On Sunday, seven BHA volunteers joined The Nature Conservancy and state corporate partners, Grizzly Liquor, to pull a mile of old barbed wire fence on the boundary of a Block Management Area owned by TNC.
Volunteers met early Sunday morning at Grizzly Liquor for coffee and donuts before carpooling to the project location in the Blackfoot Valley. The Nature Conservancy's Western Montana Land Steward, Steve Kloetzel, shared a brief background on the landscape and project before volunteers loaded up lunch and tools and headed into the woods.
The fence removal required over nearly a mile of steep climbing and descending. Volunteers removed fence through thick drainages and hilltops covered in arrowleaf balsamroot, lupine, and indian paintbrush. This BMA is one of the oldest public access agreements in Region 2. It provides excellent elk and whitetail hunting and opportunities for black bear & upland birds to scores of folks each season. Volunteers removed nearly a mile of old barbed wire fence that's no longer in use to improve migration corridors and prevent wildlife from becoming entangled as they move across the landscape.
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We are grateful to state partners, Grizzly Liquor for volunteering and Cambie for providing sack lunches for our volunteers. If you happen through Missoula, consider giving your business to these important partners who care about our wild places as much as we do (then, check out the rest of Montana BHA's partners - local businesses that support our work). And a big shoutout to The Nature Conservancy in Montana for all the land they help conserve and open for public access!
Join us on our next project! Check out our upcoming stewardship projects across the state here!
About Montana BHA
The voice for Montana's wild public lands, waters and wildlife