Project Details

Juniper have encroached on the mountain shrub community that provides critical winter range for deer, elk and moose and habitat for sage-grouse. There is a robust mahogany component in the area but they have very little to no recruitment. By removing junipers there will be an increase in grasses and forbs along with water and the space left by the junipers will hopefully promote mahogany recruitment. 
Also, nearly 5.7 miles of unauthorized routes were identified in the project area using aerial imageries. These unauthorized routes include 18 access points. The unauthorized routes increase motorized access, fragment greater sage-grouse habitat, year-long crucial elk and crucial summer mule deer habitat, increase the spread of noxious weeds and invasive plants, reduce vegetation and site productivity, and increase erosion. Telemetry Studies show elk usually stay more than 800 m from roads, therefore unauthorized routes truncate potential elk habitat.  Research shows that mule deer also avoid ATV activities by seeking dense cover.  This could result in reduced foraging opportunities and a subsequent reduction in opportunities to put on fat reserve during summer that are needed for winter survival. Decommissioning unauthorized routes would further enhance those restored habitats for mule deer, elk and sage-grouse use.

Provide evidence about the nature of the problem and the need to address it. Identify the significance of the problem using a variety of data sources. For example, if a habitat restoration project is being proposed to benefit greater sage-grouse, describe the existing plant community characteristics that limit habitat value for greater sage-grouse and identify the changes needed for habitat improvement.

Provide an overall goal for the project and then provide clear, specific and measurable objectives (outcomes) to be accomplished by the proposed actions. If possible, tie to one or more of the public benefits UWRI is providing.

LOCATION: Justify the proposed location of this project over other areas, include publicly scrutinized planning/recovery documents that list this area as a priority, remote sensing modeling that show this area is a good candidate for restoration, wildlife migration information and other data that help justify this project's location.

TIMING: Justify why this project should be implemented at this time. For example, Is the project area at risk of crossing an ecological or other threshold wherein future restoration would become more difficult, cost prohibitive, or even impossible.

Utah's Sage-grouse strategic Management plan:
Goal: Protect, maintain, enhance, and restore greater sage-grouse populations, habitats, and the ecosystems that sustain them. Reestablish, augment, and facilitate sustainable populations of greater sage-grouse in suitable habitats to improve statewide population continuity and distribution.
Objective B-2: Enhance and restore current and potential sage-grouse habitats and the ecosystems that sustain them.
Objective C-2: Identify and secure funding for habitat enhancement, research, monitoring, and maintenance.
A. Vegetation management.
1. Manage seasonal sage-grouse habitats in a manner appropriate to the site conditions, and based on habitat assessment or local expert knowledge and observed ecological condition.
and
4. Manage for late summer brood-rearing habitat that includes a variety of succulent vegetation adjacent to sagebrush escape and loafing cover. Create or enhance riparian/wet meadow habitat in areas where late brood-rearing habitat is lacking. Strive to manage sagebrush habitats with 10-25% canopy cover.
Forest Plan of the Uinta-Wasatch-Cache National Forest
Forest wide Goals: 3-Biodiversity & Viability, Goal 3d, Goal 3f., Goal 3g. Goal 3o., 
The project is consistent with the following Forest Plan Ojective:
3.d. Increase grass and forb production and plant species and age class
diversity in sagebrush and pinyon/juniper by treating
approximately 2,000 acres average annually1 for a 10-year total
of 20,000 acres.
Utah Elk Statewide Management Plan:

Statewide goal A, 
Strategy r.Properly manage elk populations to minimize competition with mule deer on crucial mule deer range.
Habitat Management Goal B: 
Habitat Objective 1. Maintain elk habitat throughout the state by identifying and protecting existing crucial elk habitat and mitigating for losses due to human impacts. 
Strategies A. and B. 
Habitat Objective 2:Improve the quality and quantity of forage and cover on 250,000 acres of elk habitat with emphasis on calving habitat and upper elevation elk winter range by the end of this plan. 
Strategies c, d e, h. and j.
Habitat Objective 2: Reduce adverse impacts to elk herds and elk habitat. 
Strategies: 
A. Road Management 
a) Seek to maintain less than 2 miles of roads per square mile within crucial elk habitat. 
b) Work cooperatively with UDOT, county, state, and federal agencies to limit the impacts of roads on elk. 
Recreation Objective 1: Maintain a diversity of elk hunting opportunities. 
Strategies 
d) Assist state and federal agencies with the development of travel management plans.

