Greetings!

As the summer is coming to an end we wanted to thank our Watershed Enhancement Team volunteers.

They've been out in the field weekly watering and doing maintenance and monitoring on our projects. Some of their tasks have included: browse protector maintenance weeding weed mat removal plant counts photo point monitoring Because of their diligent work, our restoration projects are more likely to succeed. Having boots on the ground keeping an eye on our projects also allows us to be adaptable when projects are not providing the benefits we hoped for. For example, when volunteers were out watering plants on Miller Creek they noticed that the nursery plants volunteers had planted last Fall were fairing significantly worse than those that were naturally seeded by nearby plants. The fence we installed was bolstering those natural recruits but something inside the fence found our new plants tastier. Because of that, when funding became available through the Montana Watershed Coordination Council's Watershed Fund to do more work on Miller Creek we decided to focus on fencing rather than adding more plants.

This adaptive management allows us to change projects to be most effective for the future. Best ,

Katie Program Coordinator PS - Check out upcoming events below

Our Irrigation in the Bitterroot Tour is this afternoon and the bus will be full up. If you missed out on the opportunity this year don't worry, thanks to the level of interest we will certainly be hosting another one next year, likely also in early September. So keep an eye out for that.

Volunteer Opportunities As mentioned above we'll be focusing on more fencing at Miller Creek, but there are a few things to do that can improve the fence we put in last Fall. We'll be having two volunteer days to put in those improvements, September 26nd and October 1st

If you're interested in helping out or would like more information contact Emilie at [email protected] .

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