Wildlife Conservation Through Sustainable Ranching
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New Partnership in Wyoming Rewards Landowners for Stewarding Wildlife Habitat
USDA-NRCS working with State of Wyoming and local ranchers to benefit migratory big game
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In May, the USDA unveiled the Big Game Conservation Partnership, a new pilot program with the State of Wyoming focused on conserving working lands for migratory big game. Wyoming hosts some of the West's largest herds of migrating species like elk, mule deer, and pronghorn, all of which rely on private working lands for habitat.
The effort is producer-focused and was launched after extensive listening sessions with local producers, landowners, and officials. The bottom-up approach ensures landowners and producers can continue grazing their lands while also benefiting migratory big game.
The USDA-NRCS is providing up to $15 million for stewardship projects in Fremont, Hot Springs, Lincoln, Park, Sublette, and Teton counties through partnership.
Stewardship activities include:
By leveraging ongoing conservation efforts on working lands, this pilot program aims to help managers, landowners, and local leaders prioritize action to further the conservation of wildlife and habitats. The work emphasizes a commitment to voluntary, incentive-based approaches; identifies a critical role of private, working lands; and stresses the importance of supporting state, tribal, and landowners to advance their conservation priorities.
If you’re a rancher or landowner in Wyoming and would like more information about this pilot program, please contact the NRCS or FSA at your local USDA Service Center.
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Yellowstone's Wildlife Get Boost from NRCS-WY Partnership
NRCS is working with ranchers in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem
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Did you know that nearly 30%, or 6 million acres, of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (GYE) are privately owned? Anchored by Yellowstone National Park, the GYE is a vast landscape that hosts some of the largest herds of migrating animals on Earth.
Through the new Big Game Conservation Partnership, the NRCS is helping Wyoming landowners conserve working rangelands to benefit the wildlife that travel from the park to private lands.
This innovative effort is already making a difference for the region's wildlife and producers as highlighted in this great Farmers.gov post.
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| Making Fences Friendlier for Ranchers and Wildlife
NRCS-WY partnership is making ranches more big game friendly
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Mike Vickrey's ranch has "all the good stuff—elk, moose, antelope and sage grouse." The Pinedale-area ranch is also "in the middle of the biggest mule deer migration corridor there is."
Wildlife passing through Vickrey's ranch are less likely to get hung up on fencing thanks to the family's long-time partnership with the NRCS.
Thanks to the new NRCS-WY Big Game Conservation Partnership, other landowners throughout the region will be able to make their fencing more friendly to wildlife, expanding on the 180 miles of wildlife-friendly fencing already in place.
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Funding Opportunity: USDA Now Accepting Conservation Innovation Grant Classic Applications
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Treating invading species like trees and annual grasses is a priority area for the 2022 grant cycle Application deadline: October 11, 2022
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The USDA is granting $15 million to private landowners via the 2022 Conservation Innovation Grant Classic (CIG) program. Through CIG, grantees work to address our nation's water quality, water quantity, air quality, soil health and wildlife habitat challenges, all while supporting agricultural production. This year’s funding priorities are climate-smart agriculture, addressing invasive species, and conservation in urban agricultural systems.
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Applications are being accepted now through October 11, 2022.
Addressing invasive species (Priority 2) is particularly relevant to producers and landowners in sagebrush country and the Great Plains.
The funding announcement specifically notes:
Grasslands are being lost to woody encroachment in the Great Plains, while in the West, invasives such as kochia, cheatgrass, western bark beetle and others continue to increase, impacting productive lands, changing nutrient and hydrological cycles, and increasing risks to wildlife. Invasions are exacerbated by the impacts of climate changes such as drought, changes in weather patterns, or extreme weather events, altering fire and drought cycles throughout the United States.
As outlined in the landscape-specific Great Plains and sagebrush conservation frameworks, Working Lands for Wildlife is proactively and strategically addressing invasive species through a “Defend the Core, Grow the Core, Mitigate Impacts” approach. This proactive Defend the Core approach is central to both frameworks and a key strategy in the fight against invasive species. Defending core areas from invasive species before they invade is more effective and cost-efficient than addressing invasive species after they become established.
