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Introduction
Introduction
The Elko County Sagebrush Ecosystem Conservation Strategy (Strategy) is the result of collaboration among various interest groups, individuals, and agency personnel in response to the potential for listing sage grouse as threatened or endangered under the Endangered Species Act. However, the Northeastern Nevada Stewardship Group (NNSG) quickly realized that sage grouse were an indicator species of ecosystem health. Because of the variety of plant community types (i.e., habitats) needed by sage grouse for breeding, nesting, brood-rearing, and wintering, "the goal of managing sage grouse habitats for an optimal balance of shrubs, forbs, and grasses at community and landscape scales should be analogous with restoring and /or maintaining form, function, and process in sagebrush-dominated habitats" (Crawford et al. 2004). Consequently, the focus of the effort changed from a single-species conservation plan to an ecosystem conservation strategy. However, the emphasis on sage grouse has not been lost in the process. Throughout the process, sagebrush obligate species, special status species (both plants and animals), and other unique land features (e.g., aspen stands, sub-alpine forests, etc.) will be considered in the management actions developed with the intent on maintaining the diversity of communities on the landscape. Habitat Conservation Assessment
The Strategy includes an assessment of the planning area that consists of a summary of sage grouse biology and ecology, a description of sagebrush ecology, a list of factors that affect sage grouse and sage grouse habitats, and a historical perspective of the landscape changes and sage grouse populations.
As part of this assessment, the NNSG followed portions of the Nevada Sage Grouse Conservation Strategy developed by the Governor's Sage Grouse Conservation Team. Sage grouse population management units (PMUs) were identified within the planning area and each PMU was evaluated for risks to sage grouse using the following factors: Habitat Quantity, Habitat Quality/Nutrition, Habitat Fragmentation, Changing Land Uses, Livestock Grazing, Fire Ecology, Disturbance, Predation, Hunting, Disease, Cycles, and Climate/Weather. Those PMUs with higher total risk values were identified as priority areas for management. The level of risk assessment was general; not specific enough to identify individual project level actions, but detailed enough to identify the general types of issues that need to be addressed. <>The condition of the habitat with respect to sage grouse habitat requirements was also evaluated using soil mapping provided by the Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS), various vegetation mapping efforts provided by the Elko Field Office, Bureau of Land Management (BLM), allotment evaluation data from BLM and U.S. Forest Service, Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest (USFS), and field experience of the members of the team. The evaluation generally followed the protocols developed in Idaho and included five habitat categories:
R-0: Habitat areas with desired species composition that have sufficient, but not excessive, sagebrush canopy and sufficient grasses and forbs in the understory to provide adequate cover and forage to meet the seasonal needs of sage grouse (4,805,000 acres);
R-1: Habitat areas which currently lack sufficient sagebrush and are currently dominated by perennial grasses and forbs, yet have the potential to produce sagebrush plant communities with good understory composition of desired grasses and forbs (1,170,000 acres);
R-2: Existing sagebrush habitat areas with insufficient desired grasses and forbs in the understory to meet seasonal needs of sage grouse (2,018,000 acres);
R-3: Sagebrush habitat areas where pinyon-juniper encroachment has affected the potential to produce sagebrush plant communities that provide adequate cover and forage to meet the seasonal needs of sage grouse (354,000 acres); and
R-4: Habitat areas which have the potential to produce sagebrush plant communities but are currently dominated by annual grasses, annual forbs, or bare ground (251,573 acres).
The remaining 1,626,000 acres of the planning area were identified as non-sage grouse habitats (forests, urban areas, salt-desert shrub, etc.).
This breakdown indicated that while Elko County has considerable acreage of intact sage grouse habitat (R-0 acreage), the potential habitat in which sagebrush can be readily established and sagebrush in poor condition (R-1 and R-2 acreage, respectively), and the areas formerly occupied by sagebrush but now occupied by pinyon-juniper and cheatgrass (R-3 and R-4 acreage, respectively) account for 44 percent of the acreage (3,793,000 acres) that have potential to support sage grouse within the planning area. These habitat condition categories that represent risks to sage grouse also represent acreage that is not functioning in terms of watershed values. Consequently, the issues of habitat quantity and habitat quality were identified as major issues to be addressed. Conservation Strategy
The NNSG Strategy and the Nevada Sage Grouse Conservation Strategy (State Strategy) identify some common goals. The first goal of the State Strategy is to: Create healthy, self-sustaining Sage Grouse populations well distributed throughout the species historic range by maintaining and restoring ecologically diverse, sustainable, and contiguous sagebrush ecosystems and by implementing scientifically-sound management practices. The goal of the NNSG Strategy is to:
Manage watersheds, basins, and sub basins in a manner that restores or enhances (as appropriate) the ecological processes necessary to maintain proper functioning ecosystems, inclusive of sage grouse.
The NNSG Strategy also includes goals specific to various resources (e.g., sage grouse, vegetation, special status species, livestock, recreation, mining, and fuels management). However, these goals are general goals that can be refined at the watershed management unit level.
The objectives of the NNSG Strategy are to:
Implement a watershed analysis process on the watersheds within the planning area by initiating the assessment of three watersheds each year; and
Develop a watershed plan for each watershed within one and one-half years following the initiation of the process.
The watershed assessment will follow range, watershed, riparian, and sage grouse habitat evaluation processes developed by the BLM, U.S. Geological Survey, NRCS, Agricultural Research Service, USFS, Environmental Protection Agency, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, National Park Service, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and the Western Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies.
The watershed management plans will include actions and management strategies that address the specific land health and sage grouse habitat issues identified in the watershed assessment. Once completed, the individual projects, groups of inter-related projects, or the entire watershed plan will be subject to National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) analysis to determine the impacts of such actions on the critical elements of the human environment, as well as the cumulative impacts of such actions.
The NNSG Strategy identifies several management strategies that are likely to be incorporated into the watershed management plans on a site-specific basis. The management strategies identified to date address some of the major issues that have been identified in the initial PMU risk assessment and watershed review. As other issues are identified in the watershed assessment process, other management strategies will be developed.
Monitoring at the watershed plan-level, at the individual watershed project-level, and at the on-the-ground resources-level will be part of the watershed management process. For each variable at each monitoring level, the responsibility for conducting the monitoring, the frequency at which monitoring is to occur, and the manner in which the monitoring will be reported will be specified. The variables to be monitored will be directly related to the goals and objectives of the watershed plan, the project, and the resources to be affected by the project.
The feedback provided by the monitoring with respect to the objectives will provide the basis for implementing adaptive management strategies. If objectives are being achieved, then the type of action implemented will continue. If objectives are not being achieved, then the hypothesis on which the objective is based, the practice that was implemented, the conditions under which it was implemented, the variables being monitored, and monitoring methodology will all be re-evaluated to determine where changes need to be instituted.
This Strategy is the process for identifying the site-specific issues, developing watershed-specific management/conservation plans, proposing and implementing site-specific actions, determining the appropriate monitoring of these actions, and implementing adaptive management concepts to the entire process. © Copyright 2003-2020, NNSG, Northeastern Nevada Stewardship Group