Hunting plays a significant role in our economy, especially for rural communities in Utah. Hunting and fishing generate approximately 94 billion dollars each year in the U.S. This money not only creates jobs but a lot of money is also put back into conservation. Every year sportsman groups here in Utah put millions of dollars directly into conserving fish and wildlife right back here in Utah, thanks to the generous donations of individual sportsmen and businesses. Funds from the sale of hunting and fishing licenses also help fund the UDWR which is dedicated to the proper management of wildlife and conservation of its wildlife and habitats. In addition, the Pittman-Robertson Act, or Federal Aid in Wildlife Restoration Act, which created an excise tax on firearms, ammunition, and archery equipment in 1937, and the Dingell-Johnson Federal Aid in Sport Fish Restoration Act, which created a similar tax on fishing tackle, boat equipment, and boat fuel in 1950 generated1.5 billion dollars for conservation last year. These funds show how critical hunting, fishing, and our sportsmen are for conservation. To ensure that we continue to generate these funds for conservation it is important to have healthy big game, sportfish, and other huntable game species populations. This project is designed to improve big game winter range on the Stansbury Mountains which will maintain high-quality hunting experiences and generate more hunting opportunities for the public. This project will improve winter habitats for big game species and upland game, such as turkeys and rabbits. By increasing hunting opportunities we will generate even more funds that will cycle back into improving the environment even more. The benefits of this funding not only will help game species such as bighorn sheep, but it will benefit non-game species as well like golden eagles.

Restore shrub species to critical big game winter areas and golden eagle hunting grounds.

The loss of the shrub community on the landscape from wildfire and its replacement with cheatgrass and other non-native competitive grasses has been and will continue to be detrimental to the wildlife populations if nothing is done to restore these species. There has also been extensive human development with the construction of a large solar farm which has removed shrub species. The impacts of losing these shrubs take time to fully impact wildlife populations, but every year that goes by, we risk losing more wildlife and eventually, we will cross ecological thresholds that will be extremely costly to fix. This project will help to mitigate the impacts of the solar farm and rehabilitate the landscape post-fire. This project also has funds provided by the solar farm companies to mitigate for these impacts.

This project will address the following objectives and strategies in the following management plans. 1) Wasatch-Cache National Forest Plan - Meets riparian, fuels, wildlife, and rangeland management objectives 2) Utah Shared Stewardship Agreement (May 2019) - Meets the Agreement parameters for working across multiple ownerships including State, Private, and Federal lands. 4) Mule Deer Unit 18 Mgt Plan Objectives/Strategies: b) Condition of winter ranges is a long-term problem. c) Fire and encroachment by pinyon and juniper trees results in the loss of forage production, diversity, and quality. d) Cooperate with federal land management agencies and private landowners in carrying out habitat improvement projects. e) The primary concern of the studies within the subunit is the abundance of weedy annual grass species (cheatgrass), particularly on the lower elevation sites. This plan addresses the condition of winter range in the project area by improving the condition of winter range by planting browse species, coordinating with Federal land management agencies, and mitigating weedy annual grass species. 5) Utah DWR Statewide Mule Deer Management Plan Objectives/Strategies: b) Conserve, improve, and restore mule deer habitat throughout the state with emphasis on crucial ranges. c) 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) Work with local, state, and federal land management agencies via land management plans and with private landowners to identify and properly manage crucial mule deer habitats, especially fawning, wintering, and migration areas. e) Improve the quality and quantity of vegetation for mule deer on a minimum of 600,000 acres of crucial range by 2030. f) 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. g) Continue to support and provide leadership for the Utah Watershed Restoration Initiative, which emphasizes improving sagebrush-steppe, aspen, and riparian habitats throughout Utah. This plan addresses improving and restoring Mule deer habitat, by working in cooperation with partners, mitigating invasive annual species, ensuring that seed mixes contain sufficient forbs, and browse species, and improving sagebrush-steppe. 6) Utah Wildlife Action Plan: a) Mountain Shrub (page 53) This project addresses key threats (pg 55) to this habitat; * Continuing the use of appropriate methods for reducing the spread and dominance of invasive weeds and annual grasses, including "early detection -- rapid response" programs. * Continuing the development of new plant materials (especially native forbs) and restoration techniques. * Continuing the use of appropriate methods for reducing the spread and dominance of invasive weeds, including "early detection -- rapid response" programs.

By doing shrub restoration work, we will maintain healthy stands of shrubs and native plants to prevent annual grasses from establishing which can increase the fuel load and dryness of plants that increase fire risk. We will also be planting forbs that will serve as strips of greener vegetation that will also help reduce fire spread.

Having a healthy diversity of age-class shrubs will prevent a mono-culture of older, decadent plants that die off and result in an 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.

Archaeological clearance has been completed from previous WRI projects.

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 natural 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 with Vexar mesh protectors to reduce browsing and help increase survival. These plants will be planted with volunteer help from sportsmen and other groups as well as hired contractors and paid seasonals.

This is one of the sites that is incorporated in our shrub restoration study that Scott Jensen with the USDSA shrub lab is helping us with. So there will be intensive survival monitoring of our shrubs through this study and potential reports and publications may be written as a result. We will establish survival plots where we will identify where plants were planted and monitor whether they survive over time.

Nancy Williams with the BLM has been a huge partner in helping to get the NEPA completed to be able to do the shrub restoration work. We have had several meetings with BLM wildlife biologists and plant/range specialists to plan this project and work through the NEPA. Sportsmen groups and USFS have also been involved with previous years of this project.

We will continue to monitor shrub survival, make adjustments, and do additional plantings for many years to come.

This project will benefit big game populations which will increase hunting and wildlife-watching opportunities. It will also reduce cheatgrass and promote native plant species which will benefit livestock grazing.