Habitat Connectivity on Working Lands Act of 2025

This proposal aims to help wildlife move safely across farms and ranches by improving habitat connections and migration routes. It adds clear definitions for “habitat connectivity” and for “big game species” like deer, elk, pronghorn, wild sheep, and moose, and directs USDA conservation programs to support these goals. It lets certain grasslands already enrolled in the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) get cost-share help under other programs (EQIP and CSP) if the land is ecologically important, while preventing “double payment” for the same practice and keeping emergency grazing and haying access in place on those acres. It also lowers the yearly cap on CRP rental payments per person from $50,000 to $25,000.

The bill pushes USDA to include modern, non-fence tools like virtual fencing in its conservation standards and to provide technical help to landowners who use them. It also encourages practices that build and maintain wildlife corridors and hydrologic connections across the landscape, and it funds research and outreach to study virtual fencing, adoption barriers, and its effects on streams and key big game habitats.

• Who is affected: Farmers, ranchers, and other landowners in USDA conservation programs; wildlife and communities along migration routes.
• What changes:
  • Allow cost-share help for ecologically significant CRP grasslands under EQIP/CSP, with no double-dipping and emergency grazing/haying preserved.
  • Reduce the CRP rental payment cap to $25,000 per year per person.
  • Add wildlife corridor goals to EQIP and encourage corridor and connectivity projects across USDA programs.
  • Update conservation standards to include virtual fencing and provide technical assistance; fund research on its use and impacts.