Notes

Rocky Mountain Population: elk, moose, mule and white-tailed deer, pronghorns, mountain goats, bighorn sheep, black bears, grizzly bears, wolves, coyotes, lynxes, and wolverines. The Rocky Mountains stretch some 3,000 miles from British Columbia and Alberta in Canada through Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado and down to New Mexico in the U.S.The eastern side of the Rocky Mountains is bordered by mixed-grass prairie to the north and by short-grass prairie to the south. The prairie, some of which has been described as the Montana Valley and Foothill grasslands generally extends to elevations of 1,800 metres (5,900 ft). Dominant plants of the mixed grass prairie include little bluestem, needlegrasses, wheatgrasses, sand-reeds, and gramas, with dropseeds and cottonwoods in riparian zones. Short-grass prairie species include little bluestem, buffalo grass, western wheatgrass, sand dropseed, ringgrass, needle-and-thread, Junegrass, and galleta.[7] Extensions of these vegetation types reach well into the Rocky Mountains along the valleys and on dry slopes. Plant species composition varies locally with changes in soil characteristics and topographic position—that is, from hilltops to valley bottoms.