Wildlife Conservation Through Sustainable Ranching
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Latest Issue of Rangelands Focuses on Invasive Annual Grasses
Special issue features WLFW and USDA scientists, the Defend the Core approach, and the Rangeland Analysis Platform
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In December 2020, leading rangeland managers, practitioners, and scientists came together at the Invasive Annual Grass Workshop. This powerful forum provided opportunities for collaboration and discussion around the pervasive threat that invasive annual grasses pose to western sagebrush rangelands, and especially the rangelands of the Great Basin.
Recognizing both the urgency and disparate collective expertise, High Desert Partnership, Oregon SageCon Partnership and Oregon State University Extension Service, teamed up to expand on the workshop and produce a special, open access issue of the journal Rangelands: Changing with the range: Striving for ecosystem resilience in the age of invasive annual grasses.
The 33 authors in the special issue were all speakers, panelists or moderators at the 2020 workshop. They came together with their respective research and management perspectives to provide a comprehensive picture for effectively coordinating and collaborating in managing invasive annual grasses at a landscape scale.
The issue includes a paper by Jeremy Maestas, national sagebrush ecosystem specialist at the USDA-NRCS' West National Technology Support Center, that outlines the Defend the Core, Grow the Core, Mitigate Impacts strategy and how it can be used in the battle against invasive annual grasses. The issue also features a paper highlighting how Oregon partners leveraged the Rangeland Analysis Platform and the Defend the Core strategy to craft a cross-boundary approach to addressing invasive annual grasses in Oregon. Keep reading below to learn more about both of these important papers.
Chad Boyd, USDA-Agriculture Research Service scientist and frequent WLFW collaborator noted: “The complexities of annual grass management, perennial plant restoration, and fire management are not going away and should be addressed through proactive, thoughtful, and science-based approaches to dealing with what amounts to a chronic problem for Great Basin rangelands. The papers in this special issue discuss a variety of important aspects of such an approach, and it is our hope that they will foster ongoing and productive discussions that help us to better cope with invasive annual grasses and wildfire in the new Great Basin ecosystem.”
This special issue is meant to carry the conversations from the December 2020 Invasive Annual Grass Workshop forward, and spark continued dialog, innovation, and progress in the battle against invasive annual grasses in sagebrush country.
↓Read more about two WLFW-supported papers in the special issue below↓
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Defend the Core
Maintaining intact rangelands by reducing vulnerability to invasive annual grasses
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From the Great Plains to the Great Basin, an onslaught of invasive plants, including unwanted grasses like cheatgrass or woody species like eastern redcedar, are degrading rangeland health and agricultural productivity. A new paradigm in rangeland conservation and management is emerging to tackle this threat. Succinctly captured in the phrase “Defend the Core,” this approach leverages spatial data to focus rangeland management on proactive and preventative efforts that address large-scale threats within otherwise intact landscapes, or “cores.”
This paper further defines what the “Defend the Core” concept means for addressing the threat of invasive annual grasses in sagebrush country.
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| Oregon's Strategy
A geographic strategy for cross-jurisdictional, proactive management of invasive annual grasses in Oregon
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Southeast Oregon boasts nearly 18 million acres of sagebrush steppe habitat, but an estimated 4.1 million acres of Oregon's sagebrush habitat are heavily impacted by invasive annual grasses and an additional 7.5 million acres are at risk.
This paper details a proactive strategy that crosses Oregon’s land ownership boundaries to manage this threat. The authors highlight how spatial data helped produce the new geographic strategy in support of SageCon's Invasives Initiative. The overall effort provides a spatially explicit framework for proactive management of invasive annual grasses: Defend the Core, Grow the Core, Mitigate Impacts.
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Audubon Magazine: In Nebraska’s Loess Canyons, Setting Trees Ablaze Gives Prairie Birds a Boost
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Story highlights how landowners are working together to restore productive grazing lands through prescribed fire
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In recent years, Nebraska's Loess Canyons have become an experimental landscape where WLFW science advisor and University of Nebraska rangeland ecologist, Dirac Twidwell, and other scientists are rediscovering fire’s potential. Their research has confirmed that reinstating high-intensity blazes can halt the ecosystem’s shift to woodlands, documented a reemergence of grassland plants soon after a burn, and found that grasses remained the dominant vegetation 15 years later.
This research, and the restoration success it documents, is possible because the region's landowners, including Liza Grotelueschen, Scott Stout, and others have been working together for the better part of two decades to bring fire back to the prairie.
This great article from the Summer 2022 issue of Audubon tells their story.
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Lesser Prairie-Chicken Webinar
Watch an on-demand replay of the recent webinar: "Science Informs Managing Working Lands for Lesser Prairie-Chickens"
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Learn about the science that's informing how the NRCS works with landowners to improve habitat for the lesser prairie-chicken through this NRCS Conservation Outcomes Webinar from June 23, 2022.
The webinar features David Haukos, an associate professor at Kansas State University and leader of the Kansas Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit.
Find a transcript, slides, and link to the archived webinar here; or simply click the button below to watch the webinar.
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| Record Signup for Grassland CRP
USDA received, and awarded, a record number of contracts through the Grassland Conservation Reserve Program
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2022 saw increased interest in the Grasslands Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) with more than 3.1 million acres, a 22 percent increase over last year, accepted into the USDA program.
Grassland CRP allows producers and landowners to continue grazing and haying practices while protecting grasslands and promoting plant and animal biodiversity and conservation. Producers can still make an offer to participate in CRP through the Continuous CRP Signup, which is ongoing, by contacting the FSA at their local USDA Service Center.
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Find more news and resources at SageGrouseInitiative.com
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In partnership with the Gallatin Valley Land Trust, the Sage Grouse Initiative worked with Matt and Sarah Skogland to place their 700+ acre ranch in a conservation easement, ensuring the ranch will remain intact in perpetuity. Land use conversion is one of the greatest threats facing sagebrush range; conservation easements are a key tool that help keep working lands in working hands.
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When Mike Greeley returned to run his family's ranch in southeastern Oregon after a two-decade absence, he knew he wanted to make improvements that benefited both his livestock and the wildlife that share the landscape. A neighbor told him about the NRCS and SGI, and Mike knew that partnering up was a "no brainer." From cutting encroaching conifers to implementing prescribed grazing to improving mesic habitat on the ranch, Mike's partnership with the NRCS is making a real difference for his ranch. Learn more about Mike's inspiring story by exploring the storymap.
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Researchers from the Boise State University have completed the full sequencing of the sagebrush genome. The researchers hope that the sequencing will advance conservation efforts by helping develop more drought and fire tolerant sagebrush for restoration projects.
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Each year, the National Audubon Society holds a photo contest and each year, sage grouse make the cut. This year's best "Female Bird" in the amateur category was a photo of a sage grouse taken by Alan Krakauer. Other iconic grassland birds also won prizes, including Amiel Hopkins' photo of greater prairie-chickens, which won an Honorable Mention in the Youth category, and Liron Gertsman's video of sharp-tailed grouse, which took top prize in the Professional Video category. Congrats to all the winners!
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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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