To encourage the creation and protection of sage-grouse habitats, the State of Utah has developed a Compensatory Mitigation Program (CMP). The CMP is managed by the Utah Department of Natural Resources. The goals of the CMP are to increase the space available to the species and enhance habitat-use by creating corridors and new habitats to offset the impacts of permanent developments in sage-grouse habitat in Utah. The CMP proposes to achieve this by providing opportunities for private landowners and others to create and market mitigation credits for increasing and protecting functional habitats. Currently, the CMP is proposing an exchange rate of 1 to 4; for every one acre of sage-grouse habitat lost through development. This equation does not take into account functional habitat quality. We will evaluate the HTPF concept as it relates to conifer removal projects in the Box Elder Sage-grouse Management Area (SGMA) in West Box Elder County in northwestern Utah. We will also evaluate the concept as it relates to specialized livestock grazing practices being implemented on Deseret Land and Livestock (200,000 acres) and the Three Creeks Allotment (145,000 acres) in the Rich-Morgan-Summit SGMA in northeastern Utah. These SGMA contain the state's largest sage-grouse populations and exhibit a mix of private and public lands that are managed for domestic livestock production. Sandford et al.( 2017) documented improved sage-grouse nest and brood success in areas where invasive conifers were removed from sagebrush habitats. Annually over 90,000 acres of sagebrush habitats range wide are encroached by conifers (Stiver et al. 2015). Dettenmaier (2018) and Dahlgren et al. (2016) reported higher sage-grouse vital rates on sagebrush rangelands managed under specialized grazing practices. Stoner et al (2020) reported the sage-grouse nest initiation is linked to peak NDVI. Specialized grazing practices may extend peak NDVI. Because over 80% of the currently occupied sage-grouse habitat is grazed by domestic livestock livestock, a better understanding of how climate, herbivory, and nest success are related would be beneficial to agriculture and wildlife. Concomitantly the development, and validation of planning tools that can prioritize conifer removal and livestock grazing management practices to optimize sage-grouse benefits and enhance functional habitat value on a landscape scale in a cost-effective manner are highly desirable.

We are proposing to develop and evaluate the Habitat Treatment Prioritization Framework (HTPF) to provide CMP administrators, private landowners, and land managers with an interactive tool to optimize sage-grouse conservation benefits and the accrual of potential mitigation credits and WRI project ecological services as relate to the planning and management of conifer removal projects and changes in livestock grazing management practices. Project Objectives: 1. Evaluation of the potential to use NDVI data to monitor changes in functional habitat quality and sage-grouse responses to specialized livestock grazing management and other land management practices. 2. Refinement of the HTPF to quantify and prioritize location-specific conifer and livestock grazing management treatment benefits for sage-grouse. 3. Development of an HTPF tool to prioritize location-specific conifer removal treatments and specialized livestock grazing management benefits for sage-grouse to maximize compensatory mitigation credits and other conservation benefits of WRI projects for creating functional habitat values.

Sage-grouse habitat in Utah is naturally-fragmented by topography. The encroachment of conifer trees, fire, and invasive weeds such as cheatgrass have been identified by the the state of Utah as sage-gourse conservation threats ( State of Utah 2013). Energy and urban development have exacerbated habitat loss and fragmentation. Research conducted by Utah State University has demonstrated that the many of Utah's sage-grouse populations are space-limited (Dahlgren et al. 2016). However, populations respond positively when new habitat is created (Dahlgren et al. 2006, Frey et al. 2013, Cook et al. 2017, Sandford et al. 2017, Dettnemaier 2018). These responses include immediate use of habitats and increased nest and brood success in areas where conifers have mechanically been removed (Frey et al. 2013, Cook et al. 2017, Sandford et al. 2017) and livestock grazing management has been improved (Dahlgren et al. 2016, Detternmaier 2018). Conifer encroachment into sagebrush habiats and improper livestock grazing of sagebrush rangelands have been identified as sage-grouse conservation threats (USFS 2013).

In 2019 the Conservation of Greater Sage-grouse in Utah (Plan) was published (State of Utah 2013). In January 2019, Governor Herbert signed an Executive Order (EO) to implement the Plan. The Governor credited the CBCP for conducting the baseline research and community involvement essential to building the Plan. Since 1996, the Utah's partners have restored over 500,000 acres of sage-grouse habitat and protected over 94% of the state's sage-grouse populations on 7.5 million acres in 11 sage-grouse management areas. Most of the funding for these projects has come through a competitive grants program call the Water Restoration Initiative (WRI). The WRI incorporates a ranking process designed to fund projects which provide the greatest benefits (Clark et al. 2017). In 1996, Utah State University Extension (EXT) initiated a long-term collaboration with the UDWR to develop a community-based conservation (CBCP) adaptive resources management local working group (LWG) process throughout Utah to begin addressing localized threats to sage-grouse. in 2019, the Bureau of Land Management released an amended Resource Management Plan (RMP) which reflected the science used to develop the Utah Plan and the need form better information to prioritize management actions.

Completion of this project will also identify priority areas for wild fire protection and restoration.

Preliminary research suggest the removal of conifers that are encroaching into sagebrush habitats and improved livestock grazing management will restore water tables, improve surface water flows, and water quality. Completion of this project will also identify priority areas to create and better manage mesic areas for sage-grouse and other sagebrush obligate species.

Completion of the this project will provide new information to support NEPA documentation to support WRI conifer treatments, Utah Plan and BLM RMP requirements.

Under this project, we collect and analyze additional data obtained from female sage-grouse radio-marked with global positioning system (GPS) transmitters which will all us to expand the HTPF to include multiple seasons (e.g., breeding, brooding, late summer, winter) and vital rates simultaneously. The GPS transmitters record up to nine locations a day, 24-7 allowing us remotely monitor marked birds to determine survival rates, seasonal movement patterns and overall population viability in response to management. We will deploy additional GPS and VHF transmitters in 2021-2022 on Desert Land and Livestock and the Three Creek Allotment to augment the current GPS and VHF radio-marked birds. These data will allow us to better understand the entire life cycle of radio marked sage-grouse within SGMA and the birds responses to livestock grazing management. . The protocols for capturing, radio-marking, and monitoring sage-grouse have been reviewed and approved by USU Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee. We are also assessing changes in vegetation quality across space and time by estimating the Instantaneous Rate of Green-up (IRG), a metric derived from a time series of the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) satellite data. Changes in NDVI across the study area will be correlated with grazing dates, livestock stocking rates, frequency of use, periods of rest, temperature, precipitation, sage-grouse nest initiation rates, nest hatch dates, brood movements, and brood success rates. We will assess how green-up rate, order, and duration differs with respect to grazing management and annual climatic conditions. We will then evaluate differences in sage-grouse behavior and reproduction with observed difference in NDVI in each study area.

We will track the WRI project ranking process to see if HPFT projects are prioritized for funding.

Our target audiences include CMP administrators, private landowners, UDWR, BLM, USFS, NRCS, and USFWS biologists, range conservationist, administrators, LWG stakeholders, congressional staffers, elected officials, Utah Governor's Office and related cabinet members, commodity organizations, industry, and environmental organizations.

The HPFT will modify the CMP mitigation exchange ratio to ensure projects completed in areas identified to yield immediate conservation benefits will ranked higher in the WRI process. We will track the WRI project ranking process to see if HPFT projects are prioritized for funding. Completion of this project will provide new information regarding sage-grouse behavioral responses to the presence of cattle and the effects of livestock grazing on the vegetation composition and structure of these important ecosystems. This research will provide land managers, both private and public, with the information to better understand the relationship between rangeland cattle grazing and sage-grouse and how NDVI can be used to guide and evaluate management projects.

Anticipated outputs and outcomes: We anticipate the HPFT will become the accepted standard used by WRI and other partners to prioritize conifer removal projects. The HTPF would give land managers and landowners a defensible science-based tool to increase persistence across Utah's sage-grouse range. As more GPS data becomes available regarding sage-grouse responses (i.e., vital rates and seasonal movements) to other landscape management actions such as the development of mesic areas or prescribed livestock grazing, the HTPF could provide managers similar predictive capabilities for these activities.