Red Rock River flows through the sediments of the unfilled Lima Reservoir, Centennial Valley, Montana. Photo by Chris Boye
By Butch Larcombe
Historic and devastating, the 2011 floods tore through the Musselshell River in central Montana, forever transforming the landscape. A stable river for decades, the Musselshell’s high flows crested at 16 feet. Whirlpools and flushing water barreled through towns and farms, destroyed irrigation systems, and bypassed river bends, ultimately shortening the river’s length. Acres of once productive agricultural land were covered in a thick layer of silt. Entire communities were underwater.
And once the river receded, volunteer pilots took to the air.
Two LightHawk pilots, one in a Quest Kodiak and another in a Cessna 172, carried 11 passengers over the altered river. The group included farmers, community leaders, and irrigators — all of whom were stakeholders and decision-makers responsible for collaborating on solutions to rebuild infrastructure while representing both production and conservation sectors.
“There are some things you can see from 1,000 feet above ground level that you can’t see from the ground,” said Chris Boyer, Northern Rockies program manager of the aviation nonprofit. “It’s important to see not just the condition of a piece of the landscape, but to appreciate the scale and the context — to see that it is huge and interconnected, that it is intact or fragmented.”
Communities pulled together, ultimately rebuilding and reconnecting, in part thanks to the role the pilots played in bringing people from different groups together. To Boyer, who is based in Bozeman, the Musselshell project embodied what LightHawk stands for by showing people the importance of working landscapes alongside sustainable natural resource use and conservation.
With 300 volunteer pilots across the United States, LightHawk aims to accelerate conservation success through what it calls the “powerful perspective of flight.” Working with local and regional partners — including Gallatin Valley Land Trust, Greater Yellowstone Coalition, Yellowstone to Yukon, and Wyoming Outdoor Council — that are actively engaged in specific environmental efforts, the organization operates a network of pilots who donate their time and aircrafts across Canada, Mexico and the U.S. using aerial perspectives to support conservation. They transport endangered animals, support research biologists and collect imagery and data.
Over the last 45 years, LightHawk has carried out nearly 10,000 conservation flights. In 2024 alone, volunteer pilots in the group flew 187 flights totaling 30 days of flight time. Together, their work informs policy and land management decisions, bringing various stakeholders together for common causes.
Boyer didn’t intend to become either a pilot or a photographer. But while studying fluvial geomorphology — river dynamics — he found himself by happenstance in a flight program. At the time, it was just $30 an hour to rent a plane, fuel it and bring an instructor along.
“The aerial view of landscape dynamics illustrated the complex math of the classroom, and was instrumental in my understanding of river form and function,” said Boyer, adding that the aerial perspective was a vital tool for his work in habitat restoration.
Once he logged 1,000 hours — the minimum required to become a LightHawk pilot — he joined the organization.
“It’s the highest requirement of any organization using volunteer pilots because the flight profiles are more complex — often low level, surveying, circling for photography, remote and rugged landscapes, [operating from] unimproved airports and airstrips,” said Boyer.
For the last two decades, Boyer has flown nearly 500 hours for LightHawk in his “sassy little red plane.” It’s a 1957 Cessna 172 that’s been converted to a tailwheel and upgraded to a more powerful engine.
And if you’ve never sat next to a cheetah, wolf, or condor midflight, then, well, you probably haven’t flown with the LightHawk crew. Passengers, aside from humans that is, have included eagles, ferrets, cranes, abalone, quail, condors, wolves, cheetahs, and rescue dogs, to name a few.
Seeing a place from an entirely new perspective – like thousands of feet in the air – either through photography or in person can evoke emotion and compassion in ways that words alone may not.
Founded in 1979, LightHawk has partnered with scientists, researchers, journalists, and state and local agencies across North America to advance the conservation of natural resources. To fly with a purpose means sometimes transporting endangered species.
In January 2025, the nonprofit transported 15 endangered gray wolves from British Columbia to Colorado for reintroduction into the wild. Another species on the brink of extinction, white abalone, has also been supported by LightHawk. In 2020, nearly 5,000 captive-bred white abalone were flown from their breeding facility in Santa Rosa, California, to be released in Los Angeles to support threatened kelp forests.
It’s all part of what inspired Dave Showalter, a fellow with the International League of Conservation Photographers, to join the organization. Showalter took his first flight with Boyer over the Wyoming Range in 2010. Scenic and untapped, the Noble Basin mountain range has been the subject of proposals for many energy projects, and at the time, this region near the Bridger-Teton National Forest was slated for massive energy development. Aerial images captured by the duo showed a dramatic roadless landscape that forms the headwaters of the National Wild and Scenic Hoback River. Ultimately, aerial photos captured here helped sway the public, and the fight over Noble Basin’s future was put on hold, at least for the time being.
