Dear American Wildlanders:

July 14th, 2007 ? American Wildlands at the Corporation for the Northern Rockies Sustainability Fair

For the fourth year in a row, we will have the good fortune of hosting an American Wildlands information booth at the annual Corporation for the Northern Rockies Sustainability Fair in Livingston, Montana. AWL needs 8-10 volunteers to donate an hour helping steward our display table at the Fair at Sacajawea Park in Livingston on Saturday July 14th.

We are looking for volunteers who can join AWL staff at the booth for an hour between 8:00 am to 5:00 pm. You?ll have the opportunity to spend time with some of our staff, and learn more about AWL?s conservation projects.

In addition to generally introducing visitors to American Wildlands and asking them to support our work, our primary objective for the day will be to get people to sign-up for our new citizen field survey of wildlife that are crossing I-90 on Bozeman Pass.

If you are interested in helping American Wildlands and being part of the popular Fair, please contact me at dbecker@wildlands.org, or 406-586-8175 Ext. 100. Each volunteer will receive an AWL T-shirt!

For more information about the Sustainability Fair, visit www.northrock.org.

July 28, 2007 - Help Beavers Restore Native Fish Habitat on the Ruby River ? 6 am to 8 pm (all day).

Come out and help beavers restore the integrity of watersheds and fish habitat on the Ruby River. Photo by Tyler Olson.

When Shawn Regnerus, American Wildlands? Living Waters Program Coordinator, told me that beavers need our help to restore a river, I couldn?t believe it. Apparently, beavers cannot build effective dams in some of the streams of the Upper Ruby River (in southwest Montana) because the willows and aspen that beavers need to build sturdy dams no longer exist along those stream sections. As explained in an article (page 10) Shawn wrote for our Spring 2007 newsletter, the lack of beaver dams has had a negative affect on the amount of spawning habitat for the native fish.

To help remedy this problem, for the second year in a row, American Wildlands will be working with the U.S. Forest Service on a habitat restoration project. The field work project will require moving aspen and willow branches to places where beaver can build dams, which in turn will help restore the natural flow of the stream and establish healthy spawning fish habitat.

This important restoration experiment needs volunteers who are interested in providing some sweat equity on July 28. In exchange, American Wildlands will provide transportation to and from the field site, as well as enough food and drink to keep us all well energized. Together, we will help restore the riparian habitat and native fish of the Upper Ruby River.

If you are interested in this ?get our hands dirty? work, please contact me at dbecker@wildlands.org, or 406-586-8175 Ext. 100. We need 4-8 volunteers for this project, and participants will receive an AWL T-shirt!