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A Grand Conservation Icon: Pat O’Toole
Post by Dave Smith, IWJV Coordinator The Intermountain West Joint Venture family is heartbroken over the recent passing of our longtime leader and friend, Pat O’Toole. He passed away this week after suffering a severe stroke at his home on the Ladder Ranch. Our deepest condolences go out to his wonderful family during these difficult…
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Shoring Up the Banks on Nevada Creek
Decades of restoration are accumulating to keep a key tributary to Montana’s Blackfoot River functioning for ranchers and native trout. On a late August morning, Ryen Neudecker and Brent Mannix watch water drip out of a seep above a lazy section of Nevada Creek. The creek’s waters are languid as it runs underneath a thick…
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Partners in North Central Montana Leverage RCPP for Conservation
“This is doing it.” “This is an opportunity for us to be working together and talking about both sides of the issues, and coming to consensus and getting something done. This is doing it. I love it.“ Rich Roth, IX Ranch On a bright May afternoon, Rich Roth lifts his gaze from the gleaming water…
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Conserving the Ocean of Grass and Sage
When asked to describe her favorite aspects of Phillips County in north-central Montana, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) biologist Marisa Sather took a moment to collect her impressions. “You obviously hear and feel the wind,” she said. “It’s always windy in Montana. And you just hear life all around you. It takes you a…
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Restoring Mesic Habitat in Idaho
Restoration work through the Idaho Mesic Rangeland Resources Enhancement Project is gaining momentum thanks to funds from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) passed by Congress in 2021. Back in the 1960s and 70s, late-season water from Succor Creek pooled up and spread out through Chipmunk Meadow, feeding a green oasis in the otherwise dry sagebrush steppe…
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New Video: Changing a Landscape to a Lifescape
The Humboldt Ranch encompasses more than 140 miles of streams and over 350,000 acres of mixed public lands administered by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and private lands owned by Nevada Gold Mines. Collectively, these lands support important habitat for an abundance of wildlife including Nevada’s native Lahontan cutthroat trout. Historically, cattle and sheep…
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California NRCS Easement Keeps the Family Ranch Intact
This article was produced in partnership with California USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service. Land stewardship is a concept with many meanings for many people. For multi-generation ranchers like Jim and Mary Genasci, stewardship is an ethic passed down from those that worked the land before them. Although many generations of Genascis cared for the family’s…
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Reconnection + Renewal on the Sycan River
An oxbow restoration on a tribally held easement on a working Sycan River ranch is a glimpse into a brighter future in the Klamath Basin. People wanted to be able to develop and farm and ranch and use the land as much as possible. When you do that, you start levying everything off so it…
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New Tech is a Nexus for Native Fish, Agriculture
In a high-elevation hay meadow somewhere in the mountains of Colorado, cold, clear water is diverted out of a river and into an irrigation ditch. It flows through the hand-dug ditch mostly unimpeded—that is, until an electrical pulse tells a powerful magnet to release a hinged sheet of metal, which flops unceremoniously down into the…
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Private Lands Conservation
“Our private lands are the least expensive wildlife refuges available.” — George Shine, Oregon Rancher Public lands comprise around 70 percent of the Intermountain West’s iconic landscapes. However, 70 percent of the region’s wetlands—including important sagebrush mesic habitat—occur on private land. These water-rich areas are frequently associated with irrigated agriculture and often occur on working ranches…
