Way We Were: Making room for Mother Nature

Not long ago, Rhea Cone, director of conservation at the Swaner Nature Preserve and EcoCenter, was visited by two men who had camped on the land in the early 1990s as participants in a Boy Scout Jamboree.

“They called it a dust bowl,” she said. “But I think that that dust bowl of the early ’90s … today would be too wet to camp in for a lot of the year.”

In the 32 years since the Swaner family set out to restore 190 acres of their ranchland near Kimball Junction to their natural state, a remarkable transformation has been taking place. Those 190 acres have become 1,200. Streams have returned to their original meandering channels. Willows sprout along their banks. Birdwatchers have spotted more than 170 species, from American kestrels to mountain bluebirds. Elk, mule deer, beavers, red fox