Gros Ventre habitat plan would help swans
Halpin restoration proposal would cover more than 600 acres, bring back streamside vegetation.
By Angus M. Thuermer Jr., Jackson Hole, Wyo.
December 2, 2009
A project to improve and restore wetlands far up the Gros Ventre River drainage could make the Jackson Hole trumpeter swan population more robust, a wetlands advocate said Tuesday.
A plan by Michael Halpin to increase riparian vegetation and wetlands at the confluence of Fish Creek and the Gros Ventre River could aid the “Pinto Female” trumpeter known for migrating from the Snake River to Green River said Bill Long, president of the Wyoming Wetlands Society. Long said the swan, hatched in captivity and released in the Seedskeedee Wildlife Refuge on the Green more than 100 miles south of Jackson years ago, has successfully bred at the Pinto Ranch and taught as many as 18 fledglings to migrate out of the Snake River drainage.
“That one swan is seed that essentially established migration out of the core,” Long said.
Other swans follow the Snake River or stay in this region during winter. Another swan pond in the Gros Ventre River drainage would help the Pinto Female and her family make their traverse to the Green River, Long said.
Diversity in migration and winter ranges for the largest North American waterfowl “only makes this population more secure,” Long said. The bird is considered rare but is not protected by federal endangered species laws.
Halpin’s project would create three ponds covering 23 acres, re-establish the flooding of Gros Ventre oxbows and encourage Fish Creek to flood and spread cottonwood and willow growth. Estimated to cost $1.8 million, the undertaking would be a collaboration among federal, state and private interests, with $1.3 million coming from grants, Halpin said.
The owner of an 8-acre tract that is within the 610-acre project area, Halpin said the undertaking is not an attempt to increase his own property values.
“I don’t think that way,” he said.
The program is an effort to benefit wildlife in the area and possibly save the Dew Place Ranch as a historic site used for interpretation.
“We’re just trying to preserve some of our homesteading heritage,” Halpin said of the potential for a restoration project for buildings there.
In the two waterways, he said re-establishing historic flooding patterns would help bring more riverside vegetation to the benefit of all species.
That flooding was disrupted as a result of using the two waterways to irrigate pastures in the area, according to an environmental paper on the restoration plan. Today the river and creek have carved into their beds to the point that wetlands on their banks have receded, the paper says.
Techniques to encourage willow and cottonwood growth involve everything from placing “vanes” or steps in the riverbed to flooding through irrigation canals and transplanting beavers to the area.
“Mother Nature will fix it herself if we give her a little help,” Halpin said of land that was altered for agriculture. “That’s what we’re trying to do, give it a little nudge.”
Gros Ventre ranchers Glenn and Brian Taylor said they’ve got little argument with Halpin regarding the project itself. Blaming valley pioneer ranchers for degradation of the environment, however, is upsetting.
“It seems like it’s always fortunate that somebody came along and saved Jackson Hole otherwise it would be a desert,” Brian Taylor said of the position often voiced by conservation groups. Given that mantra, “You wonder if it was so bad why anybody stopped here.”
Ranchers did all right, he said. “There was really no wrong,” he said of Gros Ventre pioneers.
His father agreed.
“The implication that these old-timers didn’t know what they were doing irritates me,” he said. “They did a good job. They did an excellent job.”
The study of Halpin’s proposal was prepared for Bridger-Teton National Forest, which is seeking comments as it prepares a more thorough review. Comments on the scope of the upcoming study – what it should encompass – are due at Forest Service offices Monday said Dale Deiter of the Jackson Ranger District.
Online, a review is available at www.fs.fed.us/r4/btnf/projects. Documents also can be obtained from Deiter at the Forest Service complex at 25 Rosencrans Lane, just off North Cache Street.
