Wet and Wild
This is a banner year to be in the business of restoring wetlands. While ducks and geese are already taking advantage of the trend toward normal spring runoff, nobody is happier about this season’s soggy landscape than The Nature Conservancy staffers working on the Ball Creek Ranch. Increased numbers of ducks, geese and other critters are thriving on the property this year, along with the ranch’s cattle and crops along the Kootenai River northeast of Bonners Ferry.
“We’ve talked to some old-timers who say they’re seeing water in the Kootenai Valley where they haven’t seen it in years,” said Steve Grourke, TNC’s spokesman based in Coeur d’Alene.
The Ball Creek Ranch Preserve is a shimmering example.
When TNC bought the 2,000-acre ranch six years ago for $1.5 million, the property had been ditched and drained in order to put as much land as possible into agricultural production. The conservation group looked to strike a balance between farming and wildlife.
TNC continues to lease 1,100 acres with the family that had been raising wheat, canola and cattle on the property while another 500 acres has been carved out for wetlands restoration, said Justin Petty, the conservancy’s land steward who lives at the ranch.
“We consulted with Ducks Unlimited and they contracted the heavy equipment in 2002 to come in and create a cross dike that’s the southern boundary of the wetland and various sloughs to handle the water,” Grourke said.
“But this is the first year we’ve had the runoff to start filling the wetland. Last year it was a weed bed with Canada thistle out in the middle of what was supposed to be water. This year Mother Nature is helping take care of that.”
“It’s still not full,” said Ivan Lines, the Ducks Unlimited wetlands consultant who managed the work on the property, which has four miles of Kootenai River frontage. “We have more work to do out there, but this is a vast improvement. There were tons of tundra swans and other waterfowl when I flew over the area (last month).”
Previous landowners spent up to $10,000 a year in electrical bills to pump out of the wetlands, Grourke said. Eventually, a pump will be installed to help make sure the wetland and adjacent sloughs are fully watered and flowing back out to the river, he said.
The conservancy is doing its best to revive the valley’s biodiversity while tiptoeing through the area’s skepticism for anything related to conservation. About 74 percent of Boundary County is public land, and county officials are wary of property exchanges that could erode their tax base.
“We pay taxes on our land,” Grourke emphasized. “We allow public access, including fishing and hunting. We’re continuing agricultural practices. But at the same time, we’re trying to make improvements for wildlife.”
The Kootenai Valley will never be the timbered swamp-like wildlife factory it was a century ago. However, a few projects are offering hope that wildlife, ranging from trout and teal to moose and grizzly bears, will have the water and wildlife corridors they need to migrate and survive.
The largest Kootenai Valley preserve is just north of the international border at Canada’s 17,000-acre Creston Wildlife Area. The area’s value hasn’t escaped U.S. waterfowl hunters who zero in on this magnet for ducks and geese during the fall until freeze-up.
However, heading south and upriver, Americans recently have been making contributions to wetlands restoration that will make wildlife a priority on about 7,000 acres of the 55,000 acres of Kootenai River Valley bottomlands in North Idaho:
•Boundary Creek Wildlife Area, 1,400 acres, managed by Idaho Fish and Game.
•Smith Creek wetland area, 600 acres, managed by Ducks Unlimited.
•Ball Creek Ranch, 2,000 acres, managed by The Nature Conservancy, plus a 350-acre conservation easement on adjacent Forest Capital Management timberland.
•Kootenai National Wildlife Refuge, 2,700 acres, the oldest of the preserves, established in 1965.
Boundary County commissioners contacted last week said they were generally pleased with the conservation developments in the valley, noting they have had two recent meetings with TNC staff.
Commissioner Dan Dinning said there was perception in the community a few years ago that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and other groups were headed toward wholesale wetland development along the Kootenai Valley. Citizen groups suggested that wetlands be done on a smaller scale, “and that’s what’s occurred since,” he said.
“Taking care of wildlife isn’t something anybody can do alone – it takes a lot of partnerships,” Grourke said, noting that the conservancy is gradually working groups ranging from the regional weed board to the Kootenai Tribe.
On Friday, TNC will join with the Kootenai Refuge staff in a public field seminar on weed control. “We have weed issues just like any landowner,” Grourke said. “We have a grant to address our issues this year and we want to work with other landowners. Invasive species are an expensive nuisance to agriculture and a killer threat to wildlife.”
The work has just begun for the North Idaho staff, Grourke said.
“We don’t just buy land and stick a sign on it,” he said. “We’re planting trees that will fill in the canvas and help a variety of wildlife including trout and wood ducks. Eventually we want to improve fish habitat as much as possible in Trout Creek and Ball Creek.
“We’re revamping our public access plan, because we know that as the wetlands improve there’s going to be more interest in birdwatching and hunting.”
“Fishing and hunting factor big in our relationship with Idaho,” Grourke said. “Some people think of us as anti-hunting. That couldn’t be further from the truth. Our director is a duck hunter, we have long-standing standoff with PETA for pig-hunting policies to protect habitat on Catalina Island in California.”
The conservancy is merely trying to deal with a fact of life, he said.
“Wildlife need lowland valleys to thrive, but those valleys also tend to be the best places to farm, run cattle and build. Wildlife has been losing in that competition for more than a century. It will be a tremendous asset to the area if we can gain a little back for wildlife.”