Habitat Connectivity on Working Lands Act of 2025
Habitat Connectivity on Working Lands Act of 2025 would amend the Food Security Act of 1985 to put greater emphasis on wildlife habitat connectivity and migration corridors, with a specific focus on big game species (deer, elk, pronghorn, wild sheep, and moose). The bill expands how federal conservation programs—such as the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP), the Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP), and the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP)—can support connectivity and corridors. It also broadens definitions, requires nonstructural livestock management options (for example, virtual fencing) to reduce barriers to movement, and directs priority research into virtual fencing and its effects on sensitive habitats and winter ranges for big game. In short, it aims to align farming and ranching practices with wildlife movement needs, using cost-sharing and technical assistance to encourage landscape-scale connectivity across working lands. Key elements include new or expanded eligibility for cost-share payments tied to grasslands enrolled in CRP when they contribute to connectivity, higher rental payment caps under CRP, and an explicit emphasis on ensuring that emergency grazing access is preserved. The bill also calls for administrative encouragement of habitat corridors and hydrologic connectivity in conservation programs and adds a research agenda around virtual fencing and related impacts on ecosystems and big game habitats.
Key Points
- 1Adds habitat connectivity and big game corridors to definitional and programmatic language, including new definitions for habitat connectivity and big game species.
- 2Expands the Regional Conservation Partnership Program to explicitly include restoration and enhancement of wildlife habitat connectivity and migration corridors with a focus on big game species.
- 3Enables cost-share payments under EQIP and CSP for grassland enrolled in CRP if the land is ecologically significant, with restrictions to prevent double-dipping with other federal programs; raises the CRP rental payment limit from $50,000 to $125,000.
- 4Expands EQIP and CSP to explicitly cover activities that improve wildlife habitat connectivity, including restoration and management of corridors and related ecological processes.
- 5Adds nonstructural livestock management options (e.g., virtual fencing) to conservation practice standards and requires adequate technical assistance to implement these methods and other connectivity-supporting practices.
- 6Encourages conservation programs to support landscape corridors and hydrologic connectivity, and the development and maintenance of corridors where native big game species can move between habitats.
- 7Creates a high-priority research/extension grant emphasis on virtual fencing, including its barriers to adoption and its effects on sensitive riparian areas and crucial winter ranges for big game species.