Ackerman Meadow

Would love to see before, in progress and after photos

It’s a huge project, and it’s being done in stages. The cattle that ran on this property degraded the stream, and consequently that eroded down into a deep trench/gorge, which effectively drained the meadow. So for each section, the first step is heavy equipment, to fill in the gorge and level that part of the meadow out. That also involves placing ABDs (articifial beaver dams) throughout the meadow to slow water flow and saturate the meadow.  Once that is done. we go in and plant live plants in the resulting mud and slop–what fun.  And what do we plant?  Plants grown from seeds that we have collected from specific native species that live in the meadow.

This has now been more or less completed in the lower meadow–about a third of the total area.  They are now surveying the middle section, counting and collecting turtles and seeds, before coming in with the heavy equipment in that area.  And then they’ll address the upper lobes of the meadow.

Like I said, it’s a huge project.

Nice job, thanks, huge project

I was reading about something similar.  Projects in eastern oregon.

They build artificial beaver dams, which attracts actual beavers that then expand it.  I wonder if there are beavers around where you are.

https://www.opb.org/article/2024/08/31/students-building-dams-attract-beavers/