New wildlife refuge set in Flint Hills of Kansas

? About 1.1 million acres of some of the nation’s last tallgrass prairie in the Flint Hills of Kansas will be set aside for a new national wildlife refuge.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar was in Kansas Friday for the announcement and groundbreaking at a visitor center at the Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve in Strong City.

The project uses conservation easements purchased from landowners to preserve the land from development.

Salazar calls it the template for the way conservation should occur in the 21st Century.