An easement refuge is a special type of National Wildlife Refuge under the auspices of the United States Fish and Wildlife Service.
On an easement refuge, the Refuge boundaries encompass private land but the Fish and Wildlife Service does not own the land. Instead, through the use of a conservation easement, the FWS maintains the water rights and the right to restrict "hunting, trapping and willful disturbance of any bird or wild animal of any kind whatsoever within the limits of the refuge or to enter thereon...". However, the private landowner reserves the right to hay, graze, burn and manage the land with no intervention from the Service.
Famous quotes containing the word refuge:
“I confess I was surprised to find that so many men spent their whole day, ay, their whole lives almost, a-fishing. It is remarkable what a serious business men make of getting their dinners, and how universally shiftlessness and a groveling taste take refuge in a merely ant-like industry. Better go without your dinner, I thought, than be thus everlastingly fishing for it like a cormorant. Of course, viewed from the shore, our pursuits in the country appear not a whit less frivolous.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)