Episode notes
Jeff Laszlo is a fourth-generation owner of the Granger Ranches, a 13,000-acre cattle ranch in Montana’s Madison Valley. Over the past 20 years or so, he and a team of public agencies and professionals have been restoring a large wetland on the property, which was drained generations ago for grazing use.
What has become known as the O’Dell Creek restoration project has restored some 15 miles of spring-fed streams and 1,000 acres of wetlands. The results include a 900 percent increase in waterfowl numbers, a 600 percent increase in waterfowl species diversity, an improved fishery with reduced water temperatures, the return of rare native vegetation, the reintroduction of imperiled species such as Trumpeter Swans and Arctic grayling, and a vast increase in use for migrating sandhill cranes.
With the rising water table, the bottomland ...
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