NWTF biologists create more (western) places to hunt
Volunteers are the NWTF’s true go-getters, but in the line behind them stand trained professionals — regional staff that initiate fundraising for projects that enhance our places to hunt. Regional biologists Jared McJunkin (Northern Great Plains), Ross Huffman (Oklahoma and west Texas) and Stan Baker (Mountain Region) pioneered the projects below.
Award winning SD projects are for the birds
When you’re a NWTF biologist, you have to learn a lot of acronyms or else you’ll spend your days saying, “Northwest Area Conservation Districts (NWAC) or Northern Plains Riparian Restoration Initiative (NPRRI) or Tatanka Resource Conservation and Development Council (RC&D).”
McJunkin probably would not mind spending time on monikers if he continued to see successes, like the recently accepted 2009 Grasslands Prairie Partner Award from the USDA Forest Service or the 2009 Conservation District Partner of the Year Award presented by the NWTF to the NWAC.
Concerned that native vegetation was declining in overall health along the banks of western waterways in northwestern South Dakota, the USFS, Tatanka RC&D and the NWTF initiated a cottonwood planting project two years ago near Bison. The state chapter and the NPRRI funded plantings on the Grand River Ranger District of the Dakota Prairie Grasslands. Local Boy and Girl Scout troops volunteered with the plantings. The project, on private and public properties, also included building fences around riparian areas and teaching landowners how to improve their riparian areas.
Unlike massive blocks of national forest lands, the National Grasslands intermingle with federal, state and private lands. Twenty publicly owned grasslands stretch from North Dakota to Oregon and from California to Texas and contain more than 3.8 million acres.
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Photo by Ross Huffman
Hemphill River, Texas |
Rooting out invasive species in the Texas Panhandle
The NWTF kicked off a project last year with the Cooperative Conservation Partnership Initiative Program (CCPI) to manage more than 90,000 acres of riparian habitat infested with invasive species in the Panhandle region including Hutchinson, Roberts and Hemphill counties.
Ross Huffman explained, “The CCPI is not a grant. It is a voluntary conservation initiative where eligible partners enter into an agreement with the Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS) to provide financial and technical assistance to qualified landowners.”
During the next five years, the NRCS will provide funding — up to half a million dollars per year. Huffman described the NWTF’s role, “to increase participation and provide non-federal matching grants monies.”
This is the only CCPI in Texas, and the NWTF partners with not only the NRCS, but other conservation groups, such as the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. Huffman estimated that landowners would be responsible for about 10 percent of the costs.
Utah: where elk and turkeys roam
In south-central Utah, near Richfield, Monroe Mountain rises to more than 11,000 feet. Covered in aspen and spruce/fir, this setting is home of the world record Rocky Mountain elk subspecies and also Fishlake National Forest, which hold the state’s largest natural mountain lake.
Fishlake is dubbed a “working forest,” and the NWTF is putting muscle and money behind that reputation.
Stan Baker initiated the first NWTF Stewardship Project with the USDA Forest Service in Utah that will improve 386 acres of habitat. Last October, efforts began to restore aspen communities and reduce wildfire hazards for adjacent private lands. — Barbara Baird