By MICHELE F. MIHALJEVICH
Indiana Correspondent

INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. — More than 13,000 acres in Indiana could be used to create habitats for several endangered species under a new state USDA Farm Service Agency (FSA) program.

State Acres for Wildlife Habitat, or SAFE, is a Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) that allocates 13,100 acres in Indiana for the protection of the Northern Bobwhite Quail, Henslow’s Sparrow, Sedge Wren/Grasshopper Sparrow and the Indiana Bat, said Michelle Howell, conservation specialist at the Indiana FSA.

Each species has a priority area in the state and each area has a set amount of acreage that may be enrolled in the program, she said. Landowners may voluntarily put their land in the program for anywhere from 10-15 years. Landowners will receive financial assistance to construct habitats, along with annual rental payments and incentives, she added.

“We’re excited about it,” Howell said. “We hope it’s a continuing program and one people will use. There’s a lot of interest across the state and people realize how important this is for wildlife enhancement.” Sign-up for the program began in mid-May and runs until the all the acreage has been allocated, she said. The program requires that land entered into it must be cropland, and must be changed to suit the particular species.

“The program targets where the species are and then looks to protect them,” Howell said. “These species are endangered in these areas.”

Interest in the program has been strong in northeastern Indiana, which is a priority area for the Indiana Bat and the Sedge Wren/Grasshopper Sparrow, said Aleatha Meyer, Allen County CRP technician. “We’ve had quite a bit of interest in just two weeks,” she said. “I’ve talked to about a dozen people, and five or six have been approved already.”

The first step in the process is for interested landowners to go to their local FSA office to go over the program’s requirements and to discuss incentives and rental payments, Meyer said.

Once the site is reviewed and approved by NRCS, contracts are signed and approved. While it may take as long as a week for final approval, some have been approved the same day, she said.
After the first two weeks of sign-up, 39 percent of the acreage allocated for the Northern Bobwhite Quail has been placed in the program, Howell said. The Bobwhite’s priority area is from central Indiana to the northwestern corner, and has 3,875 acres, of which about 1,509 has been contracted already, she said.

“The land in this priority area is going the quickest,” she said. “It’s a grass practice, an easier practice. We figured that it would be the more popular practice.”

For the Sedge Wren/Grasshopper Sparrow, 3,250 acres are available and about 132 have been entered into the program. The priority areas for this species are the west side of the state and the northeastern corner, Howell said. Grasses and wetlands would need to be created in these areas. The priority area for the Henslow’s Sparrow is the southern part of the state. About 377 acres have been enrolled out of a possible 3,875, she said. This species also requires a grasses habitat.

The Indiana Bat priority area is in the northern two-thirds of the state and also in the southwestern corner. Of the 2,100 possible acres, about 237 have been contracted to the program, Howell said.
Because the bat requires an all-trees habitat, entering land into this portion of the program requires a longer-term commitment, she said.

In addition to the requirement that property entered in the program must be cropland, the current landowner must have owned or operated the land for a minimum of a year prior to enrolling, and the cropland must have been cropped four out of six years from 1996-2001.