Trumpeter Swans are one of our region’s most iconic wildlife species, yet one of the rarest breeding birds in the west. They are among the largest waterfowl species in the world and exhibit highly cognizant behavior, have strong family bonds, and can live up to 25 years in the wild. Trumpeter Swans were once widespread throughout North America, but their populations neared extinction in the early 1900s. Thanks to conservation efforts, Trumpeter Swan populations have risen to fairly stable numbers throughout most of their range, although the Rocky Mountain Population remains a conservation concern, with a total of only 100 known nests throughout Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming. Continued habitat loss, degradation, and disturbance at nest sites have led to perennially low nesting success for Trumpeter Swans within the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (GYE), making this a major conservation priority for recovery.

The Rocky Mountain Population is comprised of two distinct population segments – a Canadian breeding segment with nesting occurring throughout British Columbia, Alberta, and Yukon Territory, and a U.S. breeding segment, with breeding centered around the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. During winter, both breeding segments rely on ice-free waters and available leftover agricultural crops. Eastern Idaho supports an annual average of 50% to 75% of the entire Rocky Mountain Population in winter, with the Teton, Henry’s Fork, South Fork, and Main Snake Rivers serving as critical winter resources.

Teton Valley supports roughly 30,000 acres of wetlands but previously offered little breeding habitat for Trumpeters due to a lack of marsh type wetlands. During the past 30 years, Teton Valley has received very little non-winter use by resident Trumpeter Swans, primarily because there were very few suitable pond or marsh habitats.  However, Teton Valley serves as an optimal location for restoring Trumpeter Swan nesting due to its location proximal to other Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem nesting sites and results of strategic resource protection and enhancement.

Since 1990, Teton Regional Land Trust (TRLT) has worked with willing private landowners, the North American Wetland Conservation Council, the US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), the Idaho Department of Fish and Game (IDFG), and other partners to conserve over 11,000 acres of important wildlife habitat, primarily along the Teton River corridor and its associated wetlands. In addition to protecting habitat from residential development via permanent conservation easements, the combined efforts of the aforementioned partners have restored and enhanced several thousand acres of wetlands, including the creation of high-quality marsh and shallow water pond habitats on easement-protected lands. The successes of our wetland protection and restoration program, combined with our strategic location, have created a unique opportunity to re-establish Trumpeter Swan nesting in Teton Valley in an effort to bolster the at-risk U.S. breeding segment, and secure the heritage of breeding Trumpeter Swans in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. Conservation easements will help ensure that habitat quality can be maintained over time even if land ownership changes. Having suitable nesting and breeding habitat that is permanently protected will determine the successful return of a stable Trumpeter Swan population in the U.S.

In 2012, the Teton Valley Trumpeter Swan Restoration Project was formed by partners including TRLT, IDFG, USFWS, Intermountain Aquatics, and additional supporters and volunteers. The project is a long-term effort to re-establish Trumpeter Swan nesting in Teton Valley by releasing captive-bred Trumpeters onto protected wetlands in an attempt to trigger the swan’s instinct to bond with and return to their natal wetland and eventually breed, as well as by continuing strategic land protection efforts. Translocating captive-reared Trumpeter Swans to occupy a site that offers optimal habitat quality is a great opportunity but comes with its challenges. The strategy works to counteract the long time it takes for Trumpeters to colonize new breeding areas and to alleviate current threats to nesting success since habitat quality and levels of disturbance can be controlled. This strategy gives the released Trumpeters the best chance at nesting success and propagating nesting at other wetlands throughout the area. Translocations also serve to attract wild swans since released Trumpeters act as indicators of habitat quality, and work to subvert wild Trumpeter Swans instinct and conditioning to avoid levels of human disturbance (such as tractors, farming activity) that in reality pose no threat. This created an expansion of viable breeding site occupancy throughout a number of suitable wetland sites in Teton Valley and throughout the GYE.  Through diligent monitoring by TRLT staff, partners, and the public, the translocated Trumpeters have often been observed returning to their release sight with unmarked, wild Trumpeters and have exhibited early pair-bonding behaviors, marking major steps forward for nesting in Teton Valley.  The partnership held its sixth Trumpeter Swan release in Teton Valley this summer releasing six cygnets onto a protected wetland.

Our previously released Trumpeter Swans, as part of the Teton Valley Trumpeter Swan Restoration Project, wear green neck collars with white alphanumeric codes, but this year’s cygnets have a green leg band instead. Reported sightings from the community are a major part of the project. If you observe green-collared or green leg-banded swans in our region, please notify the Teton Regional Land Trust.  For more information or to support the project, please visit www.tetonlandtrust.org or contact Nicole Cyr via email at nicole@tetonlandtrust.org.