Statewide Management Plan for Mule Deer:
Habitat Goal and Habitat Objective 1, Strategies a, and b. 
Habitat Objective 2 and strategies, B, C, D, E, F and H. 
Habitat Objective 1: Maintain mule deer habitat throughout the state by protecting and
enhancing existing crucial habitats and mitigating for losses due to natural and human impacts.
d. Minimize impacts and recommend mitigation for losses of crucial habitat due to
human impacts.
j. Support the establishment of multi-agency OHV travel plans developed on a county or
federal land management plan level and ongoing efforts to reduce illegal OHV use to
prevent resource damage and protect crucial mule deer habitat.
k. Where appropriate, work with county, federal and state land management agencies to
adopt seasonal motorized route closures to minimize human disturbance in existing
crucial mule deer habitats.
l. Work with county, state, and federal agencies to limit the negative effects of roads by
reclaiming unused roads, properly planning new roads, and installing fencing and
highway passage structures where roads disrupt normal mule deer migration patterns.
Habitat Objective 2: Improve the quality and quantity of vegetation for mule deer on a
minimum of 500,000 acres of crucial range by 2019.
e. Continue to support and provide leadership for the Utah Watershed Restoration
Initiative, which emphasizes improving sagebrush-steppe, aspen, and riparian habitats
throughout Utah.
f. Seek opportunities through the Watershed Restoration Initiative to improve aspen
communities that provide crucial summer habitat for mule deer.

DEER HERD UNIT MANAGEMENT PLAN, Deer Herd Unit # 2 (Cache)
Meets habitat goals and objecitives for this plan. * Logan, Green, Providence and Blacksmith Fork Canyons. Projects should be focused on removal of encroaching juniper, and reestablishing understory with winter browse species as well as species of plants that can be used in the spring by wintering deer.

ELK HERD UNIT MANAGEMENT PLAN Elk Herd Unit # 2 Cache:
Habitat objective: Maintain and/or enhance forage production through direct range improvements throughout the unit on winter range to achieve population management objectives. Pay special attention to WMA's and areas were holding elk could alleviate pressure on private landowners experiencing damage by wintering elk.Work with private and federal agencies to maintain and protect critical and existing winter range from future losses.
UTAH MOOSE STATEWIDE MANAGEMENT PLAN
C. Habitat - The primary limiting factor for moose in Utah and across their range is the availability of suitable habitat. - Moose have done well in drier habitats in northern Utah which are dominated by mountain mahogany, Gambel oak, serviceberry, quaking aspen, and burned over coniferous forests
A. Habitat Degradation or Loss. - The single biggest influence on moose populations in Utah is the quantity and quality of available habitat. Habitat can be degraded, fragmented, or lost to a variety of causes including human development and plant succession
B. Habitat Management Goal: Assure sufficient habitat is available to sustain healthy and productive moose populations. Strategies -- A,D,E
Logan Ranger District Travel Management Plan implementation;

Wasatch-Cache Forest Plan;
Forestwide Goal 3-Biodiversity & Viability
Provide for sustained diversity of species at the genetic, populations, community and ecosystem levels.  Maintain communities within their historic range of variation that sustains habitats for viable populations of species.  Restore or maintain hydrologic functions. Reduce potential for uncharacteristic high-intensity wildfires, and insect epidemics.

3m.  Provide for connectivity of continuous large patches of forested habitat for interior forest-dependent and wide-ranging species (such as lynx, wolverine and migratory birds).
3o.	Provide adequate habitat components for sustainable big game populations coordinated with State wildlife management agencies, private lands and other resource needs and priorities. 
3s.	Greatly reduce known infestations of noxious weeds and rigorously prevent their introduction and/or spread.

