Utah BLM

https://suwa.org/chaining-and-vegetation-removal/

Interested to hear the thoughts of members on here...

Chaining is a good thing that allows better forage for wildlife and improves the habitat. Chaining is one of the main reasons why the strip in Arizona was better in decades past.

There are thousands of acres in my area that have been chained many years ago. The chained areas are the places that grow feed for the elk and deer and are the places that they spend the winter. They also don't chain everything as SUWA would have you believe. They chain the flats and side hills and leave big patches of trees standing along the edges and in the draws and canyons. The elk and deer feed in the chained areas during the night and head for cover during the day.

Yes, Please call the BLM and encourage them to continue chaining.

Not the greatest picture, But you can see the chained areas. These areas are essential for our wintering elk and deer. There is little to no forage in the thick cedars.

Here is a good place to start.

https://eplanning.blm.gov/epl-front...ScopingNotice_Final1--508v_1-4-18_esigned.pdf

Since it is UT, expect the worst. The methods described are standard to reduce pinon/juniper and allow grass, forbs, sage to reestablish. Leaving the biomass improves soil. If these treatments are followed by mineral extraction, I would not be surprised.

mtnrunner260 said:

https://suwa.org/chaining-and-vegetation-removal/

Interested to hear the thoughts of members on here...

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Are you messing with us? I can hardly wait for the pro Bears Ears crowd to jump in.

Elkantlers is 100% correct. Habitat improvement projects in large areas of Utah involved chaining, seeding and water source development. God created poor habitat. Stunningly beautiful but poor. Man has improved and some of our best deer and elk units have extensive chaining.

elkduds said:

Since it is UT, expect the worst. The methods described are standard to reduce pinon/juniper and allow grass, forbs, sage to reestablish. Leaving the biomass improves soil. If these treatments are followed by mineral extraction, I would not be surprised.

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You do realize the Hoffman crew on Gold Rush is in Colorado? Colorado has a great environmental record.

dukes_daddy said:

..........Colorado has a great environmental record.

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dukes_daddy said:

........I can hardly wait for the pro Bears Ears crowd to jump in.....

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elkduds said:

Since it is UT, expect the worst. .......If these treatments are followed by mineral extraction, I would not be surprised.

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Is it too much to ask that the point of the original post be followed and not have all the bullshit commentary that has nothing to do with the topic at hand? Already, by posts 6, 7, and 8, we have the same old crap. Seems some cannot resist the temptation to start derailing a useful discussion.

Anyone else reading this who thinks Hunt Talk is a place to stir the pot with corrosive tangents and other actions that I've cautioned against , send me a PM and I can give you a list of other forums that would accept that behavior.

I have never heard of "chaining". Awesome !!!! The regrowth and super habitat that results, appears to be similar to the regrowth from clear-cuts that we see in the east. While perhaps a bit ugly to view when first completed, and maybe offensive for the uninformed, it is up to us to encourage the land managers to continue the work and educate those who are against the practice.

First off, I take most anything coming out of SUWA with a grain of salt. My idea of management and theirs is often at odds...

Large, and I mean L A R G E, stretches of UT are occupied by pinion and juniper that should not be there and/or at levels that high enough that they are negatively impacting the area. Junipers now cover stretches of land that should be covered by sagebrush (both big and small). Areas that were historically occupied by junipers are now more crowded and this is leading to a reduction in browse/forage production and an increase in erosion. This is due to past management, largely fire suppression and grazing. About a decade ago I was on a field tour of some juniper treatment areas. A professor from Univ. of Nevada-Reno was on the tour and his team had calculated that the state of UT would have to remove 50K acres of juniper annually just to break even on the current juniper biomass production. It's a big issue that got out of hand in a short time. An analysis of the cost data from one BLM office in UT showed that chaining was by far the most cost effective measure of reducing juniper per acre. Oddly prescribed fire was the most expensive... This is important, IMO, as this type of treatment needs to be done on a large scale. The downside is that the projects are usually done at a much smaller scale than needed as public opinion and manager's "risk calculator" usually result in a more expensive per acre treatment being done. I'm very much a proponent of actively vegetation management and these smaller projects do show benefits, but would like to see them done at more appropriate scales.

Similar issues for large areas of UT with regards to sagebrush. There it's not so much that sagebrush is invading adjacent sites, but that the sagebrush has been allowed to get too dense and too decadent. Though I never got to measure it, a wildlife biologist for a large ranch and I were of the opinion that areas that have some of the sagebrush removed (either by chaining, Lawson aerator, or 2,4-D) produce more edible sagebrush than untreated areas. Many treatments for sagebrush do not remove all of them and the projects are easy enough to plan/implement that can provide a very good mosiac of sagebrush states from young to old and at spacing that provides plenty of resources to grow grass and forbs. In the early 1960s the BLM was chaining/seeding roughly 1 million acres of ground annually. I'm not saying its the sole or main reason, but I'm convinced that had something to do with the mule deer populations and quality of the time.

