A healthy nation starts with healthy citizens, and participation in sports is one of the most powerful ways to promote healthy habits for a lifetime—not only for physical fitness but also for emotional wellbeing and social cohesion. The natural enthusiasm that children and adolescents (collectively referred to as “youth”) have...
This report provides a strategic approach developed by a Western Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies interagency working group for conservation of sagebrush ecosystems, Greater sage-grouse, and Gunnison sage-grouse. It uses information on (1) factors that influence sagebrush ecosystem resilience to disturbance and resistance to nonnative invasive annual grasses and...
During the 2016 greater sage-grouse breeding season, 1,908 aerial and ground lek surveys were conducted at 768 individual lek sites comprising 501 lek complexes. Surveys were conducted at 66.0% of known lek sites in the state, which was the greatest proportion of leks ever surveyed in Oregon. Survey effort during...
This Instruction Memorandum (Instruction Memorandum No. 2016-139) provides guidance on the use of terrestrial and aquatic objectives and quantitative data to determine Resource Management Plan effectiveness. Additionally, for RMPs that include Greater Sage-Grouse (GRSG) habitat, this IM provides guidance for tracking and reporting on the implementation of decisions using the...
This Instruction Memorandum (IM) provides guidance for prioritizing the review and processing of grazing permits and leases (permits) in Greater Sage-Grouse (GRSG) habitat as described in the Records of Decision for the Approved Resource Management Plan Amendments or the Great Basin and Rocky Mountain GRSG Regions and nine Approved Resource...
This Instruction Memorandum (IM) provides policy on how to assess habitat for Gunnison and Greater Sage-Grouse, including the Bi-State Distinct Population Segment, (hereafter referred to as "sage-grouse") and under what circumstances the habitat assessment is required.
This Instruction Memorandum (IM) directs the implementation of the land use plan adaptive management process to evaluate and apply hard and soft triggers and responses, as detailed in the Greater Sage-Grouse (GRSG) Approved Resource Management Plans and Amendments (GRSG Plans), Great Basin and Rocky Mountain GRSG Regional Records of Decision...
This Instruction Memorandum (IM) provides guidance on prioritizing implementation decisions for Bureau of Land Management (BLM) oil and gas leasing and development, to be consistent with the Approved Resource Management Plan Amendments for the Rocky Mountain and Great Basin GRSG Regions and nine Approved Resource Management Plans in the Rocky...
The greater sage-grouse, an iconic ground-dwelling bird of the West, has experienced significant population declines during the past 50 years from habitat loss. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) designated sage grouse in 2010 as a candidate for listing under the Endangered Species Act (ESA).
In September 2015, the...
The purpose of this memorandum is to clarify the Service's perspective on the relationship between livestock grazing and the conservation of sagebrush ecosystems on private lands occurring within the range of greater sage-grouse. This document provides more specific guidance to Service staff as they carry out their conservation mission in...
The purpose of this document (Framework) is to communicate some of the factors the Service is likely to consider in evaluating the efficacy of mitigation practices and programs in reducing threats to sage-grouse. The recommendations provided here are consistent with the information and conservation objectives provided in the 2013 Conservation...
The condition of the sagebrush ecosystem has been declining in the Western United States, and greater sage-grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus), a sagebrush-obligate species, has experienced concurrent decreases in distribution and population numbers. This has prompted substantial research and management over the past two decades to improve the understanding of sage-grouse and...
This report documents and summarizes several decades of work on sage-grouse populations, sagebrush as habitat, and sagebrush community and ecosystem functions based on the recent assessment and findings of the USFWS under consideration of the Endangered Species Act. As reflected here, some of these topics receive a greater depth of...
Prior to settlement in the 19th century, greater sage-grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus; hereafter referred to as ‘sage-grouse’) inhabited 13 western States and three Canadian provinces, and their potential habitat covered over 1,200,483 square kilometers (km) (463,509 square miles (mi)). Sage-grouse have declined across their range due to a variety of causes...
This white paper outlines interim guidance for development of Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife habitat mitigation recommendations associated with renewable energy development and associated infrastructure or other landscape scale industrial-commercial developments in greater sage-grouse habitat in Oregon. This guidance is interim until empirical data are available that quantify the...
This document provides the latest science and best biological judgment to assist in making management decisions. Fortunately, recent emphasis on sage-grouse conservation has resulted in a substantial number of publications dealing with a variety of aspects of sage-grouse ecology and management, summarized in the 2010 listing petition (75 FR 13910),...
A pandora moth (Coloradia pandora Blake) outbreak began in 1991 in a ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa Dougl. ex. Laws) spacing study area that also included scattered sugar pine (P. lambertiana Dougl). The relation of defoliation to five tree spacings (with and without understory vegetation) was examined, and stand growth reduction...
The Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management propose to adopt coordinated ecosystem management direction for the lands they administer within the range of the northern spotted owl. This Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (SETS) presents as alternatives the options, with slight modifications, developed by the Forest Ecosystem Management Assessment...
For the sample of wide-ringed Douglas-fir discussed in this report, the relationship between specific gravity and percentage of summerwood is linear over a range of 16 to 60 percent summerwood content of the annual ring. The specific gravity of the summerwood and springwood portions of 96 dissected annual rings is...
The popularity of wood for floors of dwellings dates back to pioneer
days, when our forefathers used thick, hewed sections of log smoothed
as far as possible on one face with an adz and laid edge to edge to
make their puncheon floors . Later, during colonial days, when
sawed...
In the measurement of fire weather and forest inflammability,
now practiced regularly at more than 90 forest stations in northern
Idaho and western Montana, it is necessary to use many methods
that are peculiar to this work. Some of these methods are familiar
to meteorologists, but few foresters have had...
The wood of black locust, Robinia pseudoacacia, is used chiefly for insulator pins, wagon hubs, treenails, fence posts, and mine timbers. For these uses it is admirable because of its hardness, strength, and durability. A valuable characteristic of the tree is its rapid growth on many types of soils during...
In the following pages the national forests of California are described and an account is given of their value to the public welfare and of the means and methods used by the United States Forest Service to make them contribute as much as possible, both now and in the future,...
The Bureau of Entomology has been conducting systematic and economic
investigations of the weevils infesting the bark of the trunk and
terminal shoots of conifers in the United States, the results of which will be
published in the regular technical and popular bulletins ; but since these can not be...
The locust borer and its relation to detrimental and destructive injuries to the black or yellow locust in the eastern United States have been subjects of special investigations by the Bureau of Entomology during the past two years, which have resulted in the determination of practical methods of control.
The so-called powder-post injury to seasoned wood has attracted
much attention in America, and especially in Europe for centuries,
and has been the subject of published articles in many languages.
This peculiar injury seems to be on the increase in the United States
and numerous requests from a number of...
Recent years have witnessed extensive destruction of forest growth,
particularly of pine, spruce, and chestnut, in portions of the United
States east of the Rocky Mountains. This injury has been very
generally attributed to insects, and there is evidence that certain
wood and bark-boring species have largely contributed to the...
During the 2017 greater sage-grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus) breeding season, 1,580 aerial and ground lek surveys were conducted at 674 individual lek sites comprising 429 lek complexes. Surveys were conducted at 58.0% of known lek sites in the state. Survey effort during 2017 declined -17.1%, -12.2%, and 14.5% from 2016 levels,...
This report delineates reasonable objectives, based upon the best scientific and commercial data available at the time of its release, for the conservation and survival of greater sage-grouse. Individual team members contributed by providing technical information and data, participating in critical discussions, providing critical reviews and edits, or authoring sections...