Project Details

This project takes place on private property in degraded pronghorn and upland game habitat. The Central Valley Water Reclamation Facility (CVWRF), who owns the property, has expressed interest in working with the NRCS and UDWR to improve this landscape to benefit wildlife, the public, and their facility. The property is 2,700 acres and CVWRF intends to carryout restoration projects throughout all of these acres. Future projects will include seeding, weed control, shrub planting, water development (guzzlers), grazing improvements, and establishing public access for upland game hunting. This project serves as a pilot project, and involves scalping, seeding, and planting shrubs into 20 acres of this property. Lessons learned from this project will inform decisions on future restoration efforts on this property.

Currently, the landscape is dominated by exotic annual grasses and forbs, with remnants of shrub and perennial grass communities. Annual grasses tend to dominate plant communities over time, decreasing biodiversity and reducing habitat quality. Systems that are invaded by annual grasses are also more prone to catastrophic wildfire and further weed invasion than more diverse native systems. Biodiverse native systems are also more resilient after fires than invaded monocultures. To improve this landscape for wildlife use, and to improve watershed health, resistance, and resilience, there is a need to establish native and beneficial vegetation that can compete with invading weeds.

This project will seek to establish native and beneficial perennial bunchgrasses, shrubs, and forbs. When established, perennial bunchgrasses have been shown to suppress weeds, and provide valuable forage and cover to upland game. Shrubs also important to upland game, mostly as cover, but also as forage. Shrubs can also extend above the snowline in the winter, and provide critical winter browse to pronghorn. Forbs are also particularly important to pronghorn as forage, and can work with perennial grasses and forbs to support an insect prey base for upland game birds.

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.

This project is located within crucial pronghorn habitat, which benefit from diverse, native vegetation. The health of lactating females influences fawn survival, and these females rely heavily on forbs as a valuable source of nutrition during the spring and early summer (Ellis and Travis 1975; Howard et al. 1990; Yoakum 2004a; Pronghorn Management Plan). Pronghorn winter survival can also be influenced by the presence or absence of shrubs extending above the snow. This landscape is occupied by pronghorn, but is lacking in both shrub and forb components.

This area serves as substantial ring-necked pheasant habitat. The Utah Upland Game Management Plan describes that  63% of hunters say pheasants are the most enjoyable species to hunt. In the future, CVWRF hopes to establish public access for hunting on their property, but the habitat quality is currently lacking. Increasing cover of shrubs, grasses, and forbs, to enhance pheasant habitat will be necessary to create high-quality hunting experiences.

Weed invasion on this property will likely get worse unless action is taken now to establish competitive native/desirable vegetation. Perennial bunchgrasses need to be established and mature in order to outcompete and suppress annual grasses. There is a need to plant those seeds now, so they can become established and competitive as soon as possible.

CVWRF will pursue contracts with NRCS in the near future, and will begin restoration work on a larger scale in coming years. Implementing this project now will provide valuable insight into practices and species that work well, and those that do not. Without a pilot project like this one, there runs a greater risk of failure and wasted resources.

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.

Plan: Utah Pronghorn Statewide Management Plan
Habitat Management Goal: Conserve and improve pronghorn habitat throughout the state.
Objective: Maintain or enhance the quantity and quality of pronghorn habitat

This project seeks to enhance the quality of pronghorn habitat by establishing plants that are beneficial to the species.

Strategies...

Identify crucial pronghorn habitats and work with public land managers and private landowners to protect and enhance those areas.

This project capitalizes on the proactive interest of private landowners to enhance crucial pronghorn habitat in meaningful ways over multiple years.

Under the Utah Watershed Restoration Initiative, design, implement, and monitor the effectiveness of habitat improvement projects to benefit pronghorn.

This WRI project seeks to implement a small-scale habitat improvement project, monitor its efficacy, and apply lessons learned to larger scale future projects in pronghorn habitat.
 
Utah Upland Game Management Plan

In the Utah Upland Game Management Plan, it is stated that Utah's goal in the National Wild Pheasant Conservation Plan (NWPCP) is to "maintain current habitat and prevent additional habitat loss".

This project is near the fringes of pheasant habitat in the area, and represents a potential loss of pheasant habitat without restorative actions. By establishing native and beneficial vegetation in this area, we seek to prevent future habitat loss and maintain current habitat.

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.

The Utah Wildfire Risk Assessment Portal (WRAP) describes the Wildfire Hazard Potential on this property as "High". This is largely due to the dry conditions and fine fuel loading of the property. Annual grasses provide fine, flashy, highly combustible fuels compared to perennial grasses. They also increase fuel continuity, carrying fires farther and faster than they might otherwise travel. Additionally, annual grasses senesce earlier in the season than most native grasses, creating a longer fire season than native plant communities. Finally, exotic annual grasses can become dominant if the native plant community collapses, as it has on this property, and can form monocultures with little biodiversity and low fire resilience. When these invaded landscapes burn, annual grasses return, perpetuating the cycle. In other words, annual grasses increase the risk of wildfire, and decrease the likelihood of healthy recovery after the fire.

By establishing native plants on this landscape, annual weeds may be suppressed, and the Wildfire Hazard Potential may be reduced. While this project is small in scale, it serves as the first step to effectively restoring this 2,700 acre piece of private property, and improving its resistance and resilience to fire. By seeding a small area first, efficacy of weed suppression, seeded species emergence, and planting methods can be evaluated and improved prior to implementing larger, more costly projects.

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.