Swift Current has multiple species at risk that rely on healthy watershed habitats, and one local non-profit has a plan to improve them.  

The Swift Current Creek Watershed Stewards (SCCWS) have created a Species at Risk Conservation Plan project that identified and mapped the species and their habitats. 

Kevin Steinley, executive director of the Swift Current Creek Watershed Stewards, said that they're not looking to seed anything just yet.

"It was a project to identify areas of grassland fragmentation that if seeded to native grasses, would improve the habitat for some of these species at risk," he explained. "Once these were identified, then a plan on how to re-establish the grasslands was created."

At this time the plan is to simply identify the areas where seeding would be beneficial, and then finding ways to assist producers and land owners in the area who would consider re-establishing the grasslands in their operations. 

"What we're hoping to accomplish in the Swift Current and area is to improve the habitat for many of the species at risk that are present," he said. "To help improve biodiversity in both plant and animal life in the area, and also as a way to help improve water quality and water quantity within the Swift Current Creek watershed."

In a release sent out by the SCCWS, they stated that some of the species studied in the project include Sprague’s Pipit, Burrowing Owl, Loggerhead Shrike, Piping Plover, and Ferruginous Hawk. The surveys did show that these and other Species at Risk are present throughout the study area, but other species were present in greater numbers underlying the need to increase habitat for the target species.