For the past 18 months, Flathead Land Trust has been working to obtain funding to protect an ecological haven in the West Valley. This week, two additional gifts helped close the funding gap to less than $4,000 needed to complete the $1.4 million project.
The gifts come from the Montana Fish and Wildlife Conservation Trust, which added another $40,000, and Montana’s Outdoor Legacy Foundation, which gave $5,000. About $400,000, or one-third of the total cost, was donated by the landowners.
The grants are in addition to prior grants made by both organizations. The Montana Fish and Wildlife Conservation Trust provided a $45,000 grant last summer that helped spur others to donate to the effort, while Montana’s Outdoor Legacy provided $500 earlier this year.
The West Valley Wetlands conservation project helps to conserve a 400-acre section of family farmland that supports 144 species of bird, with special focus on sandhill cranes. The property includes a unique 45-acre pothole wetland used by tens of thousands of migratory waterfowl and shorebirds, and hundreds of sandhill cranes each year.
Once the land is placed into a conservation easement, it would remain in private ownership managed by the landowner, but would protect the property from becoming a residential subdivision or commercially developed in perpetuity. It would instead stay in agriculture with limited residential use.
According to supporters, the project is especially critical for sandhill cranes as it protects part of the only known staging area in the Flathead Valley used by as many as 400 cranes to rest and refuel for up to two months on their fall migration from as far north as the Arctic to as far south as Mexico.
A bird-viewing area for the public will also be created as an educational site for local schools. It is situated about two miles north of Kalispell near the Stillwater River, and is bordered to the west by West Valley Drive and to the east by West Springcreek Road.
The conservation project will also protect a family-farming legacy in West Valley by keeping the farmland intact and allow for future agricultural production.
Two large federal grants from the Natural Resource Conservation Service and North American Wetland Conservation Act will provide the brunt of the funding needed to complete the conservation project, and the landowners are donating over a third of the value of the project.
Flathead Land Trust has had to raise about $150,000 in non-federal matches to qualify to receive the federal funding. Last fall and this spring, Flathead Audubon, the AGL Foundation, Montana Ducks Unlimited, Flathead Pheasants Forever, the International Crane Foundation, and over 60 individuals donated to the project. Other supporters of the project include Whitefish Community Foundation, Flathead Beacon Foundation, and the Applied Materials Foundation.
Jane Ratzlaff, executive director for Montana’s Outdoor Legacy Foundation and trust manager for Montana Fish and Wildlife Conservation, said, “Having a place like this so close to Kalispell that the public can easily access, where school children can go to learn about a wide variety of species and all of us can enjoy, is a rare treasure. This amazing wetland area is critical to the sandhill crane migration and will also benefit other species. Both the Montana Fish and Wildlife Conservation Trust and Montana’s Outdoor Legacy Foundation have access as front and center to our missions.”
For more information on the West Valley Wetlands project or to make a donation, visit www.flatheadlandtrust.org or call 406-752-8293.