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Big Hole River Foundation
P.O. Box 3894
Butte, Montana 59702

phone: 1-866-533-BHRF

BHRF PROJECTS AT A GLANCE

BIG HOLE RIVER FOUNDATION 2007 PROJECTS 

The Big Hole River Foundation's mission is to understand, preserve and enhance the free flowing character of the Big Hole River and to protect its watershed, culture, community and excellent wild trout fishery.  The following initiatives, adopted by the Board of the Foundation, are considered our best avenue to deliver that mission during 2007.     

The Big Hole River of southwest Montana is one of the only free-flowing rivers left in the west.   It is a world-renowned trout fishery that runs over 150 miles and drains over 2,500 square miles.  The Big Hole hosts the only fluvial Arctic grayling population in the lower 48 states -- a species that is a candidate for listing under the Endangered Species Act of 1973.  The social and economic mainstay of the Big Hole valley has traditionally been ranching, which relies heavily on the river and tributaries for irrigation.  Resource issues in the watershed include dewatering of the river by irrigation, loss of habitat to residential development, grazing management, noxious weeds, and the decline of the fluvial Arctic grayling.  

We are working to develop science-based conservation strategies that will protect this magnificent resource, and enhance critical habitat for native trout, grayling, and a multitude of other species.  We are launching new conservation strategies; helping to identify and implement restoration projects along the river; educating landowners through workshops about ways they can do their part to improve water quality and habitat conditions in key riparian zones; and pursuing conservation easement partnerships.

Education and Outreach Initiative 

Education Program 

The Big Hole River Foundation has partnered with staff from the Clark Fork Watershed Education Program to develop an education program in the Big Hole Watershed.  The program will be modeled after the already successful Clark Fork Watershed Education Program (CFWEP), which is place-based, hands-on, and inquiry science learning.  By replicating winning strategies, there is a high probability of success in fostering students throughout the Big Hole River valley to make scientifically sound decisions and understand the implications of these decisions.  Our intention is that they will be better able to take a proactive role in the processes affecting the integrity and preservation of their watershed.  The annual budget for this program will be $20,000. 

Education and Outreach

Each year the Foundation attends and hosts events to help make the public aware of the critical importance of the ecology, community, and culture of the Big Hole River.  Our hosted events include our annual dinner and open house on the river.  Last year, representatives of the Foundation attended the Race Around the Pioneers in One Day; the Ennis Fly Fishing Festival; and Fly Fishing Shows in Chicago, Charlotte, and Portland.  This year, Foundation staff will attend those as well as present at the Fly Fishing Federation of Fly Fishers Conclave in Livingston, Montana.  The Foundation will be featured also on the Outdoor Channel’s Familiar Waters with Mike Pawlawski, a flyfishing TV show that includes features on conservation.  Much of the support for these activities comes from our annual operations budget of $50,000.

Technical Guidance Series 

The Big Hole River Foundation will begin to produce and publish a technical guidance series for private landowners in the Big Hole River valley.  The series will consist of individual 4 – 8 page publications that focus on one aspect of private land management to help landowners.  Certain management practices exist within the Candidate Conservation Agreement with Assurances (CCAA) program for the fluvial Arctic grayling.  This umbrella CCAA will benefit private landowners by helping them implement new conservation measures that will remove or reduce the threat to declining Arctic grayling populations. By undertaking these measures now, participating land-owners are provided legal assurances that the USFWS will not assert any additional regulatory conditions should listing occur.  Enrolled landowners must follow these land management practices under this agreement.  The Big Hole River Foundation’s Technical Guidance Series will explain how to implement these practices on their property.  The Guidance Series has the support of the NRCS and other agencies responsible for producing various management plans for the landowners enrolled under the CCAA.   The budget to write and produce four documents is $10,000. 

Conservation Initiative

 Conservation Easements 

The Big Hole River Foundation has teamed with the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation to help procure conservation easements throughout the upper Big Hole River valley.  The Elk Foundation permanently protects crucial elk winter and summer ranges, migration corridors, calving grounds and other vital areas where habitat and wildlife are threatened by fragmentation and encroaching development.  The Big Hole River valley is a priority area for the Elk Foundation.  As land values skyrocket, farming and ranching families are pressured to sell what are often a region’s most beautiful and productive lands. When the health of these lands is compromised, wildlife habitat, as well as important riparian and fish habitat, is at risk.  The Big Hole River Foundation can leverage the resources of the Elk Foundation to identify important land ownerships to permanently protect the most critical habitat of the Big Hole River valley.  Staff expertise and support for this partnership comes from our annual operations budget of  $50,000.

Small Projects Restoration

The Big Hole River Foundation is one of many conservation partners with a presence in the Big Hole River valley.  Many of these partners embarked on larger-scale restoration projects to help protect the fluvial Arctic grayling within the upper reaches of the river.  With the belief that if we improve one square inch of the Big Hole River valley, we improve the whole valley – the Big Hole River Foundation embarked on its Small Projects Restoration Initiative.  The Big Hole River Foundation, over the next two years, has identified at least five projects that have not been undertaken by the larger partners.  We will deliver those projects for the landowner and the benefit of the Big Hole River.  Many of these projects occur on the smaller, privately-owned ranches throughout the Big Hole valley.  The identified projects include riparian fencing, passive restoration, and stockwater wells.  The annual budget to deliver these important projects for Grayling Recovery will be at least $20,000.

