Red Rock Lakes National Wildlife Refuge protects a remote high-elevation wetland and upland landscape in Montana’s Centennial Valley within the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. Its greatest historical importance lies in helping save the trumpeter swan from extinction: in 1932, fewer than 200 were known in the United States and Canada, and this refuge became the main center of protection efforts. By 2002, about 3,000 trumpeters wintered there. The refuge also sustains an unusually rich bird population, including nesting bald eagles and occasional whooping cranes, along with large mammals from moose and elk to grizzlies and wolves. Its wilderness protections preserve one of the Rocky Mountains’ distinctive wetland systems.