyon, Old Faithful, West Entrance, Grant and South Entrance. Working with NPS and contractors, we also completed construction of the first site which added four modular homes at Grant. Employee occupancy of these homes began in the fall. These homes represent a major milestone in the park’s efforts to provide comfortable, modern, and sustainable living spaces for its staff.
• Over 1,600 bear-proof storage containers have now been installed in campsites throughout the park to protect bears and visitors. The park needs roughly 400 more to install a bear box in every campsite in the park.
• Two Youth Conservation Corps groups (50 teens) completed work projects throughout Yellowstone. YCC provides these youth the opportunity Work, Learn, Play, and Grow in the world’s first national park each summer. This summer, YCC teams installed 52 bear-proof storage boxes, removed over 1,200 gallons of invasive plants, removed over 330 gallons of roadside garbage, constructed 319 feet of fencing, removed and re-decked 601 feet of boardwalks, and much, much more.
• For the 2024-25 school year, 731 students and 258 adult chaperones participated in Expedition Yellowstone (a curriculum-based residential education program for grades 4-8 offering students an opportunity to learn and explore in one of the world’s finest outdoor classrooms). 418 students received scholarships through YF funds.
• Conservation efforts continue to restore native trout to the ecosystem, particularly the Yellowstone cutthroat trout in Yellowstone Lake. The park now has more than 12,000 cutthroat trout adults released to Yellowstone Lake with an external tag that has a unique number identifying each specific fish. Although the primary purpose for the tags is to estimate the total number of cutthroat trout that reside in Yellowstone Lake, secondary benefits are the immense amount of information gained about seasonal movements within the lake and to/from the lake and the Yellowstone River and its tributaries.
• Yellowstone Forever is the primary funding source for Ranger, Horses, and Corrals project. The goal is to purchase replacement stock for Yellowstone’s backcountry rangers and trails packing program, which requires approximately twelve replacement head of horse and mules per year. This season featured a couple of unique projects. The team packed 3,000 live fish into a backcountry lake and 2,800 white bark pine seedlings.