Rice farmers enlisted to sustain Pacific Flyway birds
Sixth-generation rice grower Jeff Gallagher is perpetually surrounded by birds on the Sutter County farm that has been in his family since 1872. The soundtrack of his life is the din caused by the itinerant visitors—nasal honks of wild geese, hisses of sandhill cranes and other bird chatter at his 4,000-acre ranch in Rio Oso, a rice-farming region north of Sacramento. … Gallagher is doing his part to preserve it by enlisting in a new program to flood rice fields for wildlife. It is designed to protect bird habitat in California’s Central Valley over the next 10 years.