Blackfoot Challenge summer stewardship happenings

Summer brings the field season for Blackfoot Challenge program staff - teaming up with landowners, state and federal partners and fellow conservation organizations to make hay while the sun shines. From new electric fences to piles of biochar, here are a few updates on Blackfoot community stewardship work happening around the watershed.

Education

In spring and fall, school-based education events are in full swing. In May, Challenge staff took part in an all-day bear-aware event for Seeley Lake Elementary School as well as a half-day session for the students at Sunset School. Challenge staff and partners presented learning stations on bear biology, personal safety, conflict reduction tools, Indigenous knowledge and more. Students from four Blackfoot schools took part in stream ecology lessons, measuring stream flows and collecting aquatic macroinvertebrates. With the help of a noxious weed specialist from the Montana Department of Agriculture, the Challenge also provided invasive species learning activities to students from several schools this spring. Fall will bring our annual Youth Field Day, hosted outdoors with students from all watershed schools invited.

Land Stewardship

If you have driven through the Blackfoot Valley lately, you may have noticed black piles on the fringes of agricultural fields. Those piles comprise phase two of our biochar project, with several ranches experimenting with biochar to enhance soils. Landowners are mixing biochar with compost to activate it with beneficial microorganisms before spreading on their fields. This project began a year ago, with a partnership among The Nature Conservancy, Blackfoot Challenge, landowners, 42Biochar, Stoltze Lumber Company, Garden City Compost and area contractors. Phase 1 began with applying biochar produced locally from forestry projects in the Gold Creek area. With additional funding, the partners launched phase two, acquiring more biochar made by the Stoltze mill. Across both phases, the Challenge is conducting soil testing to assess how the biochar improves soil moisture retention, plant vigor and soil biology. This project aims to support active forest management, reduce forest fuels, improve soil health, enhance drought tolerance and reduce the need for fertilizers.

Forestry & Prescribed Fire

For the last 15 years, the Blackfoot Challenge has brought cost-share funding to local communities and managed dozens of forest thinning projects designed to protect properties from wildfire. Our forestry program continues to support private lands thinning projects throughout the Blackfoot region, improving forest health, wildlife habitat and resistance to wildland fire. This year, we have several forestry projects in the works throughout the region. Increasingly, forest science shows that these thinning projects are greatly enhanced and forests are made more resilient using prescribed fire. The Challenge has ramped up the pace and scale of prescribed fire, particularly on private property, coordinating a committee of many partners to plan cross-boundary burns. This committee regularly met all spring to collaborate and act quickly when favorable conditions opened up a burn window for projects. Currently, the Challenge is planning future burns for the Greenough and Nevada Reservoir areas, along with several small, private parcels. Some of these projects may wait until next spring as the weather warms up and drier conditions restrict burn opportunities.

Water

As interest in outdoor lifestyles increases, communities and natural resources experience impacts more people on the landscape. Over the past two years, the Challenge has facilitated dozens of discussions around river recreation and continues to broaden this dialogue. Currently, we are gathering more input from communities across the watershed on their concerns, documenting recreation data to better inform decisions and increasing educational messaging to encourage low-impact behavior from recreationists. The Challenge is also exploring a volunteer-based river ambassador program to increase face-to-face education with the public. Based on the poor snowpack this year, the Blackfoot Drought Committee anticipates below normal streamflow conditions and the likelihood that the Drought Response Plan will be activated sometime this summer. Stay tuned for drought alerts through the Challenge e-news, social media and website.

Wildlife

Over the last decade, the Blackfoot region has seen widespread landowner adoption of electric fencing to protect property and reduce conflicts with grizzly bears. This summer alone, the Challenge will install five to six permanent electric fences around ranch yards and homes as well as smaller temporary fences around sites like bee yards and chicken coops. On many properties, new and existing fences are tied into drive-over electric mat systems installed at gate entries to allow easy driver access to fenced areas while keeping bears away. Summer is also range rider season, with three seasonal employees monitoring close to 70,000 acres, keeping ranchers apprised of any concerning wolf and bear presence near livestock. Adding to new innovations, the Challenge is working with one ranch to test virtual fencing - using collars rather than fencing to keep livestock in target areas, controlling livestock movements to protect sensitive habitats from overgrazing and steering cows away from active wolf habitats - a win-win for ranching and natural resources.

Vegetation

Under a five-year agreement with the Bureau of Land Management, the Challenge and many partners are addressing noxious weeds along 96.5 miles of Blackfoot River frontage. The project is bringing together public and private landowners to map, treat and monitor weeds along the river corridor up to the high-water mark. Goals include prevention of weed seed spread, reduction of existing weed populations and public engagement. In the Helmville area, a new cost-share grant from the Montana Noxious Weed Trust Fund will support the use of sheep grazing and herbicide to control weeds within the Nevada Creek Vegetation Management Area. And, continuing our volunteer tradition, two community weed-pull events will take place over the summer at the Russell Gates Fishing Access Site. Planned for June 15 and Aug. 24, this long-running event helps control invasive weeds that become especially problematic in a busy recreation site.

For info on any of these programs, contact the Blackfoot Challenge at 406-793-3900 or info@blackfootchallenge.org.