Land Is Kin: ACR at the 2025 Old Salt Festival
It may have been a cold and rainy weekend, but we had a fantastic time at the 2025 Old Salt Festival! This year’s festival was June 20 -22, on the Mannix Family Ranch in Helmville, Montana.
Check out some of our photos in this slideshow video:
Montana Audubon staff were joined by several National Audubon and Audubon Conservation Ranching staff, including National Audubon’s Chief Conservation Officer Marshall Johnson. Speaking to a packed tent, Johnson led the crowd in celebrating that the ranches in the Old Salt Co-op are now enrolled in the Audubon Conservation Ranching (ACR) program. Grasslands are an indispensable source of life, and we need them more than ever, he said. He also shared some staggering statistics. Since 1970, the US has lost nearly 60% of its grassland habitat- and nearly 43% of grassland bird species.
The ACR program is working to reverse those declines. Nationally, there are nearly 200 ranches participating in the program, encompassing nearly 4 million acres. And on those ranches, bird abundance has increased on average by 7%. ACR ranchers use adaptive, rotational grazing practices that create a mosaic of different grass heights and habitats, which provide essential habitat for different bird species. What’s good for birds is often good for pollinators, soil health, and water retention- creating a ripple effect through the ecosystem. The ACR program helps ranchers implement bird-friendly management practices on their lands, connecting them with the tools, resources, and marketplaces that allow them to be sustainable.
At the festival, Montana Audubon staff shared information about the ACR program and engaged festival attendees of all ages with our grassland-bird themed trivia wheel, as well as a birding scavenger hunt that sent enthusiastic younger attendees searching around the tent and other nonprofit booths, using their detection skills to find bird cut-outs we had placed for them to find. We also shared a list of all the bird species detected on the Mannix Ranch surveys, which had been conducted the week prior- 82 species, including 7 ACR priority grassland birds, and 7 Montana species of concern. We kept a running list of all birds detected during the festival, and joined both morning pasture walks, where our staff shared information about grassland birds and grassland conservation.
Montana Audubon was honored to be part of the Old Salt Festival, and we look forward to continuing our partnership with the ranches of the Old Salt Co-op!
Learn more about ACR:
