This project is planned to improve the winter range on the Wallsburg Wildlife Management Area (WMA), Timpanogas WMA, Santaquin WMA, Levan WMA, and Black Hill WMA.The Wallsburg (WMA) is located within the boundaries of the Wasatch Mountains deer and elk herd unit #17, which provides habitat for some 500 wintering deer and up to 300 wintering elk on a normal winter. A fire in 1998 destroyed some 200 acres of prime winter range. Deer numbers are on a rebound from large losses in 1993 and recovering at a faster rate than current vegetation densities. In future years, deer and elk numbers will have to be reduced if habitat improvements are not made. We plan to plant seedlings and broadcast seeds on scalped ground of sagebrush, bitterbrush, serviceberry, and curlleaf mahogany species. This will improve habitat for a recovering deer herd and for the present elk population and help prevent us from having to cull the herd. Diversity within the plant community is a limiting factor for a variety of other wildlife species including sage-grouse. Sage-grouse have not been seen on an historic lek or during lek counts for a number of years on the WMA, although, we have received reports of grouse on the WMA. This project will help to increase diversity of plants and help to have a multi age class of plants that will increase the resilience of the population to drought or other disturbance. This will benefit other non-game species and help to preserve the value of this wildlife management area for many years to come. The Timpanogas, Santaquin, Black Hill, and Levan WMAs also have similar concerns and needs for shrub species to be planted. Improving mule deer and elk winter range on these WMAs is the primary objective of planting. There may also be some benefits for California quail on the Levan WMA, Turkeys and Pheasants on the the Santaquin WMA.

1. Increase the amount of shrubs to provide more food for wintering big game. 2. Maintain a diversity of age classes of shrub plants to increase resilience of native shrub community. 3. Protect sagebrush and other shrubs for sage-grouse, pheasants, quail, and other WAP species. 4. Improve health of watershed by restricting establishment of weed species. 5. Help reduce fire risk from allowing cheatgrass to establish.

By not doing this project we risk losing more of the surviving shrubs from increased browsing pressure. By losing the entire shrub communities we will cross an ecological threshold that will result in large losses of mule deer populations and require many years and more money to restore. We also by not having younger shrubs we risk having just older shrubs that will eventually die off and will be more vulnerable to disease and drought. This project will help ensure that we have more food available now for big game and other species and have food available in the future.

