Yellowstone to Yukon

Every year, animals across western North America travel hundreds of miles in search of food, safe habitat, and places to raise their young. To follow them, researchers need tools that can keep up.

This video draws on animal tracking data from the Yellowstone-to-Yukon (Y2Y) corridor — a roughly 3,200-kilometer swath of mountains, plains, and boreal forest stretching from Wyoming to Canada's Northwest Territories. It is one of the last large, relatively intact temperate ecosystems on Earth and home to grizzly bears, wolves, elk, caribou, and hundreds of migratory bird species.

The research featured here was funded by NASA's Ecological Forecasting Program through a collaboration between NC State University, Ohio State University, the Y2Y Conservation Initiative, and dozens of wildlife agencies across the U.S. and Canada. Tracking data are shared openly through Movebank (movebank.org), a global archive of animal movement data developed at NC State and used by researchers worldwide.

Want to learn more or get involved?

• Explore the tracking data at movebank.org
• Learn about conservation efforts at y2y.net
• Discover the Room to Roam project at ceg.osu.edu/Y2Y_Room2Roam

Funded by NASA's Ecological Forecasting Program. Produced by 422 South.