In 1974 a group of enthusiastic birders in the Bigfork area put together the first Bigfork Christmas Bird Count. Inspired by the Count, they started the Lower Valley Bird Club – generally known as the Bigfork Bird Club.  Three years later, in 1977, they turned this club into an Audubon Chapter – the Flathead Audubon Society (FAS).

I. Getting Established: 1977-1997. 

In its first 20 years, the new FAS developed activities and programs typical of local chapters of National Audubon. The chapter held monthly meetings September through May that featured programs on birds and other nature topics. Initially they were held in Bigfork, then in 1994 they (and Chapter’s address) were moved to Kalispell because it was more centrally located. The Chapter produced a newsletter for its members, initially called The Accipiter Express.

The name was changed in 1979 to The Pileated Post. During the first 5 years, the newsletter came out sporadically, “only as finances allow”. Then in 1982 nine issues were produced, one for each month the meetings were held, and except for an occasional missed January issue, that has been the pattern ever since.

At that time, the members of an Audubon chapter were simply all the members of National Audubon who lived in the chapter’s membership region. For FAS this region stretched from the Idaho border to the continental divide, and from the Canada border to a line south of Polson. (This southern boundary moved north in 1998 when the Mission Mountain Audubon chapter, based in Polson, was formed.) In this early period, National Audubon helped support its local chapters by sending them a large portion of the membership dues it received from the folks who lived in the chapter’s membership region. This income helped pay for newsletter costs, and finance some local projects. Like most Audubon chapters, FAS also raised funds by selling bags of bird seed each fall, mostly to its own members.  

As with all Audubon chapters, FAS activities fell into three focus areas: Conservation, Education, and Birds.

Conservation activities were guided by the chapter’s Conservation Committee. The Committee tracked local, state, and national proposals of programs and legislation that could have conservation or environmental consequences, and alerted the Board and members of ways they could influence the final shape of these programs and legislation by speaking up at public meetings or writing letters of comment. Usually at any given time, the FAS chapter was actively addressing several controversial proposals.

During this period, FAS pursued a variety of Education activities. Early on it developed a library of nature topic books for members to check out at meeting and developed a slide collection focused on birds, wildlife, and their habitats, to be used at meetings and in presentations to local classrooms or meetings of local organizations. For a while, the chapter awarded each year several hundred dollars to a Flathead Valley school, to purchase books on birds or other nature topics for the school’s library, and provided some local school classrooms with a subscription to Audubon Adventures, a science-based curriculum developed by National Audubon for grades 3-5. In some years, FAS scholarships allowed members to participate in classes or study sessions on birds.       

On the topic of Birds FAS provided a full schedule of birding field trips to a variety of local and not-so local bird-rich areas, available to FAS members and the general publica; sponsored classes at FVCC on bird ID and related topics; developed a checklist of birds present in the Flathead that included seasonal abundance, based on the bird lists kept by FAS members; and offered grants to local bird researchers

II. New projects and Big Changes 1997-2010. 

In these next 11 years, new projects were initiated.

(1) Conservation:  Two new Projects.

In 1997, Flathead County decided it could no longer afford to pay for its lease on what was then known as the Owen Sowerwine Natural Area. In order to ensure Owen Sowerwine (OS) would remain under conservation management, FAS began paying the County’s lease fee, and agreed to manage this property. When the County’s lease expired in 2000, FAS and Montana Audubon (MA) worked together to negotiate a new 10-year license for OS.  MA was made license holder, FAS and MA shared the license fee, and FAS served as local manager. In 2010, a second license was negotiated. Again MA was listed as license holder, FAS and MA shared the cost, and FAS was local manager.

In 2002 FAS initiated its Conservation Achievement Recognition (CAR) program. At that time, there was a loud and aggressive anti-environmentalist contingent in the Flathead, spearheaded by KGEZ radio station. The CAR program began as a way to counter this attempt to paint conservationists as a radical, fringe element, by shining a spotlight on the many different types of people and projects that contribute to conservation in the Flathead.

(2) Education: The FAS Conservation Education Program was started.

By 2000, FAS was engaged in just two of the education activities mentioned above: awarding funds each year to a local school to purchase nature books for its library, and raising funds to provide local classrooms with subscriptions to Audubon Adventures. Then in 2002 the Chapter formed a new Education Committee tasked with developing more hands-on education services for local schools. In each of the years 2003 and 2004, the Committee mounted a two 2-day teacher’s workshops to help teachers introduce a unit on local birds and bird habitats in their classroom, which included a field trip to OS. The Committee also developed a number of education trunks of bird related education materials to be loaned at no charge to local teachers for use in their classrooms. The Committee secured a $1500 education grant from Montana Audubon each year to cover trunk expenses and pay someone to administer the trunk loan program.  

