New Conservation Easement: Protecting Habitat and History

A 76.5-acre property near Bad Rock Canyon is now permanently protected, safeguarding a vital wildlife corridor and a historic working landscape. This week, thanks to Luci Yeats and her late husband, Dave, the “Heart Rock Ridge” family farm near Columbia Falls was protected with a donated conservation easement with Flathead Land Trust.

The Yeats property perpetuates a rich family agricultural heritage. The Heart Rock Ridge parcel is part of a larger family complex farmed since the early 1900s. The family farm has always involved community, initially producing vegetables that Luci’s great-grandfather carted to Whitefish by horse and wagon to sell. The farm later produced potatoes, which people from Columbia Falls helped harvest, receiving potatoes as payment. Luci’s father grew up on a neighboring dairy farm and delivered milk to Columbia Falls. He and Luci’s mother continued agricultural use of the property by growing hay and pasturing beef cows. Luci and her two sisters are now caretakers of the family land that continues to produce vegetables and hay and support cattle. Four generations of the Loeffler and Rogers families have worked and tended the land in the shadow of Columbia Mountain, and this year Luci and Dave’s son and his family will move back to the farm to live.

(Historical photos: Jonathan Loeffler, Luci’s great grandfather, delivering vegetables in Whitefish, prior to 1917; Stacking loose hay on the Heart Rock Ridge farm, with Bad Rock Canyon in the background)

Luci reflected on the personal significance of conserving this legacy easement. “As a steward of this property, I appreciate the opportunity to help protect the conservation values which I have grown up with and have come to treasure more and more as the years have gone by. As a child I roamed this land, and the larger acreage now owned by my sisters. I look forward to seeing my grandchildren look for shed antlers, see the first bluebirds of spring and watch the red-tailed hawks soaring overhead.”

The Heart Rock Ridge Conservation Easement conserves historic use of the property for both people and wildlife, preserving a family legacy as well as an important wildlife travel corridor. Nestled between a complex of millions of acres of protected lands, including Bad Rock Canyon Wildlife Management Area, Flathead National Forest, Bob Marshall Wilderness Complex, Glacier National Park and a more than 14,000-acre network of conserved lands along the Flathead River and north shore of Flathead Lake, the property sits in a strategic location for wildlife at a landscape scale. Productive valley bottom and moist riparian habitats provide a dependable food source for seasonal wildlife use. The Heart Rock Ridge property helps allow wildlife to travel from the Bad Rock Canyon Wildlife Management Area past an area of intense land development near Columbia Falls, downstream to protected areas along the Flathead River.

A diversity of habitats on the easement, including riparian forest, shrublands, wetlands and natural springs, provide foraging opportunities and security for a plethora of wildlife species. Grizzly bear, black bear, mountain lion, coyote, fox, elk, white-tailed deer, porcupine, and at least 75 species of birds use the property including bald eagle, red-tailed hawk, pileated woodpecker, great blue heron, and many grassland songbirds such as bluebird and western meadowlark.

Continuing the family legacy of community, Luci and her sister, Shirley Folkwien, spearheaded the Upper Flathead Neighborhood Association in 2020 when high-density development was proposed in their neighborhood. The Upper Flathead Neighborhood Association promotes the protection of natural resources, water quality, bird and wildlife habitat and rural landscapes, and maintains the quality of life and economic vitality in the Flathead Valley through citizen participation, education and encouraging land use planning for sensible growth.

Luci concluded, “As land development in the Flathead Valley continues to accelerate, I would encourage any landowner to consider placing their property under a conservation easement. There is no better time than the present to conserve a part of our valley for future generations.”