About 1,620 more acres of wetland and sagebrush are under conservation protection following the granting of an easement last month to the Hailey-based Wood River Land Trust.
The easement is on the Camas Prairie, east of Fairfield, in the vicinity of other easements and public lands reserved for conservation.
The landowner is Ralph Campanale, a surgeon and Ketchum resident who bought the tract specifically to conserve it.
"There are two reasons why I originally purchased the property—to preserve it from development ... and to develop a relationship with this incredible piece of land as payback for all my years of outdoor recreation," Campanale said in a press release.
Keri York, stewardship coordinator for the Land Trust, stated that the organization was "very excited to have worked with Dr. Campanale to achieve his conservation goals."
The land includes a half mile of Camas Creek and all of the 150-acre Kelly Reservoir. The reservoir is about 13 miles east of Fairfield, and serves as a habitat for waterfowl.
According to the Land Trust, the area includes a large tract of sagebrush-steppe habitat, a type of land crucial to the survival of the greater sage grouse.
The grouse, a large, rounded-winged, ground-dwelling bird up to 30 inches long and 2 feet tall, has been denied federal protection under the Endangered Species Act. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which monitors species and decides which warrant protection, stated that sage grouse need protection but will have to wait due to budget constraints and the need to protect other, higher-priority species.
The easement also protects land that is a migration corridor for large game animals such as elk, antelope and mule deer.
About 300 acres of the easement is currently under agricultural use. According to the Land Trust, the use of that land will not change.
The Land Trust holds easements on more than 13,000 acres of land in the Wood River Valley, easements that indefinitely protect the land from commercial or residential development.
Katherine Wutz: kwutz@mtexpress.com
The Wood River Land Trust has gained an easement on more than 1,620 acres of sagebrush-steppe and wetlands habitat east of Fairfield in the Camas Prairie. The land is a migration area for wild game such as elk, deer and antelope, as well as habitat for the greater sage grouse. Photo by
