For the Saiers, the Centennial is a special place where wildlife far outnumber people, where the pace of life harkens back to an earlier day. There are few houses, little traffic, and access in the winter is limited. That’s how the Saiers want it to stay.

So the Saiers did their part to conserve the valley: They signed a conservation easement with The Nature Conservancy covering 800 acres of their Centennial Valley property. The Doris Duke Charitable Foundation provided funding for the easement.

"We’ve always been more or less for Mother Nature," said Volker Saier, who grazes cattle on the property. "We felt like this (easement) was a good way to guarantee the future of this area."

The Saier property is about a mile north of the Red Rock Lakes National Wildlife Refuge and borders Forest Service land in the Gravelly Mountains. The area, and the valley as a whole, is a critical east-west corridor for wildlife moving from the Greater Yellowstone area into Idaho and the northern Rocky Mountains. Grouse, many birds, elk, moose, and other wildlife live in the area.

The Saier’s upper tract – 160 acres next to Forest Service land – is important elk habitat. Volker Saier estimates that six bull elk and up to 30 cows lived in this area during a recent summer.

The lower tract features sand-dune formations, called Centennial sandhills, that extend from the refuge into the Saier land. The sandhills support four plant species that occur nowhere else in Montana. Sage grouse, long-billed curlews, northern harrier, hawks, eagles, and many other birds visit the property, which the Saiers have owned since 1990.

The Saiers would like more area ranchers to consider conservation easements as a way to keep development in check. "If we can work together, we can accomplish a lot," said Volker.

The Saiers sold property to the Red Rock Lakes National Wildlife Refuge in the 1980s, and lease grazing rights on the refuge. They run about 300 cows on their deeded and leased land in the area during the summers.

"It’s been a pleasure working with the Saiers," said Tim Swanson, the Conservancy’s southwest Montana project director. "Their goals and the Conservancy’s are the same: Keep the land open for agriculture, native plants, and the wildlife."