According to the funding notice, CIG grants that address the invasive species priority “must propose innovations for private landowners to more effectively prevent, detect, or combat invasive species to maintain healthy and productive working lands. Innovations should help prevent, control, or eliminate pest invasions or help restore land and prevent reinvasion.”
The funding notice also states:
Each project must fit into at least one of the following three sub-priorities:
- Innovative strategic approaches - Approaches should be designed to have a high likelihood of eradication and be strategically designed to remove risk of reintroduction, targeting refuge locations and vector pathways.
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Reimagination of existing strategies - Proposals that combine or integrate new ideas with existing tactics to address invasive species with high transferability regionally or even nationally.
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Early Detection and Rapid Response (EDRR) - Proposals that support proactive invasive species management, particularly addressing invasive species with broad ecological niches that are expanding their range due to climate change.
Private entities whose primary business is related to agriculture, nongovernmental organizations with experience working with agricultural producers and non-federal government agencies are eligible to apply.
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Burning Up
National Wildlife Federation article highlights successful WLFW efforts in the battle against a warming climate
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The world is heating up and that is putting a host of ecosystems under significant threat. The National Wildlife Federation's most recent magazine highlights how rising temps are damaging and threatening entire ecosystems and what conservationists are doing to stop it.
The piece features WLFW staff and projects that are repairing streams, creeks, and wet meadows through low-tech restoration practices. These practices build resiliency in the sagebrush ecosystem and reduce the impacts of drought, extreme heat, and wildfire on local species.
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| Water, Weather, Climate & Grouse
New science details the impacts of climate, weather, trees, and invasive grasses on sage grouse
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A new open-access paper in the journal Ecological Indicators examined how weather, climate, availability of mesic resources, and vegetation cover impact sage grouse productivity.
The authors conclude: "Management actions focused on maintaining and restoring mesic resources and drought resilient habitats, limiting the spread of exotic annual grasses, and reversing conifer encroachment should support future sage-grouse recruitment and help mitigate the effects of climate change."
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The University of Wisconsin-Madison's Center for Sustainability and the Global Environment and the University of Montana's Numerical Terradynamics Simulation Group seek an exceptional post-doctoral researcher with expertise in geospatial analysis, statistics, and agricultural ecosystems to study land-use changes in North America’s grasslands. The candidate will work closely with researchers at both the University of Montana and the University of Wisconsin as well as collaborators at the USDA-NRCS, US Fish and Wildlife Service, and other wildlife and conservation partners. Deadline: September 4, 2022.
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Long-time WLFW partner, The Nature Conservancy, recently published a storymap highlighting their efforts and partnerships aimed at restoring and conserving the sagebrush sea.
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The USDA is investing up to $12 million in partnerships that expand access to conservation technical assistance for livestock producers and increase the use of conservation practices on grazing lands. The USDA-NRCS is accepting proposals through its Grazing Lands Conservation Initiative (GLCI) until September 22, 2022.
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The Grasslands Roadmap, a collaborative effort to conserve North America's grasslands, just launched their Grasslands and You campaign. Check out the campaign resources, learn more about the effort and how you can participate here.
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Today's myriad conservation challenges make voluntary conservation ever more important, according to longtime WLFW partner Partnerscapes.They argue that without formal education, training, and mentoring, an emerging group of young practitioners don't have the requisite skills to successfully implement conservation efforts. Read the post to better understand the "art" of conservation.
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The University of Wyoming and the Wyoming Migration Initiative just announced screening dates for their latest film series. The My Wild Land series features three WY ranching families who are managing their land to benefit migratory big game. The series will screen in three Wyoming cities in September: Jackson Hole 9/1; Laramie 9/22; and Lander 9/29. It will be available for free streaming later this fall.
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Working Lands for Wildlife is the Natural Resources Conservation Service's premier approach for conserving America's working lands to benefit people, wildlife, and rural communities. In the West, WLFW is guided by two, action-based frameworks for conservation. The framework approach is designed to increase conservation and restoration of rangelands by addressing major threats to rangeland health and through the implementation of conservation measures that limit soil disturbance, support sustainable grazing management, promote the strategic use of prescribed fire, and support native grassland species. Together, the frameworks leverage the power of voluntary, win-win conservation solutions to benefit people and wildlife from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean.
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