All of the Wildlife Management Areas in the northern region have the capacity to have winter range restored or improved on them. This project will continue the effort of improving them. This is not only beneficial for wintering wildlife but helps to reduce damages caused on nearby private lands.

To operate the scalper on the WMAs to establish browse and forb species.

These areas have crossed the threshold of being optimal winter habitat for wildlife to being dominated by invasive weeds and introduced grasses. So while there is minimal risk of the actual treated areas being harder to treat in the future there is a significant risk to surrounding beneficial habitat from fire and overuse due to greater demand on the remaining habitat.

Deer Unit Management Plans 2,,4 and 5. Cache, Morgan - South Rich and East Canyon -Address loss of critical winter range to wildfires and other land management practices Statewide Deer Management Plan -Loss of critical winter range habitat -Involve Sportsmen and groups in volunteer projects. Elk Herd Unit Management Plan #2 Cache Habitat - 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. Utah Statewide Elk Management Plan -Increase forage production by annually treating a minimum of 40,000 acres of elk habitat. Utah Wild Turkey Management Plan 2014 Goal A. Maintain and Improve Wild Turkey Populations to Habitat or Social Carrying Capacity 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). Goal B. Minimize Human-Wild Turkey Conflicts State of Utah - Resource Management Plan pg 236 Expand Wildlife Populations Protect existing habitat and improve 500,000 acres of habitat Produce and maintain the desired vegetation for wildlife and livestock. 5. Utah Moose Statewide Management Plan: -Initiate prescribed burns and other vegetative treatment projects to improve moose habitat lost to ecological succession or human impacts. Cache CRMP Support agency coordination to provide adequate big game winter range habitat to reduce urban conflicts. Utah Wildlife Action Plan Utah Sage Grouse Management Plan Utah DWR strategic Plan Statewide Sharptail Grouse Management Plan Habitat Degradation -Land treatments seeded into monotypic stands of non-native species that have limited value to Sharp-tailed Grouse. Degradation of traditional breeding, brooding and wintering areas. * Continuing loss of essential habitat.

The scalps provide temporary strips of bare ground that would reduce and slow a fire.

By establishing a more diverse plant community of grasses, forbs and shrubs and the physical nature of the scalps themselves on the Richmond WMA's it will increase filtration of water flowing into streams at Cherry Creek and Oxkiller.

Most of the areas have been involved in previous treatments that were either lost to fire or did not meet all the project objectives. Remaining areas that require arc clearance will be surveyed with DWR arc.

To operate the scalper on Henefer-Echo WMA to plant browse and forbs. Pull chain harrow on Henefer to and spray to fallow To have local farmer disc and spray for chemical fallow at Cherry Creek To have local farmer plant grains at Ox Killer

The scalps will be monitored for success and control cages will be set up.

At Richmond a local farmer has disked a plot that he will spray with roundup to fallow and then in FY 22 it will be scalped and planted with grain. As the scalping continues in the northern region we hope to expand onto critical federal and private lands.

All projects are or will be included in DWR WMA management plans for the specific property. Currently the management plans for the involved WMA's are not current. If areas planted by the scalper do not succeed at the desired level planting browse species starts in the scalps will be used to augment success. Monitor the success of the scalps from sample sites and use cages to exclude all grazing on small 15' sections. Maintain the hog panel cages to exclude browsing on a small sample size. Maintain the water system at Henefer. Needed repairs will be part of the grazing agreement in the future. Richmond plot will be fallowed and then planted in FY22. Continue scalping on WMA's and other properties where we are allowed.

Providing high quality habitat for wintering big game and food sources for upland game this project will benefit hunters.

10/11/2021

12/06/2021

2022

This project was designed to used various implements to establish shrub plantings on northern region WMAs. The habitat team operated the scalper on the HEWMA near Echo.

The scale and scope of this project was reduced due to the Cache County farmer experiencing health issues and being unable to perform the work on the Cherry Creek WMA. Also due to extreme fire danger we were unwilling to operate the chain harrow during the summer to compete the fallow treatment on the HEWMA. Also significant scalping resources and time was devoted to the East Canyon (5858) and Fire Canyon (5541) wildfire rehabilitation efforts. Those projects essentially took the place of this scalping project. The brackets that hold the depth wheels on the front of the dozer broke multiple times causing significant delays. That along with the broadcasting motors needing replacement multiple times resulted in numerous lost days of planting. DWR archeologist completed the small survey area to ensure that we could begin ground disturbance on schedule.

TO monitor the scalps at Echo along with taking advantage of the accessibility to water some of them. Monitoring effort should include installing exclosures. Solve the issues of the breaking the brackets that secure the depth wheels.