|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
||||||||||||||
|
 |
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|||||||
|
||||||||||||||
Great grizzly habitat protected on the Front
 |
| Dupuyer Creek running through the Hager Ranch © Steve Akre |
Conservation easement resolves complex family estate issue
A working ranch with some of the best grizzly bear habitat on the Rocky Mountain Front has now been protected from future development by a Nature Conservancy conservation easement.
The agreement covers the 4,354-acre Hager Ranch west of Dupuyer, Montana. It is considered by biologists to be the last best unprotected segment of Dupuyer Creek.
The property includes native grassland and rich wetlands straddling Dupuyer Creek, an area used extensively by grizzly and black bear, mountain lions, white tail deer and other wildlife.
With the transaction, the owners of the property – the Swanson and Field families – were able to work out an ownership arrangement agreeable to all. The voluntary conservation easement, which paid the owners the development value of the land, resolved a complex estate issue for the family. With the proceeds from the easement, the Swanson side of the family was able to buy out the Field family members who had little interest in continued ownership of the ranch.
The property is a few miles from the Blackleaf Wildlife Management Area and other conservation-easement protected private properties, including the Boone and Crockett Theodore Roosevelt Memorial Ranch.
Grizzly haven
Dupuyer Creek which runs through the property is a haven for grizzly bear and other large carnivores. Like other low-elevation areas on the Front, the property offers a high-protein food source earlier in the spring than high elevation lands. Chokecherries and a smorgasboard of other bear-eating plants are plentiful in the fall. The creek bottoms are full of cottonwood, river birch and willows, including Autumn willow, a rare species in Montana – all offering security for the bruins and other large carnivores.
One willow species found here, the Autumn willow (Salix serissima), is a species of concern in Montana. Visit the Montana Natural Heritage website for more information on this plant.
Milestone
The future is looking bright for the Rocky Mountain Front. The Conservancy has helped private landowners conserve more than 50,600 acres of prime low-elevation grizzly habitat and working ranchlands. Total private land protected from development on the Front by all groups and agencies is now at 98,000 acres, much of it in contiguous connected blocks.
Landowner demand for conservation easements is growing at a time when federal funding for easements has been drastically reduced. However, a new federal law provides extensive tax breaks for landowners who donate conservation easements. For full-time ranchers and farmers, the deduction is 100 percent and can be used over 16 years. To receive these benefits, the easement must be completed by the end of 2007.
