Kootenay Connect: Wycliffe Wildlife Corridor

This grassland-open forest corridor with scattered wetlands and riparian areas is located between Kimberley and Cranbrook, BC. The Wycliffe Corridor includes Luke Creek Wildlife Corridor and Pine Butte Ranch Conservation Area, in addition to Teck Cominco lands and working ranches.

Currently there are private conservation lands owned and managed by the Nature Conservancy of Canada, Nature Trust of BC and Ministry of Land, Water, and Resource Stewardship that form the Wycliffe Conservation Complex. The Wycliffe Corridor is part of the Ponderosa Pine biogeoclimatic zone that supports a mosaic of plant communities with biological richness and rarity, as well as significant populations of rare and endangered species. The montane grassland component of the corridor provides some different habitat associations than the other riparian-wetland corridors within the Kootenay Connect Focal Areas; however, there are scattered riparian areas on smaller creeks as well as the St. Mary’s River that support songbirds, reptiles, and amphibians.

Groups engaged in conserving and managing biodiversity and habitat connectivity in the Wycliffe Corridor include: Rocky Mountain Trench Natural Resources Society, Rocky Mountain Trench Ecosystem Restoration program, Nature Conservancy of Canada, the Nature Trust of BC, ʔaq̓am, Ministry of Land, Water, and Resource Stewardship, and Fish and Wildlife Compensation Program. For Kootenay Connect, the lead organizations in this corridor are the Nature Conservancy of Canada and the Nature Trust of BC.