Seeing a place from an entirely new perspective — like thousands of feet in the air — either through photography or in person, can evoke emotion and compassion in ways that words alone may not. It can act as a universal language, fostering a deeper connection to a place, and helping people feel more connected to each other.
“There is absolutely a greater sense of connectedness, which I often think of as how all of the pieces fit together. Some of my Colorado River images, for example, show a tiny river in a grand, tortured landscape, lending a perspective of vulnerability,” explains Showalter.
In disconnected, often inaccessible refuges like the Northern Rockies, creating a feeling of connectedness is all the more critical. Stretching 3,000 miles from the northernmost part of Western Canada to New Mexico, the Northern Rockies landscape is characterized by largely inaccessible, uninhabited rugged terrain. Other parts of the region are home to species like wolves, bears, and bald eagles, yet more and more people are flocking to these areas. Montana’s population has grown by 45,000 since 2020, according to government records, while Colorado has added roughly 18,000 more residents. As this trend in population growth continues, the Northern Rockies, in general, and the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem in particular, are challenged by rapid, unprecedented growth.
“Everyone talks about this growth in terms of density and sprawl, often without really understanding the relationship between the two. However, from the air, in a single comprehensive view, you can see the difference between the tightly packed neighborhoods adjacent to the city and the large-lot subdivisions on former agricultural lands in the Gallatin Valley,” said Boyer.
Passengers, aside from humans that is, have included eagles, ferrets, cranes, abalone, quail, condors, wolves, cheetahs, and rescue dogs, to name a few.
“From the air, you can see the riparian and undeveloped corridors connecting the mountain and forest lands with winter range throughout the valley, and consider the pathways and barriers for animals as they navigate their historic routes across the landscape.”
More people in the landscape means greater impacts on wildlife. While Montana may have some of the most abundant wildlife populations in the world, the Montana Wildlife Federation writes that many species are now under threat from development.
In the last five years, a growing number of Montanans have expressed concerns about growth. A University of Montana survey in 2022 found that a majority of the state’s residents were concerned about the pace of growth across the region — more than half said it was too fast, while eight out of 10 respondents expressed concern about the loss of open spaces to new development. Similarly, a bipartisan survey commissioned by the Crown of the Continent and Greater Yellowstone Initiative last year showed that 62 percent of Montanans reported a decline in their quality of life over the past five years, driving continued strong support for conservation efforts that protect public lands and access. Nearly every Montanan (95 percent) said they had visited public land last year, highlighting what pollster Dave Metz called the “deep connection Montanans feel towards public lands.”
Roughly one-third of Montana’s land is considered public, while more than 3 million acres of national forests in Montana are congressionally designated wilderness areas. The state provides a place of refuge for more than those who reside here year-round. And these wild, rugged areas surpass political borders.
“From above, you can clearly see the folly of administrative boundaries, the dramatic consequences of timeless geological processes, shortsighted management decisions, and the inescapable process of population growth in the GYE,” said Boyer. “You can clearly see the importance of wild lands and intact ecosystems, as well as the threats lurking at the edges.”
LightHawk volunteer pilots say their passengers often mutter, “I had no idea…” across their headsets when realizing just how intricately woven the landscape is.
Looking to the future, LightHawk pilots like Boyer are committed to conservation by supporting established organizations dedicated to protecting natural landscapes, oceans, and freshwater systems, and to promoting climate resilience. In the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, this includes understanding shifting dynamics between wildlife and urban sprawl through aerial perspectives.
Providing this zoomed-out perspective helps demonstrate how intimately intertwined seemingly disconnected opinions are.
Boyer said the perspective from a small plane permits you to see both the scale and the context of an issue — how surprisingly vast, or how surprisingly small a certain area is. “You can see the land cover and land management adjacent to the issue you might be flying over, and you can see — or not see — the impacts of administrative boundaries on the landscape.”
Flying above the wild and managed landscapes of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem shows how the entire landscape may be impacted by development, as well as some of the issues Montanans are facing, including affordability, safety and security, transportation and emergency planning.
“From the air, you can see how unregulated sprawl impacts wildlife habitat and corridors, increases the risks from wildland fires and floods, drains our diminishing groundwater resources, increases traffic, challenges emergency services, and increases the tax burden of maintaining the dispersed infrastructure more than it would under development patterns with a smaller footprint,” explained Boyer.
He hopes LightHawk will continue to build its Corps of Conservation while considering the future of people living along America’s wild spaces.
“[Our] pilots are as varied as the planes they fly,” he said. “What ties them together is a commitment to conservation and thoughtful land management policies, a desire to share their privileged access to the sky with others, and an interest in ‘giving back’ by donating their skills and aircraft to an important cause.”
Madison Dapcevich is an associate editor at Outside and a science journalist whose work spans from Alaskan archaeology to deep-sea discovery. She lives in western Montana, where she kayaks, skis, and mountain bikes with her two Australian shepherds.