Were I made "king" for a bit, there'd be a whole lot of anchor chains and range drills being worn out every year on both BLM and USFS ground.

Not all at the same location, but from similar vegetation type/precipitation zone:
Untreated
DCT-1-3 by Tyler Staggs, on Flickr
2 years post treatment with Lawson aerator
BigThreeWUIproject5 by Tyler Staggs, on Flickr
1 year post fire stabilization
Revegetationfromfire by Tyler Staggs, on Flickr

pointer, top pic, too much sagebrush. hahaha

Here is what 34.5% looks like...and is on the high end for GSG habitat. Of course I have to trust the numbers from Randy's camera man on this one. Not sure why he gave up on me? haha

MR plug.

Good comments and accompanying photos, pointer. It would be nice to have uninformed people educated to the work professionals in the field do through site visits and dialog. Social media agenda driven campaigns like this one by the SUWA makes managing our public lands much more difficult, unfortunately.

I would also like to add that when it comes to sagebrush steppe ecosystems, I am very much uninformed and enjoy learning about it from professionals. Thank you! I am aware of the pinyon-juniper encroachment going on in the west, and the difficulties and expenses in dealing with it. Keep up the good work guys!

Good stuff.
Thanks BF!
IMHO,on mass clearings.The best ones leave bands or groups of trees/brush for cover. Any rancher with a brain sees his cattle using these places the same as game. Shade & feed.

Holy crap!
Better than I thought. Kudos to Randy and the group of guys/gals he has on here!
BighornRam - that is an outstanding point of SUWA, hippies et al. are putting this stuff out and there is very little to educate them otherwise. If the middle of the bell curse is going to decide the future of hunting/conservation I think we need to do more to show the good work the feds and state game agencies are doing.
I know RMEF is putting some good stuff out and Randy's is outstanding but on the beyond the kill podcast they just talked about this subject of quick, impactful media being the way to reach today's society. As much as I love a good peer reviewed, data rich paper that is not how the masses are reached.
Keep up the good work everyone.

Most proposed pinyon and juniper removal projects take the blanket approach that ridding the area of existing vegetation is the only way to accomplish a variety of stated project goals, usually including:

restoring sage-grouse habitat by modifying “decadent” sagebrush stands,
fire prevention,
improving habitat for mule deer and elk,
protecting watersheds and improving water quality, and
removing “encroaching” or “invasive” pinyon and juniper trees.
Most of these benefits lack scientific support, but by throwing out so many possible rationales, the agency gives itself a variety of justifications to hide behind.

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This is a link for information on "chaining"... Informative study conducted by University of AZ. I am not a fan of journalistic partisan / biased scare tactics and the article, from my position, smells of that. ( Not declaring fact - as some may declare).

https://journals.uair.arizona.edu/index.php/rangelands/article/viewFile/11879/11152

mtmiller said:

pointer, top pic, too much sagebrush. hahaha

Here is what 34.5% looks like...and is on the high end for GSG habitat. Of course I have to trust the numbers from Randy's camera man on this one. Not sure why he gave up on me? haha

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It's been too long since I've ran a tape in sagebrush. Surprised on the 34.5%. IIRC that first pic of mine was close to double what you measured on your site. Cover is such a hard thing to really get a grasp of outside of a direct overhead photo.

What my pic doesn't show is the 10's of thousands of acres in that area that are the same way. Which is part of why I consider it too much sagebrush. The UT DWR had some GPS on GSG on the allotment my first pic. Come late summer nearly all of them moved north and spent the next month or so on some abandoned dry land wheat lands. Very, very little sagebrush and waist high or taller grass. Critters surprise us at times.

The last two sagegrouse I shot in UT were shot within the fire perimeter of that last picture. Granted, near the edge, but the birds were using that fire quite heavily in the spring.

BigHornRam said:

I would also like to add that when it comes to sagebrush steppe ecosystems, I am very much uninformed and enjoy learning about it from professionals. Thank you! I am aware of the pinyon-juniper encroachment going on in the west, and the difficulties and expenses in dealing with it. Keep up the good work guys!

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Sagebrush issues are not unlike the P-J ones, just everything is shorter.

PS- Not all sagebrush ecosystems are steppe ecosystems...