When Montana Audubon discontinued its education grants, a local non-profit, The Sustainability Fund, offered seed money to FAS to keep its budding Education Program going, on condition that FAS would provide matching funds. This allowed FAS to contract with a nature educator to administer the trunk program and also go into local school classrooms to do presentations on birds. The FAS Conservation Education Program was born. Over the next few years The Sustainability Fund provided larger amounts, on condition that FAS provide matching funds, which made possible larger stipends for the Educator and a steady expansion of the FAS Education Program. When in 2010 the Sustainability Fund announced it could no longer help finance the FAS Education Program, the Program’s yearly budget was over $25,000. That was a lot for FAS to commit to raising each year, it would be a big step for the Chapter to take. After considerable discussion the Board voted to do it, and began developing new funding sources to keep the Program going.

(3) Birds: The Chapter continued to mount a full schedule of birding field trips for its members and the public. These have come to include an annual 2-day trip to Freezout Lake to view migrating Snow Geese, and an annual 3-day Tally Lake Warbler Days.

And in 2002, two new bird related projects were started. FAS prepared and published the first edition of the brochure Birding Hotspots in the Flathead Basin, which was later updated. These brochures are provided free of charge to FAS members and the public. And the Bird of the Month feature was instituted in the Pileated Post. An article on a local bird species is published each month in the Post, and also republished in the Daily Inter Lake

This period also brought significant changes in the chapter’s structure and finances.

Starting in 2000 National Audubon began reducing the amount of funding it was providing to

Its local chapters, as it began keeping a larger portion of the membership dues it received for its own conservation programs. Finally in 2003, National announced a major change in policy: chapters would be allowed to institute their own local membership program to make up for this loss of income. Faced with falling revenue coming from National, FAS instituted a local membership program the next year. FAS was the first chapter in Montana to do this, and one of the first in the nation. Now a local membership program is standard for most Audubon chapters.

III. Major Advances 2011-2024.

This recent period has seen further developments in all three focus areas, with a major advance in each area in 2024.

Conservation: In 2019, the license on OS was reconfigured: FAS and MA were made co-holders of the license, with FAS having full authority to negotiate with DNRC on OS matters. This allowed FAS to take the lead in negotiating with DNRC for a new license to go into effect when the 2010–2020 license expired. At that point FAS and DNRC agreed that instead of protecting OS ten years at a time, a long-term solution was needed. In early 2020 FAS and MA jointly signed a 3-year license for OS to ensure continued conservation-based management of the Area; this would allow three years to find and finalize a long-term solution. Working together, FAS and DNRC determined that the most feasible solution, and the one uniquely authorized by state law, was a conservation easement. Flathead Land Trust (FLT) agreed to hold the easement, and over the next three years, representatives of FAS, DNRC, and FLT, met regularly to put together the Owen Sowerwine Conservation Easement and the companion Management Plan. FLT, FAS, and the Flathead Lakers secured a variety of grants and spearheaded a major funding campaign to raise the almost $1 million needed to purchase the easement. Contributions from non-profits and individuals throughout the Flathead Valley helped make this possible. 

The Owen Sowerwine property was finally given permanent conservation protection when the Easement was finalized February 29, 2024 (the day the 3-year interim license expired). FAS continues as manager of OS, under a cooperative arrangement that involves a few changes: OS is still a tract of school trust land owned by DNRC, but now Flathead Land Trust holds a conservation easement on it; FAS continues its conservation management of the property, but now as a designated third-party cooperator rather than a license holder; MA continues as a partner in this management, providing insurance and helping with management expenses. 

Education: In 2011 to 2024, a series of FAS Educators guided and shaped the Education Program, and OS become more frequently used for the Program. In 2018 a separate Education Trail was constructed at OS to serve a designated outdoor classroom area. When for 2 years, Covid restrictions prevented personal interaction between the Educator and local students and other groups, the Education Program took another step forward. To replace personal contact with students, FAS began producing educational videos. Video production has continued past the Covid years and now a number of FAS Education videos are offered on the FAS YouTube channel. The Conservation Education Program was expanded again in 2024 when FAS hired its first full-time employee, an Education Coordinator.

Birds:  In 2007, Dan Casey had discovered that a large number of hawks pass through the Jewel Basin area during fall migration. The next year, he developed the Jewel Basin Hawk Watch. Observations were carried out by volunteers and paid observers, many of them FAS members, and FAS provided a portion of the funding. When Dan relocated to Billings in 2016, FAS stepped in to assume primary responsibility for organizing the Hawk Watch and for generating the funding, with Dan still playing a guiding role.  FAS has helped recruit new volunteer observers for the Hawk Watch by coordinating it with the chapter’s Birds of Prey Festival at Lone Pine, and offering free training in raptor ID and field trips up to the Hawk Watch Site. Under Dan’s direction, fully integrated online scheduling and reporting has been instituted in 2024.

In 2020 FAS began participating in the Whitefish Foundation’s Great Fish Community Challenge, a Valley-wide fundraising event, which has become a dependable source of substantial funding for the chapter. This has enabled FAS to open its first chapter office in 2024. In that same year, FAS hired its first full-time employee to serve primarily as the FAS Education Coordinator, but also, secondarily, as a part-time office manager.