01/13/06 Candidate Conservation Agreements

FOSS "This species can't be recovered without cooperation from private landowners." That's Jeff Foss of the US Fish and Wildlife Service talking about conservation efforts to save the southern Idaho ground squirrel. The efforts of six landowners in four counties have really paid off because they agreed to put certain conservation measures onto their 100 thousand acres. Candidate Conservation Agreements with Assurances or CCAA's are site specific plans tailored to each landowner's property. The ultimate goal is to remove or reduce enough threats on enrolled lands that, if enough people sign up, their actions could prevent the need for a species to be on the endangered of threatened list. Most CCAA agreements take three to four months to develop, a permit has to be issued and the landowner gets to maintain his privacy expect for the state or federal officials monitoring the status of the species and its habitat. US Fish and Wildlife assures the landowner that additional restrictions will not be imposed on the land management practices should species listing occur at a later date. Since 85 percent of these ground squirrels were found on private property in Gem, Adams, Payette and Washington counties federal land managers say this kind of partnership is a win for the squirrel and a win for the landowners. Today's Idaho Ag News Bill Scott