2010 Wildlife project review

The ISRP agrees that invasive species are difficult to control. This fact makes it all the more important that an effective monitoring plan be in place to inform adaptive management. Re-treatment using the same methods, e.g., continuous heavy spraying, may not be the most effective strategy. The ISRP acknowledges and supports the sponsor's determination to increase monitoring of treated and non-treated areas in an effort to better understand the effects of various weed control practices. Basically, the response indicated that limited data has been collected in the past to evaluate weed management activities on the property (under-staffed, turnover of staff, land-base doubled in last four years). Now, the sponsor notes that the budget increase permits increased staffing beginning April 20, 2009 to conduct this important work. It was noted that the sponsor has been working with several weed control organizations plus Monsanto and UAP Timberland to test weed control chemicals (hopefully including integrated pest management) on plots and will use funds in 2010 to monitor invasive species and vegetation treatments. Complete elimination of invasive weed species may not be reasonable, but establishing desired vegetative cover that can be maintained with less effort should be attainable. Seems like the sponsor has the correct concept, but hope they have personnel to make it happen? The ISRP offers its support for the new efforts to monitor and evaluate weed control efforts. Results from monitoring and evaluation of weed control efforts need to be included in future reports.

This winter range project has been active for many years with acquisitions listed by year, HU cost and acres. Management has included the installation and maintenance of fencing, removal of trespass livestock, and weed management. Weed management acreages have increased dramatically in recent years with expenses estimated at $500,000 in 2009. In the past, the ISRP noted that future funding of the active management part of the budget should be contingent upon a meaningful analysis of data, i.e., a summary is needed of weed/native vegetation response data to management activities with graphs, tables, etc…. Further, the sponsors were requested to show how results are incorporated into future management with interpretative dialogue. It is noteworthy that the management area has been divided into 160 acre grids to prioritize weed treatment on 10 grids per year. However, photopoints and hopefully other data were collected in past years. Are the weed control projects successful, and what weed management approaches work best in the area? Data is needed to answer this question, and hopefully such data is available from over the years. It is noted that M&E will be provided by UCUT UWMEP in 2009, but that in 2010 M&E will be reinitiated by the project. The ISRP is not sure what this means. It is doubtful that UWMEP can evaluate of the weed control program on the short term basis, a successful adaptive management plan is urgently needed for this large and expensive program. We are also interested in population data on sharp-tailed grouse in the area because the species was only briefly mentioned.