Rich County CRM

  • Next Meeting: May 6, 2010 beginning 6 p.m. at the Senior Center in Randolph.  For more information contact Todd Black 435-770-9302 or todd.black@usu.edu
  • Meetings planned for 2010 are held on the first Thursday of every other month starting 1/7/2010 from 6-8PM at the Randolph Senior Center, Randolph Utah.

Summer field tour is held in July and will be determined based on weather

January meeting—the group would report on completed projects (WRI/GIP/NRCS and other projects) in addition to reporting on Actions and Strategies from the sage-grouse plan.
March meeting—agency reports on research and monitoring. USU would report on research updates. UDWR/FS/BLM would report on any monitoring updates.
May meeting—state of the county updates from UDWR BLM FS NRCS County Agg County Business, Economic Development etc
July meeting—field tour—TBD
September/October meeting—CRM Executive board meeting
November meeting—CRM new projects (presented and or approved) completed projects update.

 To be placed on mailing list and or for specific meeting location and times please contact:  Todd A. Black, CBC EXT Specialist, cell 435-770-9302 or todd.black@usu.edu


 

Rich County Sage-grouse Conservation Plan


            A note about the Rich County sage-grouse plan:. This is an adaptive plan, it will be reviewed annually and therefore is likely to be amended, changed, updated, and reported upon but it will not be ignored and just put on the shelf as a monumental accomplishment of those involved.

DRAFT 1 Sage-grouse Conservation Plan 2006


Reports and Publications


 

Minutes

 


 

 

Greater Sage-Grouse Response To Sagebrush

Manipulations In Rich County, Utah

The alteration of sagebrush ecosystems through agricultural conversion, drought, fire, invasive species, and urban and commercial development has led to an increased interest in the management of greater sage-grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus) in recent years. To better manage sage-grouse populations, many land and wildlife management agencies have begun treating sagebrush with herbicide, machinery, and fire. The intent of these treatments is to reduce sagebrush canopy cover and increase the density of grass and forb species, thus providing higher quality sage-grouse brood rearing habitat. However, monitoring of sage-grouse response to such treatments has often been lacking or non-existent. The objective of this study is to determine the response of sage-grouse to sagebrush treatments in Rich County, Utah.

Treatments in our study area at Duck Creek

Our study area will focus on two locations in Rich County, Utah. The first, Duck Creek, is a 95km² grazing allotment in the north end of Rich County. It is a mosaic of federal, state, and private lands. The other area is Deseret Land and Livestock, an 810km² privately owned cattle ranch located at the southern end of Rich County. Additional sampling will take place across Rich County in historic sagebrush manipulations that differ in time since disturbance and type of disturbance.

 

 

Pellet transects will be used to estimate density of sage-grouse pellets in treated and untreated areas. Pellets will serve as an index to sage-grouse use. We will use trained dogs to flush grouse in treated and untreated areas. Flush counts will identify sage-grouse use of areas at specific moments in time.

A pellet cluster with fecal and cecal pellets

 

Presence-absence sampling will be used to estimate the probability of treated and untreated areas being occupied by sage-grouse. We will establish permanent plots in treated and untreated areas and sample these plots at discrete seasonal intervals to determine seasonal use.

 

GPS radio-telemetry will be used to verify sage-grouse use of treatments. We will locate sage-grouse approximately four times per day to get a robust measure of use through time. Vegetation measurements will be taken at known locations of sage-grouse use, which we will obtain from our telemetry data. We will use line-intercept, Daubenmire and Wiens pole techniques to measure vegetation. We will use vegetation and sage-grouse location data to build habitat association models for sage-grouse in Rich County.  

            This research will help managers to understand the effects that sagebrush treatments have on sage-grouse habitat use. Our study will allow managers and researchers to determine which methods are most effective and least expensive for sage-grouse monitoring. In addition, this project can be a guide for land owners and managers when planning future sagebrush treatments for sage-grouse.

           

Bio

Roger Stringham is currently a M.S. student in the Wildland Resources Department at Utah State University. Roger received a B. S. degree in Wildlife Science from Utah State University in 2007. Roger can be contacted at rogerstringham@utah.gov.