“I had the privilege to see 5 Trumpeter Swan Cygnets that were released just a few days prior in the Teton Valley in Idaho. The goal is to place the Cygnets with a surrogate mother who will teach them to survive with the hope that the Swans will eventually return to the place that they learned to fly, to nest and have offspring of their own in the Teton Valley. It was a great experience, thanks to Tim (Brockish, Board Member) for inviting me.” – RH Miller

Photo (above) by Trish Boyd; Photo (on left) by Tom Vezo

The North American Wetland Conservation Act (NAWCA), like the Land Trust, is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year.  NAWCA funding has resulted in over 2,950 projects and protected over 30 million acres of wetland habitat all over North America and Mexico. NAWCA was passed in part, to support activities under the North American Waterfowl Management Plan, an international agreement that provides a strategy for the long-term protection of important habitat for waterfowl and other migratory birds.

NAWCA grants are a major catalyst for wetland conservation and restoration. Working with private landowners and partners across the region, the Land Trust has protected important habitat for wetland-dependent species including Long-billed Curlew, Greater Sandhill Crane, Yellow-billed Cuckoo, Bald Eagle, and White-faced Ibis to name a few. These efforts have added to and buffered regionally and continentally important core conservation areas. Together with our partners, we have secured $9 million in NAWCA funding that has leveraged over $56 million in other conservation matching funds. These grants have protected over 14,500 acres of habitat and helped restore and enhance habitat on over 9,900 acres.

The goal of our most recent NAWCA grant is to strategically sustain and improve bird populations through the protection and enhancement of wetlands. Thirteen landowners, businesses, conservation organizations, and agencies partnered to provide over $2.4 million in cash and in-kind match. Over 1,800 acres of habitat will be protected and/or enhanced in the Upper Snake River Watershed.

The Huntsman Fox Creek property is a great example of the importance of NAWCA’s support. We are currently working on several other projects in the region with multiple federal and private partners. We are grateful for NAWCA, as well as all the state, regional, non-governmental, and private partners that have matched these important federal funds to see thousands of acres restored and protected.

by Nancy Huntsman

My late husband, Blaine, was an Idaho boy. He and his brother grew up in and around Pocatello in the 1940s and 50s where their father was a school teacher. As boys, they fished any creek they could reach by bicycle. Though the family later moved away, Blaine always looked for reasons to return to his favorite landscape. Later in life, he started traveling to Teton Valley for fishing trips with the Teton Valley Lodge. Once he was able, he bought a small cabin next to the Lodge. That became our family retreat for a good many happy years. Along the way, a friend and fishing guide introduced him to Fox Creek Ranch, and that is when our adventure began.

Fox Creek was a working ranch with summer pasture, a hay crop, and a spring creek flowing through the middle before joining the Teton River. I hadn’t even seen the property when Blaine announced to me that we were buying it. I was startled, of course, but his excitement at the prospect of ready access to the creek overshadowed my concerns, at least until my first visit. It was hard to see the place the way he did. Yes, it had a certain charm and pastoral quality. There were cows and lovely, undulating lines of fresh-cut hay. There were beautiful views of the Tetons, but the spring creek looked like it was in rough shape. Still, it would be a refuge for our family, a place we could fish with our kids, where they could discover nesting birds hidden among the grasses, and experience the majesty of stars on a clear night.

That summer, we came to understand that our little spring creek had a heap of problems. It was badly silted up, with steep collapsing banks and almost no cover. Where had all the willows gone? About the same time, we began to hear concerns from our fishing friends about the Teton River– fishermen were still catching the big fish that have made the Teton famous, but the smaller fish had gone missing. (Later studies showed a 95% decline in the endemic Yellowstone cutthroat trout.) Their absence pointed straight back to the Teton’s spawning tributaries, one of was which Fox Creek.

In no time at all what began as a romantic notion of a pretty ranch graced with a spring creek, became a major restoration project. It was an odyssey that along the way, transformed our family and our relationship to the land.

When we began, we really had no idea of the scope of the undertaking, the underlying science, or the regulatory world. Let’s just say, we learned a thing or two. We began as earnest landowners, and by the time we finished – thirteen years later– we had made new friends, broadened our vocabulary, and gained a deep understanding of the interconnectedness of water, land, and wildlife.

Those new friends included the Friends of the Teton River and the very capable people at the Teton Regional Land Trust and Ducks Unlimited. They put us in touch with scientists, stream specialists, and plant and fishery biologists. Foremost among them was Scott Gillilan (Gillilan Assoc), a biologist and hydrologist, whose pioneering restoration methods made all the difference. Scott and the Land Trust guided us through an alphabet soup of regulatory agencies: Idaho Fish and Wildlife Foundation, Idaho Department of Water Resources, Idaho Department of Environmental Quality, and The Army Corps of Engineers, to name just a few. We worked with different contractors, but happily settled on Arlin Grimes (Aqua Terra Restoration) here in Driggs–because he not only understood the vision, but he had an almost intuitive understanding of stream hydrology.