 Wetlands Mapping Project 

The Montana Natural Heritage Program (MTNHP) has embarked on a project to map wetlands and develop associated data in five watersheds of Southwest Montana using US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) standards.  Montana Wetland data lags behind almost all other states.  The National Wetland Inventory (NWI) was never completed here and large swathes of Montana have no wetland data available.  Because of the importance of wetlands to the Big Hole River and Foundation expertise in this field, the Big Hole River Foundation will support the MTNHP’s project to map wetlands in the Big Hole River valley.  Southwest Montana, and particularly the Big Hole River area, is an area that almost completely lacks any wetlands data, but has acute biologic and economic needs for wetland map data.  For example, the Arctic grayling recovery plan is centered in these watersheds and wetlands are key to maintaining acceptable water levels in the Big Hole and other rivers, but the locations and types of wetlands in the area is unknown. A wide variety of state, federal, and local partners collaborate on this effort and need wetland data to guide conservation and management.  Economic activities including energy corridors, residential and commercial building construction, and resource development can be planned better and be more environmentally sustainable if wetland locations are identified first.  Wetlands will be classified with the Classification of Wetlands and Deepwater Habitats of the United States (Cowardin et al. 1979).  Riparian areas will be mapped and classified according to A System for Mapping Riparian Areas in the Western United States (USFWS 1997).   Field reconnaissance trips will be conducted as necessary to determine whether polygons have been correctly classified, to review any questionable types, and to gather data on wetlands of particular ecologically significance, which will be documented in the MTNHP site database.  The Big Hole River Foundation will contribute staff expertise and resources to this project within the Big Hole Watershed boundaries.  Budget for this project is $20,000.

Benthic Macroinvertebrate Monitoring Program 

The principle environmental problems of the Big Hole watershed center on water quantity issues and habitat degradation.  Chronic and more frequent cycles of extended drought, changes in watershed land uses, historic loss of riparian and fish habitat and most importantly the potential listing of the Arctic grayling as a threatened or endangered species has forced an urgency in addressing the need to maintain a profitable livestock industry in the watershed that can be compatible with an environmentally-sound river system.  The United States Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) has joined with several partners to develop what is known as a programmatic or umbrella Candidate Conservation Agreement with Assurances (CCAA) program.  This umbrella CCAA will benefit private landowners by helping them implement new conservation measures that will remove or reduce the threat to declining Arctic grayling populations.  By undertaking these measures now, participating land-owners are provided legal assurances that the USFWS will not assert any additional regulatory conditions should listing occur.  The CCAA program partners include the BHRF, the Big Hole Watershed Committee (BHWC), the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), Montana Department of Fish Wildlife and Parks (MTFWP), Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation (MTDNRC), Montana Trout Unlimited (TU) and the Montana Arctic Grayling Recovery Workgroup (MTAGRG).  The overall CCAA project and this proposal are principally directed toward the upper part of the Big Hole River watershed as this is the primary area of concern for Arctic grayling recovery.  River and riparian restoration is a big component of grayling recovery.  Within the CCAA Monitoring  the success of conservation projects occurs across four components, grayling response (i.e., fish sampling), habitat response, effectiveness of projects implemented, and landowner compliance.  Of the biological and habitat monitoring, the Big Hole River Foundation will develop and implement a benthic macroinvertebrate (BMI) monitoring program to help evaluate the effectiveness of the implemented conservation measures.  This BMI monitoring program will compliment and help evaluate other monitoring efforts being conducted by FWP, FWS, DNRC, and NRCS.  The BMI monitoring and evaluation project will cost $30,000. 

NAWCA 

The Big Hole River Foundation will help support restoration and habitat protection projects for The Nature Conservancy’s (TNC) North American Wetland Conservation Act (NAWCA) grant during 2007 and 2008.  NAWCA is a non-regulatory, incentive-based, voluntary wildlife conservation program.  NAWCA provides challenge grants for wetlands conservation projects in the US, Canada, and Mexico.  Every $1 of federal money allotted to NAWCA must be matched by $1 or more from non-federal sources like non-government organizations, or state fish and wildlife agencies.  TNC’s NAWCA project will help fulfill this conservation vision by combining protection and restoration projects in the watershed.  Grant objectives are to permanently protect the 2,618-acre Wisdom River Cattle Company, the 120-acre Troedsson Ranch, and a 469-acre part of the Dooling Ranch via conservation easements, and restore through riparian fencing and willow planting a minimum of 1,206 acres of palustrine emergent, riverine and riparian shrub habitats on the Erb Ranch along the main stem of the Big Hole River.  The Big Hole River Foundation has pledged to contribute $5,000 towards this critically important project.

Past projects which the BHRF has been involved in include, but are not limited to the following:

River Recreation Management

Land Use Planning

Drought Management

Weed Management

Water Quality

Other Projects/Surveys 

• Macroinvertebrate (aquatic insects) survey
• Radio Telemetry Study for Grayling
• Haz Mat Emergency Plan