APR has also built new campgrounds and a hut system on its properties, donated beef and bison meat to local Native American communities and food banks, sponsored rodeo athletes, donated buffalo-hunting opportunities for local fund-raisers, and organized a "Living With Wildlife" conference (sponsored by the National Geographic Society) for ranching neighbors concerned about the arrival of more predators on the prairies. The group also has purchased a long-empty department store in nearby Lewistown as a new home for a planned National Discovery Center. There are, indeed, people in the town who welcome APR’s economic impact and support the reserve.

"We need to have a voice for the salamander, the plover, the buffalo," says Lewistown City Commissioner Clint Loomis, an artist and retired teacher.