The "Habitat Connectivity on Working Lands Act of 2025" promotes wildlife habitat connectivity and migration corridors on agricultural lands through conservation programs, financial incentives, and research into innovative methods like virtual fencing.
Gabriel (Gabe) Vasquez
Representative
NM-2
The "Habitat Connectivity on Working Lands Act of 2025" promotes wildlife habitat connectivity and migration corridors on working agricultural lands through various conservation programs. It expands the Regional Conservation Partnership Program, increases payment limitations for the conservation reserve program, and incentivizes wildlife habitat connectivity under the Environmental Quality Incentives Program. The Act also supports research and extension grants for virtual fencing and encourages conservation practices that support landscape corridors and hydrologic connectivity for native big game species and biodiversity.
Wildlife Corridors & Cash: New Bill Boosts Conservation Payments to $125K, Pushes Virtual Fencing on Farms
This bill, the Habitat Connectivity on Working Lands Act of 2025, aims to make it easier for wildlife, particularly big game like deer and elk, to move across private farms and ranches. It does this by tweaking several existing U.S. Department of Agriculture conservation programs.
Making Room for Roaming
The core idea is to improve "habitat connectivity" – essentially, creating better pathways for animals between the places they need to live, feed, and breed. The bill officially adds restoring and improving these wildlife corridors as a goal for programs like the Regional Conservation Partnership Program (RCPP). It specifically calls out helping native "big game species," defined as large mammals like deer, elk, and moose.
More Green for Going Green?
To encourage participation, the bill significantly bumps up the maximum annual payment landowners can receive for land enrolled in the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP). The cap jumps from $50,000 to $125,000 (Sec. 2). Additionally, practices that improve wildlife habitat connectivity can now qualify for increased payments under the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP). However, the bill clarifies farmers can't double-dip – getting paid for the same practice on the same land from multiple federal programs.
Fences Without Fences (and Finding the Balance)
The legislation pushes for using nonstructural methods, highlighting "virtual fencing" – technology that uses GPS and sensors to manage livestock without physical barriers. The Secretary of Agriculture is tasked with incorporating these methods into official conservation standards and ensuring farmers get the technical help they need to use them (Sec. 2). Research grants are also authorized to study how well virtual fencing works, potential barriers to farmers using it, and its effects on resources like sensitive riverbanks or critical wildlife wintering areas (Sec. 3).
Interestingly, the bill includes a specific protection for ranchers: efforts to improve wildlife corridors on grasslands enrolled in the CRP cannot prevent or change access for emergency grazing or haying (Sec. 2). This tries to balance conservation goals with the practical needs of livestock producers, especially during tough times like droughts, though it raises questions about how habitat goals will be prioritized when push comes to shove.