Half of Chaumont farm's land paying off for owners, birds

The Chaumont farm that's been in Gail W. Miller's family since 1838 is now for the birds.

Ms. Miller maintains a little more than 100 acres of the nearly 200-acre tract she inherited with her sister to serve as a habitat for grassland bird species. In return, the state of New York pays Ms. Miller for continuing to provide a home for threatened and endangered species like the Henslow's and grasshopper sparrows, the horned lark and the northern harrier.

"To me, everybody wins," Ms. Miller said. "The state wins, the wildlife wins, and so does the landowner, because they're all in concert with the way it's being managed."

She is in the Department of Environmental Conservation's Landowner Incentive Program for Grassland Protection and Management, through which she has received grant funding for the conservation project for about a year.

DEC is seeking other private landowners in Jefferson and St. Lawrence counties, who, like Ms. Miller, own land important to grassland bird species, are interested in keeping large parcels intact, and could use a financial boost to keep the temptation of development at bay. Summer 2008 marked the first nesting season the grassland incentive program was implemented. Along with similar programs to protect bog turtles and bats, it was the first program in the state to provide habitat management grants to private landowners.

Landowners interested in enrolling a minimum of 10 acres in the program are selected through a competitive grant application process. About $300,000 in funding is available in selected counties for the program's second and final funding cycle, which begins in summer 2010. About $300,000 was allocated in 2007-08.

Jefferson and St. Lawrence counties are "ground zero for grassland birds," DEC's Marcelo del Puerto said Tuesday from Albany. Mr. del Puerto coordinates the agency's landowner incentive programs throughout the state.

"Grassland birds are very area-sensitive species; they need large acreages," he said. "If you join up all the state agencies, there's not enough grassland to provide adequate protection. Eighty-five to 90 percent of grasslands in New York are privately owned, and a lot of them are up your way."

Jefferson and St. Lawrence counties "are very, very important to bobolink production for the entire country," he said. The species isn't listed as threatened or endangered in New York state, but is vulnerable because of its heavy reliance on a relatively small area.

"They breed there by the hundreds," he said, whereas it's rare to spot even a dozen at once in any other part of the state. About 15 percent to 20 percent of bobolinks in the country live in the two counties.

For Ms. Miller, who lives on the former farmland at 11633 County Route 125, the program has been a way to do something good for the environment without going broke — or, more likely, selling out to developers, she said. She and her sister, who lives in Maryland, inherited the land and wanted to keep it intact, but, she said, "both of us have professional lives that are pretty hectic. For awhile, we did mulch hay removal, but there aren't as many people taking hay off (the land)," she said.

"We were looking for a way to make money from the farm and still preserve our vision of it. We were doing a lot of research as to what we could do, and we came upon this program, and I believe we were one of the top applicants in the state," for the amount of land they wanted to enroll, she said.

"We knew that we had grassland that was of interest, and with our vision of the farm, this program was just a perfect fit for us."

Landowners accepted into the program sign five-year contracts with the DEC agreeing to maintain and, in some cases, enhance grasslands on their property in exchange for payments of $55 to $60 per acre per year.

Once landowners are accepted into the program, the DEC and partner Audubon New York work together with the landowner to prepare a management plan for the enrolled grasslands. Plans usually include periodic mowing outside the nesting season to keep out later successional species, and some preparatory enhancement work that includes removing shrubbery, trees or hedgerows to create or improve unbroken grassland areas. The Audubon Society and the DEC also work together to check sites for compliance.

Ms. Miller said she hired out the preparatory shrub removal work required on some of her land, but "even figuring our taxes and mowing last year, we're still a little bit ahead — and that means the taxes on the whole farm."

After the initial prep work, Ms. Miller's maintenance obligations now are simply to mow a thirdof the enrolled grasslands each year once the nesting season is over.

Grassland birds make tough interviews, but DEC's Marcelo del Puerto said they appreciate the breathing — and nesting — room landowners like Gail Miller are giving them.

"What's happened in New York is that since 1950, the number of farms has been decreasing," he said. Then the natural process of succession turns grass into shrubs and shrubs into trees. Succession isn't bad in itself, but the problem for the birds is that they've relied for decades on New York farmers maintaining space for their habitats. Largely pushed out of the midwest and with large tracts of open space being subdivided for development, these sensitive species now have fewer places that can support them.

Ms. Miller said the landowner incentive program is exciting because it allows her do something good for the environment with her land without losing ownership or other rights.

"There have been concerns in the past about the needs of the state and the rights of the landowner," she said. "This, to me, is the wave of the future, because the landowners enters into it willingly and then receives some remuneration. It enables people who are not necessarily wealthy to do something for the greater good at minimal cost to the state of New York." Without it, "we were probably going to have to cave to development," she said.

Applications, due Aug. 1, and more information about the program are available by calling 518-402-8910 or by going to the DEC's Web site at www.dec.ny.gov. Type "grassland birds" in the search box.