It’s great for the swans! The Restoration Partnership

The Conservancy has tapped $1.2million from the Restoration Partnership to restore and protect hundreds of acres of land along the Coeur d’Alene River between Harrison and Cataldo in Idaho. In the coming year, four landowners will dedicate their lands to conservation and cleanup. The result will be 500-700 acres of clean, safe feeding habitat every spring for huge flocks of migrating birds, including ducks and tundra swans. Our friends at the US Fish and Wildlife Service spent years identifying the floodplains where a century of Silver Valley mining and flooding had sent toxic sediments downstream. These damaged lands harmed birds that fed in the shallows. But they could be cleaned up and made into safe habitat, without the likelihood that new floods would recontaminate them. Many of these lands are along the Trail of the Coeur d’Alenes, which runs from Mullan to Plummer. The Service approached the Conservancy about teaming up to clean up these lands, restore them to lush clean wetlands, and protect them forever from being busted up and developed. The landowners are eager to participate. When asked why, one of them said softly “Because I don’t want any more swans to die on my land.”