Wildlife Conservation Through Sustainable Ranching
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Heading to National Pheasant Fest & Quail Classic? Check Out the Grasslands Education Exhibit!
IMMERSIVE EXHIBIT HIGHLIGHTS NEED TO DEFEND AMERICA'S GRASSLANDS
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The 2024 National Pheasant Fest & Quail Classic, one of the largest conservation and hunting events of the season, runs from March 1-3 at the Denny Sanford Premier Center in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. After months of planning and preparation by a coalition of partners from South Dakota, an interactive, immersive exhibit will greet trade show attendees, celebrate the importance of grasslands, and provide a call to action to learn more about how to protect critical privately owned grasslands through voluntary, incentive-based conservation.
The exhibit features a 40-foot-long mural with one-of-a-kind artwork focused on the theme, "Defending America's Grasslands." The exhibit will be located at Booths 17-23, right between the entrance to Exhibit Hall One and Exhibit Hall Two.
The exhibit is sponsored by WLFW, the South Dakota Association of Conservation Districts (SDACD), South Dakota Association of Conservation Districts Employees (SDACDE), South Dakota Grassland Coalition (SDGC), South Dakota Soil Health Coalition (SDSHC), Pheasants Forever, Inc. and Quail Forever, and the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service.
Swing down the row to booths 14-16 to visit with the South Dakota Non-Operators Landowner project, which helps connect non-operating landowners with conservation resources.
Also make sure to visit the NRCS Landowner Help Desk and the USDA NRCS booth, where NRCS staff and partners will be on hand to answer questions and direct landowners to helpful programs and more information, located near the Concessions Area. An additional Rainwater Simulator and Soil Demo Area will be located in Booth 2901.
On Saturday, March 2, join WLFW staff and researchers from across the country for a seminar series from 9:00 a.m. - 4:00 p.m. in the convention meeting space rooms 8, 9, and 10. Presentations from the western WLFW team include:
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1:30 pm - The Largest-Ever Moment to Conserve Grasslands in the Great Plains - Dr. Dirac Twidwell, University of Nebraska-Lincoln and WLFW's Great Plains grasslands science advisor
- 2:00 pm - From Birds to Biome: Buildling a Framework for Conservation Action in the Sagebrush Steppe - Dr. David Naugle, University of Montana and WLFW's sagebrush science advisor
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2:30 pm - Beef, Bullets and Birds: Why We All Need to Participate in Conservation - Julia Debes, WLFW's communications director
Stop by to learn more about grasslands conservation, talk with WLFW staff and South Dakota partners, and snag some swag!
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Ask the Expert: Supporting Grazing Land Conservation
LEARN ABOUT RESOURCES
FOR GRAZING LANDS
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In this Ask the Expert from Farmers.gov, Carrie-Ann Houdeshell, Grazing Land Co-Lead for the NRCS's Conservation Effects Assessment Project (CEAP), answers questions about recent findings on three key grazing land conservation practices, new resources to assist data-driven conservation decision making across the nation’s non-federal grazing land and federal rangeland, and NRCS programs and services to support ranchers and other land managers in pursuing voluntary conservation.
Learn more about the report that Houdeshell co-authored and references in the interview here.
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| Register Now: CRP Outcomes Webinar
WEDNESDAY MARCH 6
3:00 - 4:00 PM ET
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Join Seth A. Spawn-Lee and Tyler J. Lark from the University of Wisconsin-Madison for their webinar titled: Opportunities to enhance carbon storage and climate benefits of the Conservation Reserve Program.
The researchers will discuss their assessment of all active CRP contracts in 2020 to determine whether and how the geography of these enrollments affected the program's soil carbon storage capacity.
The webinar is part of the Farm Service Agency's CRP Webinar Series.
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Publication Alert: Making Home on the Range Safer for Big Game
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NEW NRCS TECHNICAL NOTE DETAILS WILDLIFE-FRIENDLIER FENCE CONSERVATION PLANNING AND DESIGN GUIDANCE, LEVERAGES LESSONS LEARNED FROM NRCS MIGRATORY BIG GAME CONSERVATION INITIATIVE
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A new USDA-NRCS Technical Note, published in December 2023, is helping managers, conservationists, landowners, and practitioners better avoid, minimize, and mitigate impacts caused by one of the most pervasive features that animals in the West encounter – fences.
Authored by a diverse group of experts, “Improving Fence Passage for Migratory Big Game: Examples and Lessons Learned from Wyoming’s Migratory Big Game Partnership” provides context, guidance for inventory, conservation planning, decision support, and implementation, along with references to dozens of relevant scientific papers in an easy-to-digest package.
The publication comes on the heels of the USDA-NRCS expanding the Migratory Big Game Initiative from a successful pilot program in Wyoming to a broader initiative that includes landscapes in Montana and Idaho. Making fences safer for migratory big game that encounter them is a primary practice addressed through this initiative, and the Technical Note includes lessons learned from the Wyoming pilot.
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Film: Under the Wire
NEW FILM HIGHLIGHTS HOW LANDOWNERS AND PARTNERS ARE WORKING TO REDUCE FENCE IMPACTS ON BIG GAME
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Produced by the Platte Basin Time Lapse, "Under the Wire" showcases efforts by ranchers, landowners, and partners have come together to improve fencelines in the North Platte River Valley along the Colorado-Wyoming border.
This story celebrates the wildlife that call these lands home and the folks living and working on this land to help keep these animals around for generations to come.
These types of projects are key components of the USDA-NRCS's Migratory Big Game Initiative, which was recently expanded from a pilot in Wyoming to new geographies in Montana and Idaho.
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| Humboldt Ranch Featured at National Cowboy Poetry Gathering
WLFW -SUPPORTED FILM SHOWN
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The 2024 National Cowboy Poetry Gathering featured "Changing a Landscape to a Lifescape: The Humboldt Ranch" video, supported by the Intermountain West Joint Venture and WLFW.
The story of the Humboldt Ranch is about how a change in livestock grazing practices on a ranch in northeastern Nevada is transforming gullies to wetlands and landscapes to lifescapes. Collectively, these lands support important habitat for an abundance of wildlife including Nevada’s native Lahontan cutthroat trout.
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In fiscal year 2023, USDA supported more than 45,000 conservation contracts, more than any year in the 89-year history of USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), totaling over $2.8 billion in financial assistance to producers for conservation efforts. The last year showed unprecedented demand for conservation from farmers and ranchers, with applications outpacing available funding. Even with the additional Inflation Reduction Act funding, NRCS had significant unmet producer demand for conservation through the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) and the Agricultural Conservation Easement Program (ACEP).
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In early February, the Department of the Interior announced more than $157 million in new funding to restore our nation’s lands and waters through locally led, landscape-scale restoration projects. The funding from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law will support 206 ecosystem restoration projects in 48 states, Washington, D.C., and the U.S. Territories and will advance the Department’s ongoing work across several restoration and resilience programs.
Both sagebrush and Great Plains grasslands are included among the "Keystone" projects with $7 million to conserve core sagebrush landscapes and $14 million dedicated to conservation in the Great Plains Grasslands.
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The NRCS is soliciting comments on changes to some of its conservation practices, including practices relevant to the threats identified in WLFW's Frameworks for Conservation Action, specifically grazing management, wetland restoration, mulching, and seasonal water management for wildlife. Comments are due March 4, 2024. Follow the link above to learn more and submit comments.
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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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