Through our many, many, many meetings with these agencies and their hard-working professional staff, we learned about stream form and speed-of-flow, and pool-riffle-run bedform geometry. The Land Trust staff helped us to understand the broader concept of riparian corridors. The fisheries biologists educated us about the Yellowstone cutthroat trout, its habitat, the need to restore spawning gravels, and concerns with competing species.

From Ducks Unlimited, we learned about the importance of migratory birds, native wetland grasses, and the threat of invasive plant species. A wetland plant materials specialist from Aberdeen, Idaho, taught us about willow varieties, explaining their propagation, and value for bank stabilization. Along the way, Blaine’s son, Beach, who had been all across the world as a river guide, came home to join us. He became a willow expert in his own right as he guided teams of hardy volunteers from the Land Trust, Grand Targhee, and around the valley to harvest and transplant over 20,000 native willow cuttings and almost 1,000 trees and shrubs.

We began to observe and identify the many bird species around us. Alongside the pros, we measured sediment, and turbidity, and gravel matrices. We helped with fish counts and redd counts. And while doing all of that, we spent 3 years arguing with regulators to grant us permits for a kind of in-stream excavation that had never before been allowed in the Henry’s Fork Watershed.

Finally, with the help of an abundantly talented team of committed people, we succeeded. We worked for thirteen years through four phases of permitting to restore more than two miles of Fox Creek and a half-mile of Little Fox Creek. We planted thousands of willows and other native vegetation. We excavated a series of three large wetland ponds, creating more than 30 acres of open water and marsh. All of this worked to the benefit of aquatic, riparian, wetland, and upland habitats.

How do we know what the hard work accomplished? In June 2019, Friends of the Teton River issued a report summarizing Teton River trout densities between 2003-2017. By their counts, Yellowstone cutthroat trout numbers went from 14 per mile to 936. All trout species went from 420 per mile to 3,867. We have seen otter and mink return to the creek. Increasing numbers and varieties of birds are nesting, foraging, and staging throughout the year.

We set out to transform a creek and along the way we transformed our family as well. Beach stayed on to manage the ranch and make his home in the valley. As we came to understand the roles of water, land, and wildlife, we modified our ranch practices to safeguard the land and water. Wildlife, especially fish and birds, responded. Because of our work together throughout the project, we turned to the Teton Regional Land Trust, and with them worked out our first conservation easement in 2007.

Part of Blaine’s legacy to his family was to instill in us a love for this land and a commitment to take care of it. We have been stewards of Fox Creek Ranch for 23 years. Last year our family put an additional 100 acres under easement to further protect this thriving riparian landscape. We are grateful to the Land Trust for working with us over the years, to help guide our restoration projects, and to help us preserve our land while maintaining it as a productive ranch. It has been an amazing adventure!

Beautifully restored Fox Creek exemplifies the connection between water, land, and wildlife.

“A community is the mental and spiritual condition of knowing that the place is shared and that the people who share the place define and limit the possibilities of each other’s lives. It is the knowledge that people have of each other, their concern for each other, their trust in each other, the freedom with which they come and go among themselves.”

― Wendell Berry

Teton Full Circle Farm owners Erika Eschholz and Ken Michael own twenty acres of prime farmland just outside the City of Victor. Though this parcel could have easily sold for residential development, Erika and Ken saw prospect in the property to turn it into their dream farm and worked with Teton Regional Land Trust to place it under conservation easement in order to afford the land. The funds from the conservation easement payment went directly to pay off their farm loan which allowed them to put future farm-generated income into improving and expanding their farm. Additionally, if and when they sell the farmland it will be sold to a farmer at an agricultural land-use price because it cannot be developed, ensuring that the land stays affordable for the next farmer.

Teton Full Circle is a certified organic farm. Organic farms provide benefits to pollinator and insect species that are seeing population declines due to prevalent use of heavy pesticides and loss of habitat. Pollinators provide an essential ecosystem service that benefits agricultural producers, agricultural consumers, and gardeners. Protection of Teton Full Circle Farm will benefit pollinator species designated by the Idaho Department of Fish and Game as Species of Greatest Conservation Need including: Hunt’s bumble bee, Morrison’s bumble bee, and Mason bee. Teton Full Circle Farm takes organic farming a step further with biodynamic farming practices. Organic and biodynamic farming are similar as both grow without chemicals and Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs); moreover, biodynamic farming is a holistic practice where all things are considered living interrelated systems – animals, plants, soil, and the solar system. A farm is viewed as its own organism where everything it needs to thrive is produced onsite.

