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Utah BLM

The P-J chapter in Arno/Fiedler's book "Mimicking Nature's Fire" is titled the "Elfin Forest" so it still short by my standards. That book contains most all my knowledge of that type of forest. It does have some very good examples of restoration projects and details the need for much more. It was written in 2005 and I suspect, not near enough restoration work has been done since then.
 
My uncle lived in central Oregon for many years, and took a hell of a lot of pictures. The juniper encroachment over a 50 year period was pretty amazing.

BHR,

Not even close to enough work is being done on it.
 
Great information everyone as the HT brain trust is rolling on this one...I have put the Arno/Fiedler book on my wish list and will add it to my growing library that consists of a few recent additions spurred by the HT folks such as the tome of pronghorn academia that Yoakum & O’Gara authored. While hunting pronghorn in northwestern Colorado this past archery season, I saw first hand the effects P/J’s had on that landscape as the floor of the steppe out there under the P/J “canopy” was nearly devoid of any vegetation whatsoever and subsequent erosion of the unstabilzed ground was commonly seen in these areas.
 
1_pointer said:
If folks want to geek out on repeat photography...

http://extension.usu.edu/rra/
Click to expand...

I found this very interesting

Similarly, Utah once contained over 2.5 million acres of aspen, but that figure is now down to only 1 million acres, and aspen is still declining. Thus, in just the aspen type alone, Utah has lost approximately 1,500,000 AUM's during the last 100 years. To put this in perspective, all the national forests in Utah presently allocate just slightly more than 1 million AUM's to livestock. When other vegetation types are considered, Utah may have lost 3-4 million AUM's to encroaching woody species. This should be a major concern to everyone in the state because not only is there less forage to support the livestock industry, but there is also less habitat for wildlife. The plants that elk and mule deer prefer, for instance, have also declined as conifers have increased. Thus, long-term vegetation changes are more than an academic interest and should be of concern to everyone in the State.
Click to expand...
 
Yep, conifer encroachment can lead to aspen decline. I helped plan a project to burn some isolated conifer patches to stimulate aspen regeneration as they has small bits of aspen in/around them. The center of these patches were often full of aspen skeletons. While aspen to reproduce seed, sprouting is by far the most common and prolific way they reproduce.

If you think that amount of loss is bad, IIRC the estimated loss in AZ is over 90%!
 
mtnrunner260 said:
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.
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Glad to see we now agree habitat management is good. Very glad most of Bears Ears area can be managed as before.
 
I'm personally pretty happy with the chaining that the BLM has done in the Bookcliffs of CO. I'm kind of surprised that it's still an option, I make a living on construction sites so can't help but to mentally add up project costs. It appears an expensive proposition when you add up man hours, equipment, fuel, etc. That stuff is more expensive than most people realize. But the areas I've seen chained or mulched 10+ years ago have actually developed into decent habitat. Contrary to the narrative on the hair-on-fire narrative on their web site, you cannot take a bulldozer anywhere so the assumption that they're clearing an entire wilderness is a pretty big, pretty flawed leap of logic. Like above, it's not cheap plus there is lots of terrain that you simply cannot get to in any vehicle, even a tracked dozer. The areas I've seen done have been the relatively few flat areas close to a road that otherwise provide good wintering for critters.

And, regarding the claim of just making more cattle grazing options, the areas I've seen haven't had many cattle on them for years. For better or worse (I have family in ranching) between leasing rates, logistics, and beef prices, it must pencil out better in other areas for cattlemen because there hasn't been many cattle in the BLM country I travel for years.

SUWA doesn't have much credibility around these parts. But that doesn't seem to slow them down much.

And you know what else makes nice, cleared out winter habitat on BLM land? Abandoned natural gas well pads, also in the Bookcliffs. Not trying to start any fights, just pointing out where I find a lot of shed antlers and throwing out another twist to this whole complicated conversation.

Dave
 
Pretty amazing to see. Coming from a state that has all but ceased to consider habitat improvements on state lands and our forever wild clause in the ADK is refreshing to see improvements for wildlife taking a front seat.
 
davinski- I found an old handbook years ago that detailed different vegetation management treatments. One that stood out to me was a chaining method in steep country using only one dozer. The dozer drives along the ridgeline trailing an anchor chain. Attached to the end of the anchor chain was a BIG weight. Think wrecking ball or in their example a metal tank filled with water or sand. The weighted chain goes over the side of the hill and is drug sidehill to remove/reduce the woody vegetation as the dozer goes up the ridgeline. I bet driving a dozer doing that could be a bit sporty...
 
Thanks for sending me the GSE RMP. As long as you are in eplanning, check out the recent projects they have done. The sky is not falling.
 
Oak said:
Here's a story about a friend and former coworker who is probably making some of the old school tape-stretchers cringe.
Click to expand...
Not a surprise. In some cases I could see it being useful. One thing that will always be on the side of the tape-stretchers is being able to look under things. Cover is not 2D...
 
Hard to do anything but look at it when you keep getting your budgets slashed.

Another 13% reduction requested by the administration and NO LWCF funding in the new budget. That's sure proving the commitment to habitat and good stewardship of public lands. ;)

Also, bring on the chains, dozers and fire. Bring on the big pots of money to focus restoration on native plant communities and let's start looking at entire ecosystems and how things work together before just unleashing everyone to go forth and bring diverse-age stands of native forage back to the range.

And restore Bear's Ears. ;)
 
Apparently the UT DWR did a rebuttal video on the Facebook.
Anyone know how to watch it without an account?
 
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