Egan Slough Jaquette Easement

Story and photo courtesy of the Flathead Land Trust.

We are excited to announce that Charles Jaquette has placed his 497-acre farm on Egan Slough just east of Kalispell under conservation easement with Flathead Land Trust. The farm has been in the family since 1907 and over 70% of the property contains rich topsoil most of which is “prime farmland.” The easement adds to a growing number of conserved farms in the highly productive Creston area of the Flathead Valley, including the 731-acre Mast farm placed under easement with Montana Land Reliance and NRCS Agricultural Land Easement funding recently. Encompassing over a mile of Egan Slough, the Jaquette property provides excellent bird habitat and is strategically located for both birds and wildlife at a landscape scale. It adds to a network of more than 13,000 acres of conserved lands along a 50-mile stretch of the Flathead River and north shore of Flathead Lake that provides vital habitat and travel corridor for wildlife including grizzly bear. The Jaquette property also serves as critical stopover habitat for birds to rest and refuel on their long migrations and provides nesting habitat for many birds including bald eagle, which nest on the property. NRCS funding not only helped Charles keep his farm intact in an area with high development pressure, but he used proceeds from the purchased conservation easement to do a “1031 exchange” and buy 425 acres of agricultural land in the Palouse region of Idaho that was slated to be split up if sold to a different buyer and keep it in farming.
Get the full story from the Flathead Land Trust.