01/12/06 Landowners honored for conservation work

Idaho Senator Mike Crapo and Congressman Butch Otter call it win-win conservation effort. Crapo was passing out his "Spirit of Idaho" awards yesterday to a half dozen landowners who engaged in a conservation effort to save the southern Idaho ground squirrel. 85 percent of the ground squirrel sites found in the lower elevations in the Weiser and Payette River basins are on private property. Joe Hinson of 44 thousand acre Soulen Livestock Company convinced some of his neighbors to join the Candidate Conservation Agreement by implementing conservation practices on their land. HINSON "If the species were listen then the coverage of the Endangered Species Act on ground squirrels is no less so than it is for grizzly bears or wolves or bull trout or some of the other species that make more headlines." Crapo says today nearly 100 thousand acres of privately held land in four southwestern counties will be included in the recovery effort thanks to Soulen and the other landowner groups. CRAPO "I would say the entire momentum of all of this came from private landowners to help us figure out a way to deal with the various issues that arise when under the Endangered Species Act we have to deal with a species." CCAA, a Candidate Conservation Agreement with Assurances. What exactly is that? Some answers tomorrow. Today's Idaho Ag News Bill Scott