Tatum McConnell, Vital Ground Foundation communications intern, shared some thoughts last month about the phenomenon of “Fat Bear Week” as bears gain weight heading into hibernation.

     Kaniksu Land Trust is in the news again, with a feature story in the Bonner County Daily Bee about KLT’s program to deploy Pine Street Woods as an outdoor classroom.

     KLT is partnering with Washington Elementary School in a new program that “allows them (children) to learn, socialize and give their parents more time for work.”

     “When kids come off the bus and you can see … they’re just excited,” Natassia Hamer, principal at Washington Elementary said. “I’ll be like, ‘hey, how was it?’ and they’re like, ‘It was so awesome.’ And I feel like Dave (Kretzschmar, KLT educational director) does a really good job of letting them explore, and then kind of bringing them in, and then letting them explore again.”

Bitter Root Land Trust and the family of Wayne Hedman recently dedicated a new bench at Skalkaho Bend Park to the memory of Hedmen’s “long-lasting legacy in his beloved Hamilton.” Hedman, a former BRLT board member and community booster, had a strong connection to the current park land.

The Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation recently completed a wildlife conservation and pro-access project that expands the Garrity Mountain Wildlife Management Area (WMA) just west of Anaconda to 10,389 acres.

“This land is especially important because it provides spring calving and winter elk range as well as habitat for whitetail and mule deer, moose and bighorn sheep,” said Blake Henning, RMEF chief conservation officer. “It also features nearly one mile of riparian habitat along Warm Springs Creek which contains many fish species including westslope cutthroat and bull trout, both of which are Montana species of concern.”

Ironically, the project brings RMEF full circle in the immediate area. In 2000, RMEF brokered a transaction that eventually conveyed 32,000 acres of private land to state and federal ownership which includes today’s Garrity Mountain WMA. At the time, it was the largest land project in RMEF history.

RMEF’s Torstenson Family Endowment, FWP, Montana Natural Resource Damage Program and the Montana Fish, Wildlife and Conservation Trust contributed vital funding to complete this project.

     Two MALT members – The Montana Land Reliance and Kaniksu Land Trust – briefly occupy center stage in two different articles in the current edition of the Land Trust Alliance’s Saving Land Magazine.

     The MLR connection is within the article (starting on page 24) about the enhanced federal tax incentive that MLR led the effort to pass in 2015. The article highlights the value of the tax incentive and includes several case examples of how the tax incentives have been productive in conservation land, and one example is Rick Berg and the Berg Ranch in central Montana. Berg is also a longtime MLR board member.

     From the article: “It’s been a big help. Once in a while in the cattle business we’ll have a great year, and it’s been very beneficial to use the charitable tax deduction to save the money that would have been paid as income tax and use it in the bad years,” said Berg. It will help his daughter Kari, too, who moved back to the ranch with her husband and two children in 2012 and took over most of the management. “So they’re the fifth generation, and I’ve got grandkids just down the road who may become the sixth generation and will keep this thing going. It’s been a pretty amazing family legacy.”

     Kaniksu Land Trust contributes to an article (starting on page 14) titled “For the Long Haul: Protecting Nature’s Stage in the Pacific Northwest.”

     The article highlights the Pacific Northwest Resilient  Landscapes established by the Land Trust Alliance and others, and how KLT has participated in that initiative.

     From the article: KLT a small accredited land trust with a large service area in Idaho and Montana that stretches from Rocky Mountain summits to fertile river valleys, the Conservancy’s data will enable more strategic and thoughtful conservation and help “to elevate the organization’s work to the next level,” notes Kaniksu’s conservation director, Regan Plumb.

     With Initiative support, Kaniksu is working with a spatial ecologist at the Heart of the Rockies Initiative (HOTR), a regional conservation collaborative, to develop a strategic conservation plan that will pinpoint areas with notable climate resilience (alongside parameters set by the organization’s board of directors). Given that Kaniksu lacks in-house capacity for GIS map development, Plumb is grateful that the Initiative “brought us this opportunity” to collaborate with HOTR, who she notes has been “a wonderful partner to us.” 

Montana Senator Jon Tester has introduced the Montana Headwaters Legacy Act, legislation written to protect 336 river miles in the Lewis and Clark and the Custer Gallatin National Forests.“

This place has been discovered. It’s going to continue to have more and more people,” Tester said in a Bozeman Chronicle article. “There’s going to continue to be more pressure put    on air and water every day, and now we’re really past the time to do something about it.”

The Chronicle reports that If the bill passes, federal agencies would be required to preserve water quality, free-flowing conditions and certain “outstandingly remarkable values” on dozens of miles of the Gallatin, Madison, Yellowstone, Boulder, Smith and Stillwater rivers and on sections of an additional 17 creeks.

     Five Valleys Land Trust and Hugh and Barbara Sheehy have teamed up with the NRCS ALE Program and Missoula County Open Land Program to conserve the 194-acre Sheehy Ranch in the Potomac Valley.

    The agricultural property provides habitat for an array of Blackfoot Valley wildlife and important wildlife connectivity areas for key wildlife species. The ranch also features about 100 acres that are considered soils of local or statewide importance.

     Kaniksu Land Trust has purchased and assembled a portable mill at its Pine Street Woods property, a wonderfully clear message to community residents about KLT’s commitment to forest management. The portable mill will help showcase the KLT trio of priorities – education, conservation and recreation – at Pine Street Woods.

     “The ability to demonstrate the entire conversion process from sustainably managed forest to a 2×4, and with so many educational opportunities along the way, is really remarkable,” said Bonner Soil and Water Conservation District Supervisor John Gaddess.

     Education was a strong driver of the sawmill initiative. “I see this as a parallel to the local food loop,” said KLT Conservation Director Regan Plumb.

     The Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation has worked with the Beaverhead Deerlodge National Forest and Durocher family to conserve 598 acres of prime wildlife habitat north of Whitehall.

     Previously known as the Hadley Park property and an inholding within the BDNF approximately 17 miles north of Whitehall is now part of the forest itself. RMEF purchased the property and simultaneously conveyed it to the U.S. Forest Service, which used the Land and Water Conservation Fund’s Priority Sportsmen Recreation Access funds to facilitate the entire purchase.