First, pictures from my camping trip on the American Praire Foundation reserve. This organization has bought up an enormous amount of private land with the goal of returnig it all to its natural state and reintroducing buffalo on the land. A lot of people in town hate, underline hate, the APF but a lot of the concerns seem to be unfounded or blown out of proportion. I agree, its problemtic to reintroduce buffalo where cows are also grazing. But the APF is a private land owner and can do what they want. They are not trying to kick ranchers off their land or get it all designated as a national monument or wildness area. Personally, I think this is the way conservation should be done. Government conservation efforts are often inefficient, out of touch, expensive, redundant, etc. Everything that comes to mind when you think of buerocratic waste and mismanagement. The APF is a private funded, privately run organization and I like that. I think conservation is important and can operate in harmony with ranching interests. The APF is relatively small and keeps the community in mind when managing their land. And from what I've seen hasn't actually done a lot to complain about or suffered from the same buerocratic nightmares that occur on national wildlife refuges. Anyways, giant speel, here are the pictures:
Morning view on the prairie from my yurt
An empty horizon
To show you what yurts look like
Sunset on the prairie, well through some non-native trees planted on the prairie
Setting up nets to catch bats with at night
A barn full of bats
It was sort of hard to get good shots of these bats because it was night time and bats are small, but I got a few nice ones I think.
I walked right up to this owl and it didn't run away or anything.
Bull grazing on the prairie
Photo for the paper, a WWF employee attened, caught a rattlesnake and gave an impromtu talk for the little kids in the camp. They were so excited and not scared at all. I don't think they know how dangerous rattlesnakes can be.
Now, time for photos from my fight over the Bittercreek WSA and surrounding area. The flight was put on the Wilderness Society and EcoFlight to promote conservation in Bittercreek. Can't say I like them as much as APF, but I don't know enough about it either. Bittercreek constitute about 1 percent of all BLM land in Montana and doesn't look too special from up high. Current management of Bittercreek is working well as is. They allow grazing and recreation on the land, but don't allow other development or exploration for oil. It will be very interesting to see how things unfold and what kind of arguments are made.
Arial view of Bittercreek WSA
Frenchman creek, this one is an actual creek
Arial view of an unhealthy wheat farm. It should just be one giant plot of green, but the different shades indicate diseased wheat crop. Nearly 40 percent of spring wheat won't be planted in Montana this year, and much of the winter wheat, to be harvested in august is diseased from the rain. Food prices are going up.
An arial view of flooding along the Milk River just outside Glassgow. Some feilds are completely covered in water still, but it was worse a few weeks ago.
And last, but certaintly not least, a giant and horrifying fly caught in my room. This thing is monstorous and loud, but then it was old or something, because it just fell down on my dresser and didn't move when I snapped a cup over it to catch it.
Up next: Shakespear in the park, a tour of the Landusky Gold Mine and some pretty big 4th of July celebrations.
I am knee deep in conservation issues. The Lockean in me, says the government should stay out of it, just let nature and society take its course. John Locke wrote that the end of government is to protect private property. Should is being buying up its own private property? On the otherhand, the nature lover in me says, hey, why can't we have both? I think the APF model presents a promising solution. I apologize for being so serious, its just whats on my mind. And thankyou if you read this enter post, its quite long. I hate reading long things.
