My project is multi-pronged, two with fairly controllable outcomes and one crap shoot.

1) The conifer mitigation is chainsaw work to increase water availability to grasses and water bodies. At a small scale it involves me and my chainsaw. At a large scale it is a grant-funded endeavor with a hired crew. Work in the summer will be determined by the fire conditions for saw work and vehicle access.

2) The construction of 7-10 BDAs in Cottonwood Creek is limited by permitting and manpower.

3) The eventual restoration of beaver to Cottonwood Creek will be determined by a site visit in March that will gauge suitability and advise goals for restoration work with beaver transplants in mind, and then the regulatory process and paperwork will be determined by the outcome of the EA decision in April. If the EA is not approved, the regulatory process is expensive, arduous, and possibly not worth the effort.

The timeline is uploaded, I think.

Hello All, I have a sticky note that says “Feb 6-20 LTBBR course check-in TBD.” When is that going to be set? Please not a Thursday and not Valentine’s Day. I am romantically giving cow shots that day.

Hi, Everyone!

Because my project is on forest service land, it will need to be no cost. I have been doing research to understand the history of the area we’d like to see restored, if we are allowed to. I posted photos in Module 2.

I did hear back from one of the cabin owners on Lake Mullen, and what he wrote is discouraging because of the human impact over the years. Here is what he said,

“Good afternoon Judy
I received your message last nite and did some thinking. I’ve been roaming around the hills at the cabin since I was old enough to walk. We used to get dropped off at the 9 mile, Homestake pass or Roosevelt Drive and hike to the cabin. I’ve even been to the headwaters of the North Fork of Little Pipestone Creek. It comes out of some rocks in the middle of a hillside. I don’t think there was much mining going on, mostly logging. There are some glory holes here and there are remenents of old logging wagons harnesses and yolks.
At the prospectors cabin a man named Oscar Blixt had the only working mine in the near area.He was a quiet man and never said much at one time his mine went in about 150 feet.
To my knowledge there were never any man made dams. At one time there were 3 beaver dams.The largest was straight out from the prospectors cabin.The second one was upstream and the smallest was downstream from the large dam.
According to Joan Shannon the pond at the cabin was just an over grown beaver dam.It was either her father or grandfather decided to enlarge it with some dynamite.
When we were small my uncle swam out to the center of the pond and could not touch bottom.I would guess the water was at least over 6 to 7 feet deep.
There was a saw mill at Oassis and another one half way between the Toll Mountain campground and the highway.
Over the years people would break the beaver dams and drain all the mud and silt down into the pond causing the pond to fill up.
I used to snow shoe with Mrs. Koch and her husband and she told me the wood cut up around the cabin was used in the mines in Butte and to fire the brick kilns down by the ZbarT.
I hope this information is useful and I would like to get involved in your project if you need any help.
Keep me posted
Thanks
Jim”

I will continue to do more research and have sent Jim additional questions. I would love to reintroduce beavers to the area, but that would involve MTFWP, and I am not sure if the area can be protected from trapping.

There is so much to consider!

Some of the water scarcity issues on my land include the river not flooding the valley bottom for the last 2 years and it’s not looking very likely for this spring either.  The slough on the east side of the river serves as a source of stock water, both for cattle on the bench and we pump water to the top of Big Mountain just east of there for summer pasture.  It’s the only source of water for miles around up there and is very crucial to our ranch but is also greatly appreciated by the wildlife in the area.  For 2 years now I’ve had to bring the cattle home several weeks early because the slough has run dry.  This impacts the grass I’ve banked for fall and winter grazing enormously.   I would like to figure out what I can do to mitigate that.

This first photo is a picture Big Mountain where we pump the water to in the summer.  The next two are of the river bottom, and they’re not very good but it shows the river and slough areas where the willows are which is what we pump from.  The last photo is of a bear swimming in our tank just for fun!

Howdy all,

Water scarcity seems to be on everyone’s minds- given our dismal snowpack, water woes have started earlier than usual this year. My job as a consultant is natural resource management (namely in habitat improvement). Water is a finite resource; we can’t make more of it, so  we have to learn how to use it smarter. Many large ranches I work with are multi-faceted in both landscape and also overall objective. Not only do these ranches want to make a profit (from ag or cattle) but most want to be good stewards of the land and make habitat improvements for wildlife. Being toward the top of the watershed, in a time where everyone is calling for more water, if LTPBR can help us store more water for longer, it seems like a win- win for land owners. Increasing water residency, increasing forage availability and diversity for both cattle and wildlife, decreasing sediment load, and increasing water availability for downstream users OR keeping more water in our rivers for our beloved non-native trout 😉

Apologies for the wide-lens blanket approach to this post. I have several projects I would like to use LTPBR on- got me thinking about how many installs it would take to see a larger scale, rather than localized, impact.

I think the mod4 post is supposed to be “aha” moments from the mod4 materials that springboards from our mod3 post.

I didn’t have any aha moments, but module 4 did reinforce how cool it would be to have pre-identified & approved high country habitat for beaver so that when lowland conflict on the big rivers (Boulder & Jefferson) occurs, there is a place or places to transplant the beaver, ready to go.

<p data-start=”121″ data-end=”136″>Hey everyone,</p>
<p data-start=”138″ data-end=”724″>I just got back from the American Fisheries Society meeting where biologists, fish managers, restoration practitioners, and other fisheries professionals presented their projects and research. BDAs and beaver reintroduction came up repeatedly, and I was surprised by how polarized the views were. On one side were ecological restoration and water-storage advocates who strongly supported beavers and BDAs, and on the other were several fisheries biologists who described beaver dams as major impediments to fish migration, especially for bull trout and westslope cutthroat trout.</p>
<p data-start=”726″ data-end=”1374″>I can see how dams could create passage challenges, particularly during low-flow periods or in already incised or simplified channels. At the same time, beavers historically dominated these landscapes, and native trout species evolved alongside them and were once thriving. That makes me wonder if the issue is less about beaver dams themselves and more about modern stream conditions, altered hydrology, and how or where BDAs are implemented.</p>
<p data-start=”1376″ data-end=”1576″>I’m curious how others think about the trade-off between connectivity and habitat complexity, and whether seasonal or partial passage might still support healthy fish populations in certain systems.</p>
<p data-start=”1578″ data-end=”1714″ data-is-last-node=”” data-is-only-node=””>Also, process-based restoration was featured in two major river restoration presentations, which was really cool to see highlighted at that scale.</p>