Caddyshack Meets Bonanza
Idaho ranchers get regulatory protection for helping out some squirrels
Posted: 15-Nov-2005; Updated: 05-Sep-2007
Rancher Margaret Hinson and her sheep. (Photo by Joe Hinson.)
Working through a Candidate Conservation Agreement with Assurances, responsible landowners, coupled with traditional land uses, are helping to ensure the survival of a small animal in southwest Idaho. Soulen Livestock, a family owned sheep and cattle operation headquartered in Weiser, Idaho, has welcomed nearly 200 southern Idaho ground squirrels (Spermophilus brunneus endemicus) relocated from sites where populations have been imperiled because of the decline of its sagebrush and bunchgrass habitat. The company and its federal and state partners hope the relocated squirrels will thrive, making it unnecessary to list this subspecies as threatened like its close relative, the northern Idaho ground squirrel (Spermophilus brunneus brunneus).
Umbrella Agreement Gives Squirrels Another Boost
The southern Idaho ground squirrel is found in only three counties in western Idaho and is considered a candidate for listing. Along with its other close relatives, it has been declining in numbers for perhaps two decades. Like many ranch operations in the West, Soulen Livestock operates on a mixture of federal, state, and private lands. In the vicinity of the squirrels, the company owns some 43,000 acres of rangeland and leases approximately the same amount of Bureau of Land Management and state land. Soulen Livestock is one of the largest range sheep operations left in the state, with 8,000 ewes tended by Peruvian herders who stay yearround with the sheep over an extensive range. The company also has 1,000 cow and calf pairs. Margaret Soulen Hinson is a partner in Soulen Livestock with her father, Phil, and brother, Harry. Her husband, Joe, is a former timber industry executive and now a partner in a natural resource consulting firm. "Joe's knowledge of the Endangered Species Act and his experience with such plans as Candidate Conservation Agreements with Assurances was a real advantage," she says. "This is complicated business," Margaret notes.
(Photo By Joe Hinson.)
Now, based on the experiment on the Soulen operation, Joe's firm, in cooperation with Environmental Defense, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Idaho Department of Fish and Game, and the Idaho Governor's Office of Species Conservation, is working with other local ranchers on similar agreements. The Leopold Stewardship Fund -- an initiative of the Sand County Foundation and Environmental Defense that is dedicated to conserving rare species on working private lands -- is helping fund this work. Thanks largely to the example set by Soulen Livestock, an "umbrella" Candidate Conservation Agreement with Assurances was signed in March 2005, covering the four counties thought to be the historic range of the species. Most of the squirrels relocated to the Soulen ranch came from a golf course in Weiser, home of one of the largest southern Idaho ground squirrel populations.
"As you can imagine, we became the object of a lot of good-natured jokes about taking squirrels off the golf course and letting them roam free on the ranch. We sometimes refer to the whole effort as 'Caddyshack Meets Bonanza.'"
Some people speculate that, with the loss of their native habitat, these squirrels use artificial habitats, such as farms and golf courses, because these manmade grasslands provide abundant grass for food and enough people to discourage raptors, badgers, snakes and other predators.
"My family, and certainly Joe and I, all share a love of wildlife and the out-of-doors. It is, in fact, why we all got into this business, and we want to see all the wildlife for which we have some responsibility do well through the way we run our operation."
