Just up Highway 83 from Seeley Lake, into the Clearwater River Drainage, sits Doug Anderson and Mary Miester’s slice of paradise. Doug and Mary began working with Five Valleys in early 2015 to put a conservation easement on their 35-acre property. The project received approval for Missoula County Open Space Bond funding this last August, and was finalized in September.
Located in the wild, scenic and green Seeley-Swan, the property is abundant with native flora and fauna. An unnamed stream flows gently down the western property line. Beargrass, woodland strawberry, huckleberry, and even a few rare mountain lady’s slipper are scattered across the underbrush, shaded by Douglas firs, Western larches, and lodgepole and ponderosa pines. And it’s not just plants and trees that make a home here.
This protected property is part of the larger network of critical habitat and habitat linkages for lynx, bears and wolverines.
One of the key conservation values of the Anderson-Miester property is the habitat it provides to a variety of wildlife, especially large carnivores and omnivores. Doug and Mary keep several wildlife cameras, and they’ve captured the gamut: deer, elk, moose, black bears, coyotes, even grizzlies.
Their property is part of the larger network of critical habitat and habitat linkages for lynx, bears and wolverines that lies in the narrow corridor between the Bob Marshall Wilderness to the north and east and the Mission Range to the north and west. Now protected, the Anderson-Miester property will safeguard wildlife habitat and connectivity in the Clearwater for generations to come.
Header photo courtesy of Doug Anderson