Wallsburg Coordinated Resource Management Plan (CRMP) Objective: Increase greater sage-grouse and big game habitat -- "Target 3,150 acres for sagebrush Utah Statewide Mule Deer Management Plan 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. b. Work with land management agencies, conservation organizations, private landowners, and local leaders through the regional Watershed Restoration Initiative working groups to identify and prioritize mule deer habitats that are in need of enhancement or restoration (Figure 6). d. Initiate broad scale vegetative treatment projects to improve mule deer habitat with emphasis on drought or fire damaged sagebrush winter ranges, ranges that have been taken over by invasive annual grass species, and ranges being diminished by encroachment of conifers into sagebrush or aspen habitats, ensuring that seed mixes contain sufficient forbs and browse species. Deer Herd Unit Management Plan -- Unit 17 Habitat protection and maintenance -- Work toward long-term habitat protection and preservation through the use of agreements with land management agencies and local governments, and through the use of conservation easements, etc. on private lands. Future Habitat work -- Wallsburg WMA Elk Unit Management Plan -- Unit 17 Habitat Within the next five years, enhance forage production on a minimum of 20,000 acres of elk habitat, through direct range improvements to maintain population management objectives. Utah Division of Wildlife Resources Strategic Plan. Goal A: Conserve, protect, enhance and manage Utah's wildlife. Obj. A-1:Maintain populations of harvestable wildlife species at species or drainage management plan objective levels through 2003. Obj. A-2:Increase the distribution and/or abundance of 10% of the 1998 classified state sensitive species by 2003. Obj. A-4: Maintain distribution and abundance of all other naturally occurring wildlife and native plant species through 2003. Goal B: Conserve, protect, enhance and manage Utah's ecosystems. Obj. B-1: Increase the functioning of 10% of the currently impaired ecosystems by 2003. Obj. B-2: Prevent declining conditions in both impaired and currently functional ecosystems through 2003. The Habitat Management Plan for this unit states: Goal III, objective 1 "Maintain key forage species on winter range" This project will help meet some of the Habitat management strategies listed in the Wallsburg Habitat Management Plan (March 2016) including: * Improve sagebrush and bitterbrush habitats with seed and/or seedling transplant projects. * Utilize mechanical treatments to enhance sagebrush seedling establishment in over mature sagebrush stands. Wildlife Action Plan 1. The project area occurs within the sagebrush steppe type which is one of the key habitats identified in the WAP. This area supports mule deer (S4), elk (SNA) and Greater sage grouse (S3). Numerous other species of concern also inhabit the area includingneotropical birds and raptors. WRI Focus Areas The proposed treatments lie within Central Region UPCD focus areas. SVARM sage grouse conservation plan; Strategy 6: Maintain and improve habitat conditions in winter range. Santaquin City Community Wildfire Protection Plan: 1) Community will work with county, state and federal fire officials to decrease fuels on adjacent public lands to reduce wildfire intensity, and impact in and around the community. 2)Fuels reduction project east of Exit 242 near shooting areas on DNR land. 2003 Forest Plan Uinta NF: 1) Sub-goal-2-1(G-2-1) The fuel management aspect of the fire management program is emphasized through application of hazard reduction activities. 2)Sub-goal-2-8 (G-2-8) Ecosystem resilience is maintained by providing for a full range of seral stages and age classes (by cover type) that achieve a mosaic of habitat conditions and diversity to meet a variety of desired resource management objectives. Recruitment and sustainability of some early seral species and vegetation communities in the landscape are necessary to maintain ecosystem resilience to perturbations. 3)Sub-goal-2-25 (G-2-25) Maintain stable and upward conditions in big game winter range habitats and improve downward trend sites. 4)Objective-2-17 (O-2-17) By 2018, complete 1,000 acres of big game winter range habitat improvements to reach desired future conditions. Statewide Turkey Managment Pan III. ISSUES AND CONCERNS High Priority: Urgent and Important Issue H2. Insufficient Winter Habitat Concern A. Starvation during severe weather. Concern B. Winter overutilization of urban and agricultural areas Objective 1.Stabilize populations that are declining outside of natural population fluctuations; especially through catastrophic events (i.e. following fires, severe winters, etc.). Strategy c: Conduct habitat projects to address limiting factors. Objective 2.Increase wild turkey habitat, quality and quantity, by 40,000 acres statewide by 2020.Strategy d:Conduct habitat improvement projects in limiting habitat(s). Objective 1.Decrease the number of chronic material damage complaints per turkeys by 25% by 2020. Strategy Improve habitat to draw wild turkey populations away from conflict.

By having younger shrubs and forbs that are not as decadent and dry as older dying shrubs it will reduce the risk and severity of fire. Hopefully it will serve as green strip areas where fires will slow or stop. By maintaining healthy stand of shrubs and native plants it will prevent annual grasses from establishing that can increase the fuel load and dryness of plants that increase fire risk. We will be planting forbs that will serve as strips of greener vegetation that will also help reduce fire spread.

By having a healthy diversity of age class shrubs it will prevent a mono-culture of old decadent plants which can die off and result in invasion of weedy plants such as cheatgrass. Cheatgrass will absorb all of the available water and decrease the plant diversity. By doing this project there will be more available water for native understory plants to increase diversity. This will also help prevent cheatgrass from establishing and creating an unnatural fire regime that will result in greater increases in erosion and sedimentation that will reduce water quality.

All necessary cultural clearances will be conducted prior to implementation of this project. This project is on UDWR properties and NEPA will not be necessary.

