Chalk it up as the tenth year in a row that the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation registered record membership. 

As of December 31, 2018, RMEF had 234,982 members, marking a 3.2 percent membership increase from 2017.

"We greatly appreciate our members and volunteers who support our mission of ensuring the future of elk, other wildlife, their habitat and our hunting heritage," said Kyle Weaver, RMEF president and CEO. "This continued growth is an indicator of the valuable conservation work we have done and momentum for the work to be accomplished. As we have always done, we will continue to open and improve access to our public lands and enhance wildlife habitat through tangible on-the-ground projects. We will also continue to advocate and expand hunting participation."

2018 Highlights:

• Opened/improved public access to 26,556 acres in five states
• Enhanced 134,699 acres of wildlife habitat in 27 states
• Permanently protected 13,431 acres of habitat across eight states
• Provided funding/volunteer manpower to assist with West Virginia elk restoration
• Surpassed 12,000 volunteers who raised a record single-year amount of revenue to advance RMEF’s conservation mission
• Provided $715,671 in funding to benefit ongoing elk research & studies
• Advocated Congress and state legislatures for many issues including forest management reform, Land and Water Conservation Fund reauthorization, Great Lakes states wolf delisting, Yellowstone area grizzly delisting, wildfire funding & more 
• Participated in victorious court cases benefitting forest management & wildlife habitat management
• Reached 84.5 million people via its social media platforms, had 822,634 followers & more than 12.8 million video views
• Totaled more than 5 million combined page views on rmef.org and elknetwork.com

"2018 was an incredible year for RMEF on all fronts. We look forward to celebrating these latest accomplishments and others at our 2019 Elk Camp and Mountain Festival," added Weaver.

Go here to view an infographic highlighting RMEF’s 2018 and cumulative accomplishments.

Since 1984, RMEF and its partners completed more than 11,800 conservation and hunting heritage outreach projects with a combined value of more than $1.1 billion. These projects protected or enhanced 7.4 million acres of habitat and opened or improved public access to 1.2 million acres.