Forestwide Goal 5-Road/Trail and Access Management
Provide a road and trail system that is safe, responsive to public and agency needs and desires, affordable and efficiently managed.  Provide an access system that minimizes negative ecological effects and is in balance with available funding.  Focus on achieving an integrated transportation system that serves multiple functions and is consistent with desired future conditions for a given area.

5d.	Manage trails to provide desired recreation opportunities for recreation users and to meet Forest Service standards.

Guidelines for Biodiversity and Viability:  
(G26)	Protect key big game calving, fawning and lambing habitat and provide security in summer concentration areas.

Greater Sage-grouse ROD, Greater sage-grouse Utah Plan Amendment (FS 2015).  
GRSG-GRSGH-GL-032-(UT) In priority and general habitat management areas, sagebrush focal areas, and Anthro Mountain, native plant species should be used when possible to maintain, restore, or enhance desired conditions (Table GRSG-GEN-DC3) in Utah. (Amendment #13, September 2015)

GRSG-RT-GL-071-Guideline (UT);GRSG-RT-GL-076-Guideline (WY) In priority and general GRSG habitat management areas, sagebrush focal areas, and Anthro Mountain, when decommissioning roads and unauthorized routes, restoration activity should be designed to move habitat towards desired conditions. (Amendment #13 September 16, 2015).

State of Utah's new Greater Sage-Grouse Management Plan (2009) --M2 Maintain/protect large contiguous intact sagebrush communities that contain seasonal habitat needs of sage-grouse populations within the state.

Logan Ranger District Travel Management Plan implementation;

5d.	Manage trails to provide desired recreation opportunities for recreation users and to meet Forest Service standards.

Guidelines for Biodiversity and Viability:  
(G26)	Protect key big game calving, fawning and lambing habitat and provide security in summer concentration areas.

List management plans where this project will address an objective or strategy in the plan. Describe how the project area overlaps the objective or strategy in the plan and the relevance of the project to the successful implementation of those plans. It is best to provide this information in a list format with the description immediately following the plan objective or strategy.

If applicable, detail how the proposed project will significantly reduce the risk of fuel loading and/or continuity of hazardous fuels including the use of fire-wise species in re-seeding operations. Describe the value of any features being protected by reducing the risk of fire. Values may include; communities at risk, permanent infrastructure, municipal watersheds, campgrounds, critical wildlife habitat, etc. Include the size of the area where fuels are being reduced and the distance from the feature(s) at risk.

Describe how the project has the potential to improve water quality and/or increase water quantity, both over the short and long term. Address run-off, erosion, soil infiltration, and flooding, if applicable.

Description of efforts, both completed and planned, to bring the proposed action into compliance with any and all cultural resource, NEPA, ESA, etc. requirements. If compliance is not required enter "not applicable" and explain why not it is not required.

Describe the actions, activities, tasks to be implemented as part of the proposed project; how these activities will be carried out, equipment to be used, when, and by whom.

Describe plans to monitor for project success and achievement of stated objectives. Include details on type of monitoring (vegetation, wildlife, etc.), schedule, assignments and how the results of these monitoring efforts will be reported and/or uploaded to this project page. If needed, upload detailed plans in the "attachments" section.

List any and all partners (agencies, organizations, NGO's, private landowners) that support the proposal and/or have been contacted and included in the planning and design of the proposed project. Describe efforts to gather input and include these agencies, landowners, permitees, sportsman groups, researchers, etc. that may be interested/affected by the proposed project. Partners do not have to provide funding or in-kind services to a project to be listed.

Detail future methods or techniques (including administrative actions) that will be implemented to help in accomplishing the stated objectives and to insure the long term success/stability of the proposed project. This may include: post-treatment grazing rest and/or management plans/changes, wildlife herd/species management plan changes, ranch plans, conservation easements or other permanent protection plans, resource management plans, forest plans, etc.

Potential for the proposed action to improve quality or quantity of sustainable uses such as grazing, timber harvest, biomass utilization, recreation, etc. Grazing improvements may include actions to improve forage availability and/or distribution of livestock.