We will use a dozer with a harrow on the back that makes a 2' wide scalp to remove grass competition. The bare soil will reduce competition from grasses and allow for naturally seeding to occur. We will also broadcast shrub and forb seed and use dribblers to augment the amount of seed and diversity of species. We will be planting two year old shrubs in d-40 pots with vexar mesh protectors to help increase survival. These plants will be planted with volunteer help from sportsman and other groups as well as hired contractors and paid seasonals. We also will be experimenting with different shrub sizes and growing periods with a smaller sub set of plants to see if we can find a plant size that is cheaper and just as succesful as the D-40s.

We will use photo points before and after project implementation to determine the success of these plantings. We will also be working with Scott Jensen from the USDA shrub lab to monitor the different survival rates of the smaller pot sizes and different growing periods to determine best methods for future projects. This will be the first phase of a 3 monitoring schedule.

The UDWR will partner with sportsman groups to fund the project and get volunteers to help plant shrub seedlings. We have not expanded the project beyond UDWR land ownership boundaries on WMAs because the cost and time to plant such a large area is not feasible in a single year. We will work with USFS and other adjacent landowners in the future once we have completed all desired planting areas on UDWR lands.

These properties are wildlife management areas that are protected for the benefit of wildlife. They will not be developed and the benefits we are trying to accomplish for the ecosystem will be preserved. We will continue to graze in early spring and summer with cattle to help to hit those undesired grasses to remove competition with the shrubs plantings. If we see that cattle are disturbing the plantings we can place electric fence around the plantings to further protect them. We will continue to do future plantings as needed until we have achieved the desired range conditions.

This will help to improve the diversity and quantity of browse species on these WMAs. The Wallsburg WMA, Santaquin WMA, and the Levan WMA are all actively grazed. This project will help to establish native grasses and forbs as these shrub communites establish. This will help increase the available forage as less palatable annual grasses are displaced. This project will also increase the value of these properties for hunting big game and upland game birds.

11/11/2020

03/26/2022

2022

Our methods were to first scalp away with a bulldozer the grass competition at our planting sites and exposing the bare soil. We threw seed by hand broadcasting it on the scalped rows as well as we planted seedlings. We planted 2,500 shrub seedlings in the fall of 2020. 1,000 Mountain Big Sagebrush (Artemisia tridentata vaseyana), 1,000 Wyoming Big Sagebrush (Artemesia tridentata wyomingensis), 500 Basin Big Sagebrush (Artemesia tridentata tridentata). We planted 1,000 at our Santaquin WMA and 1,200 at our Wallsburg WMA, and 300 at our Timpanogos WMA. In the Fall of 2021, we planted 8,800 seedlings. We planted 3,000 at our Levan WMA, 2,000 at our Black Hill WMA, 1,300 at our Santaquin WMA, and 2,500 at our Wallsburg MWA. In the Spring of 2022 we planted 550 seedlings at our Santaquin WMA. We planted a total of 11,050 seedlings.

This project was done to improve the winter range on the Wallsburg Wildlife Management Area (WMA), Timpanogas WMA, Santaquin WMA, Levan WMA, and Black Hill WMA. At all of these sites there has been a loss of shrubs species from the landscape which are important for food for deer and elk in the winter. We began working in the fall of 2020 and continued through the Spring of 2023. We planted a total of 11,050 seedlings with vexar protectors to protect against herbivory. This project has been a success and we are having really great survival of plants. It will help provide more food for deer and elk in the future.

These properties where we planted are wildlife management areas that are protected for the benefit of wildlife. They will not be developed and the benefits we are trying to accomplish for the ecosystem will be preserved. We will continue to graze in early spring and summer with cattle to help to hit those undesired grasses to remove competition with the shrubs plantings. If we see that cattle are disturbing the plantings we can place electric fence around the plantings to further protect them. We will continue to do future plantings as needed until we have achieved the desired range conditions.