The operators of the Bar Boot and 99 Bar ranches and the Fish and Wildlife Service have developed the Leslie Canyon Watershed Safe Harbor Agreement – a plan to assist in the recovery of six Endangered Species Act-protected species on private ranchlands in the southeastern Cochise County watershed.  The Leslie Canyon Watershed Safe Harbor Agreement establishes a conservation program on the Bar Boot and 99 Bar ranches for the threatened beautiful shiner, Chiricahua leopard frog, Yaqui catfish, and the endangered Yaqui chub, Yaqui topminnow and Huachuca water umbel – an aquatic plant.  The ranchers will assist species recovery by reestablishing species populations, restoring and maintaining habitat by improving watershed conditions upstream from Leslie Canyon National Wildlife Refuge (LCNWR) and providing for the natural expansion of the species into improving habitats in the upper watershed.  Chiricahua leopard frogs and Yaqui topminnow could be reestablished on the ranches as early as spring, 2009.  The two ranches include 24,585 acres in the upper Leslie Canyon watershed downstream from the Coronado National Forest Boundary and upstream from the Leslie Canyon NWR.