Ducks getting place to paddle
Housing assistance is coming soon for the real snowbirds of North Idaho.
Ducks Unlimited, along with several other conservation groups and landowners, have cobbled together $8.5 million worth of federal grants and donated land to ensure waterfowl have enough places to land, nest and paddle in the increasingly developed Sandpoint area.
“This is one of the most rapidly urbanizing areas of the United States, percentage-wise,” said Ivan Lines, regional biologist for Ducks Unlimited based in Spokane. “A lot of this habitat is getting gobbled up by development.”
The work includes a $1 million grant from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service under the North American Wetlands Conservation Act. The project also includes $2.6 million in matching funds and $4.8 million worth of donated property and other grants from government agencies.
The project involves protecting or restoring 3,174 acres in the Sandpoint area, as well as the Bull River area in northwest Montana. The highest profile work in North Idaho will be restoring 574 acres in the Pack River delta wetlands. The muddy flats are about eight miles east of Sandpoint.
Before a dam controlled the amount of water in Lake Pend Oreille, the delta was ideal waterfowl habitat, Lines said. It’s still good – about 30,000 redhead ducks winter there each season – but it could be much, much better.
The grant will help pay for islands to be created in the flat delta over the next two winters – construction can only take place during low-water months. These islands will trap sediment and eventually become a patchwork of marshes and upland habitat, supporting everything from cavity-nesting ducks to osprey and eagles, Lines said.
The project also includes easements and property purchases along the Pack River.
“It’s primo habitat,” Lines said. “They’re choice parcels of property.”
Just across the border in Montana, project partners have secured permanent protection for about 2,000 acres along the Bull River, according to information from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Apart from development pressure, the land was also identified as needing protection because of its habitat value for grizzly bears, wolves, bull trout and a variety of other species at risk of extinction, Lines said. “We’re definitely getting away from helping strictly ducks. We’re interested in all species. We’re interested in healthy ecosystems.”
Similar grants from the Fish and Wildlife Service have helped fund recent habitat restoration and protection projects over thousands of acres of Eastern Washington’s channeled scablands.