Teton Full Circle Farm has grown their Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) operation on their new farm, providing local food for their community. They currently offer half-shares and full-shares of their delicious produce as well as an organic seasonal flower CSA. Buying from sustainable farms like Teton Full Circle supports local food, healthy ecosystems, and a strong community.

Photo by Camrin Dengel

Ken and Erika’s story, in their own words:

It is really no surprise we farm. We both grew up in families where much of the food we ate came from the backyard. From a young age we learned how to raise, care for, and take pride in a productive home garden. As we got older, we became more and more spoiled on an abundance of good things to eat. Gardening became a passion, a way of life.

We fell in love the summer of 2012. Erika, a seasoned farmer and gardener was in her fourth year as farm manager at Snowdrift Farm. Ken, an idealistic intern with big ideas was fresh out of college with his sights set on farming. We became inseparable. Sharing a propensity toward simple living, a deep appreciation for nature, and an incurable gardening fever, we embarked on a path to heal the earth through organic/biodynamic farming.

In 2013, we founded Erika Eschholz LLC doing business under the Snowdrift Farm name. After completing a successful season and becoming engaged in the fall, an irresistible opportunity arose at the former Blue Flax Farm. In spring, 2014 Teton Full Circle Farm was born.

From the beginning of Teton Full Circle Farm, we sought a place to sink our roots and call home. Though we loved simple living, our off-grid yurt life with no running water would take its toll. We considered buying our farm at Mountainside Village outright, but could not afford to purchase at development prices. We looked farther afield.

We identified four property purchase essentials to guide our land search: good soil, reliable water access, supportive community, and affordable land. In 2015, we visited a property in Greenville, West Virginia complete with rolling pastures and expansive woods, only to find that despite its incredible natural beauty it lacked a reliable water source and supportive community to buy the produce.

In February 2016 Erika’s parents found a dream farm for sale near their home in Maine. It was 90-acres of picturesque fields and woodland boasting a well-kept historic farm house, barns and outbuildings. Moreover, this farm was listed at below half its original market value thanks to the Maine Farmland Trust. In a novel strategy for conserving land, the Farmland Trust purchased the farm, placed an agricultural easement on the property and listed it without its development rights, making this idyllic farm not just affordable, but a screaming deal. It sounded too good to be true – and it was. Applications to purchase the farm closed the day before we called. Disappointed yet encouraged, we made contact with the Maine Farmland Trust to learn how agricultural easements make farmland affordable and protect it forever.

That spring we redoubled our efforts to find land out east. We scoured farm listings, made contact with land owners, and booked flights to Maine and Vermont. New England was charming and peaceful, but nowhere did we find all four of our criteria. We returned home heavy-hearted and back at square one. Our trip forced us to face the realities of moving and starting over across the country felt impossible. Meanwhile, our homecoming helped us realize how deeply we loved our community in the Tetons. How could we leave?

Then it happened. A few weeks after our return, the perfect property surfaced just one mile north (as the crow flies) of our present leased land in Victor, Idaho. “Hey Ken and Erika, I saw a piece of property over by my place you may be interested in. It sounds a lot like what you said you’re looking for,” wrote Scott Paulson via text one evening in early July. A few days later on the 4th we visited the farm and within minutes knew it was the one. It had good soil, solid irrigation water, and the same great community we loved, and a reasonable price relative to other properties we viewed. The only problem was that, despite being more reasonable than other properties, this land was listed at development prices, thus out of our reach.

After all we had gone through, money was not going to deter us and we immediately set our minds to making this farm a reality. We contacted the USDA Farm Service Agency to see if we were candidates for a low-interest loan. Check. We contacted the Teton Regional Land Trust to see if they could put an agricultural easement on this property. Check. Thus encouraged, we chipped away at months of negotiations with the seller and one massive loan application from the USDA Farm Service Agency in-between harvest days. After submitting dozens of mind-numbing financial and agricultural reports from the last three years, we were accepted for a mortgage loan. Fall came, the growing season ended, and on November 4th, 2016 our dream came true.

Gardening has been a part of us all of our lives and we finally have a place to carry out our vision. On this farm, we will build soil, increase biodiversity, improve human health, and create opportunities for new farmers to pursue their passions. On this farm, community members will learn, eat great food, share knowledge and skills, and spread love. We are on the brink of something momentous, but we need your help to get there. Life just isn’t as delicious without local food and local farms.

Teton Regional Land Trust was proud to work with Ken and Erika in making their land affordable and protected forever. This is a great example of how a conservation easement can benefit the whole community. For more information about Teton Full Circle Farm, please visit: www.tetonfullcirclefarm.org