HAVRE, Mont. (NMB) – The Hill County Park Board convened on Monday evening for their regular monthly meeting.
Cabin owner Lou Hagener, a certified professional in rangeland management, presented a monitoring update, saying that the conditions at Beaver Creek Park are highly variable depending on the location.
“Normally Timothy is over your knees this time of year. This time, in my inspections, it was less than knee high…Even Kentucky Blue Grass was kind of meager.”
He says production is less than normal, and grass is lower than average throughout the park, and grasshoppers are prevalent in areas of hot, dry ground. He says that with the ongoing drought, September and October will be even more crucial than normal for ensuring health and productivity of the land.
He also requested an agenda item be put on next month’s meeting that would ask for better monitoring causal factors.
“We are coming to a stage where we have a wide-ranging monitoring of effects. However, we are not doing well at getting our records of causal factors of monitoring well organized. Those causal factors that need monitoring would be having a good record of all the weather circumstances. That includes the temperatures, the precip, the floods, the fires, etcetera. Use of vegetation including haying and grazing livestock, and those non-consumptive uses of our vegetation. Land treatments and land disturbance. Without having good monitoring of causal records, it is problematic and often speculative as to what is leading to the effects that we’re seeing and need to act on.”
The Board also approved the recommendations made by the Grazing Committee at a June 15th meeting. This included a haying recommendation similar to last year.
Superintendent Chad Edgar says that Park usage has been high recently. The recent wind storm caused downed trees and other issues that will take a few days to rectify. He adds that they have interviewed five applicants for the open job of Assistant to the Park Superintendent.
