Workshop Presentations

American Wildlands Linkage Workshop

March 20, 2008

April Johnston – American Wildlands
Wildlife Linkages Workshop – Policy, Planning, Partnerships, and Practice
This presentation introduced why American Wildlands chose to conduct an expert opinion assessment for their Corridors of Life program. Overview, methods, and results of American Wildlands 2007 Priority Linkage Assessment were introduced and discussed. In mid 1990’s, modeling of grizzly bear habitat was generated; however, this model is now over a decade old and needs to be updated. AWL conducted an expert opinion survey of over five dozen scientists; scientists were given a blank vegetation map and asked a series of questions for eight focal species regarding ecological quality, conservation threats and opportunities for linkage areas. Species were: grizzly bear, wolverine, wolf, Canada lynx, pronghorn, elk, bighorn sheep, and moose. Scientists physically marked the linkage areas on the maps and rated each area on a scale of 1-10 for each category. These numbers were input into an algorithm using a Bayesian averaging approach and then graphed using Jenks Natural Breaks. The linkage data is nested; that is, there are patch-scale sublinkage areas contained within the larger landscape scale linkage areas. AWL also collected ancillary data for other species where appropriate, such as raptors, small furbearers, upland game birds, and small mammals like the pygmy rabbit.

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Kathy McAllister – U.S. Forest Service Region 1 – Missoula, MT
Public Lands Connectivity
The Forest Service Open Space Conservation Strategy was released in November 2007 to provide a framework to strengthen and focus Forest Service efforts to address the loss of open space threat. The strategy will also assist private landowners and communities manage their lands in sustainable ways to maintain private and public benefits and ecosystem services. The plan’s priority actions are to: convene partners to identify and protect priority open spaces, promote national policies and markets to help private landowners to conserve open space, provide resources and tools to help communities expand and connect open spaces, and participate in community growth planning to reduce ecological impacts and wildfire risks. The Northern Region, in conjunction with a number of land conservation interests, is developing a plan to implement the Strategy in the Northern Region.

The Forest Service is revising a number of Land Management Plans in Montana and Idaho. These new planning documents address issues of connectivity and linkage areas or zones far more substantially than the 1982 Plans did. These revised Plans will ensure Forest Service managers and planners are considering the importance of maintaining or enhancing opportunities for connecting open space and creating viable linkage areas.

The Northern Region looks forward to working with organizations like American Wildlands in the identification of important linkage areas and in opportunities to connect open spaces.

Jamie Williams – The Nature Conservancy
Private Lands Connectivity Opportunities
Private lands intermingled with or adjacent to public lands are well recognized as critical to maintaining or enhancing landscape scale wildlife and habitat connectivity. The northern Rocky Mountains represent a significant opportunity to protect those connections, and substantial progress has been made through conservation easements and property purchase. However private land collaborative groups need the tools to identify the “right” lands for protection. Collaborative partnerships such as the Blackfoot Challenge are becoming far more successful and effective over the long term than individual efforts.

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Jim Lynch – Director, Montana Department of Transportation
Transportation Design and Road Ecology
Montana Department of Transportation is cooperatively working to identify and address wildlife-highway concerns although the current focus is only in areas of scheduled highway upgrading or maintenance. Wildlife crossings and other mitigation structures are included as part of that work where issues have been identified. Potential mitigation projects outside of highway construction locations are currently unfunded. Cooperative efforts with county governments and private individuals have provided much-need funding and support for addressing wildlife mortality and public safety concerns.

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Dr. Molly Cross – Wildlife Conservation Society, Bozeman, MT
Connecting Core Habitats: a Strategy to Address Climate Change
This presentation focuses on using habitat connectivity as a strategy for coping with climate changes. Understanding the current and future changes in the northern Rocky Mountains and the ecological responses to those changes are critical to maintain habitat connectivity. Rising temperatures over the past 50 years have already resulted in reduced snowpack, earlier runoff and increased frequency and severity of wildfire. Earlier spring events associated with snowmelt, runoff and vegetation green-up and flowering, have altered wildlife species migrations, coat-color changes and emergence from dens and burrows. Further warming can be expected in the future. Connectivity at the landscape scale will change as core habitats shift location or are fragmented, making current and potential linkages critically important. Current models of climate change impacts operate at a scale that is coarse relative to local applications, but various corridor and climate change working groups are attempting to refine that information so it can be incorporated into connectivity conservation efforts.

Dr. Gary Tabor - Wild Catalyst
Western Governors Association Wildlife Corridor Initiative
In February 2007, the WGA approved a resolution “protecting wildlife migration corridors and crucial wildlife habitat in the West” to address the national loss of approximately 6000 acres of open space/habitat per day and the economic value of the fishing, hunting, and wildlife viewing associated with that habitat. Western states in cooperation with various agencies and organizations should identify those corridors and key habitats and recommend the needed policy options and tools for preserving those landscapes. Working groups mapping corridors and important habitats have identified these problems: gaps in data coverage, obsolete data, and inconsistencies in methods and data quality, lack of common definitions, limited capacity and reluctance for data-sharing. Few states have conducted comprehensive corridor/habitat mapping, often resulting in too many corridors with little or no prioritization. Climate change is complicating all of these problems. Interconnected opportunities are available through WGA policy, proposed national legislative funding support, state comprehensive wildlife plans, and Freedom to Roam Campaign support (Patagonia, Google, ESRI, National Geographic).

T. O. Smith – Montana Fish Wildlife & Parks, Helena, MT
MFWP CFCWS Crucial Areas and Corridor Refinement
The MFWP Comprehensive Fish and Wildlife Conservation Strategy has broad concerns about oil and gas development, subdivision, fire, transportation corridors and climate change. Refinement of the CFWCS is needed to include increased emphasis on state-wide landscape-scale corridors. Existing information needs to be consolidated and coordinated with other partners to complete a comprehensive risk assessment, and develop recommendations and best management practices that can be applied at a local scale.

Gregg Servheen and Greg Burak – Idaho Dept. Fish and Game
Idaho Highway-Wildlife Mortality and Linkage Project
Roads in Idaho and elsewhere have resulted in habitat loss, change in habitat quality, direct mortality, and altered landscape connectivity. Increasing traffic volume increases the level of impermeability that roads pose as barriers to safe wildlife passage. Collision with vehicles is the greatest source of wildlife mortality nation-wide, along with significant risk of human injury, fatalities, and property damage. Idaho Fish and Game (IDFG), in cooperation with the Idaho Transportation Department and FHWA, has developed a statewide, on-line database to track the location and details of wildlife-vehicle collisions, and has identified and prioritized wildlife linkage areas for carnivores, ungulates, and other wildlife where they intersect highways. To date, through a series of multi-agency workshops, 315 wildlife linkage areas have been identified, 37 of which are high priority for reducing wildlife mortalities and increasing public safety. This wildlife- vehicle and linkage information can then be incorporated into more effective highway planning and project implementation. A web-based tool for collection of wildlife mortality in relation to vehicle collisions is now being used by 30-40 users statewide. It incorporates previously collected information as well as provides the ability to enter new data by species, road, and milepost and provide users the ability to query the database.

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April Johnston - American Wildlands:
Closing Presentation
April presented the “where to from here” to frame the discussions for the breakout sessions- how can the data American Wildlands collected be useful in wildlife linkage conservation and implementation on private lands, public lands, and transportation corridors?

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