Two new studies revealed unknown long-distance dispersal and migration movements in sage grouse that offer fresh insights for conservation. Using DNA from feathers dropped at leks, scientists discovered that some grouse (about 1% of populations) travel long distances to explore breeding areas up to 120 miles away—movements that can potentially...
In recent years the Sage Grouse Initiative, led by the USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service, has worked with many partners to accelerate the mechanical removal of invading conifer trees, primarily junipers, to restore sagebrush habitats in and around sage grouse strongholds across the West. Replicated studies from public and private...
Research evaluating effects of livestock grazing on greater sage-grouse nest survival suggests that a variety of locally-appropriate range management strategies support grouse populations. A new Montana study comparing effects of specialized grazing systems on ranches enrolled in the NRCS-led Sage Grouse Initiative (SGI) to ranches not enrolled in SGI grazing...
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 the policy on tracking and reporting surface disturbance and reclamation within and outside of Greater Sage-grouse (GRSG) Priority Habitat Management Areas (PHMA). The Approved Resource Management Plan Amendments for the Rocky Mountain and Great Basin GRSG Regions and Nine Approved Resource Management Plans in 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) provides guidance for incorporating and analyzing thresholds and responses, as appropriate, into terms and conditions of grazing permits and the associated National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) analysis within designated Greater Sage-Grouse (GRSG) Habitat as described in the Records of Decision for the Approved Resource Management Plan...
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...
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...
Western EcoSystems Technology, Inc. and Wyoming Wildlife Consultants, LLC initiated a greater sage-grouse radio-telemetry study at an existing wind energy development in southeastern Wyoming in 2009. The University of Wyoming joined this collaborative effort in January 2010, and the National Wind Coordinating Collaborative joined the effort in March 2011. The...
Trends in greater sage-grouse breeding populations are typically indexed by determining the peak number of males attending a lek in a lekking season. Numerous studies have estimated negative trends in sage-grouse breeding populations over time via data collected for the last 50 years. However, the inherent bias in data collection...
Counts of males attending leks in the spring have been the primary means employed by states to monitor status of greater sage-grouse (Centrocercus urophansianus) populations for over 75 years. Despite limitations and potential biases, lek count data remain the only long-term, range-wide dataset available for evaluating trends in sage-grouse populations....
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...
In the northeast part of sage grouse range, 70% of the best habitat is privately owned – and the single greatest threat in this region is cultivation of native sagebrush grazing lands. Scientists assessed lands in eastern Montana, the western Dakotas, and northeast Wyoming to evaluate potential impacts to sage...
Senate Bill 100 (1973) and the Oregon Land Conservation and Development
Commission’s (LCDC) goals (1975) required:
- Cities to adopt urban growth boundaries (UGBs) to contain sprawl, and
- Counties to use zoning to limit 15.6 million acres of farmland to farm use, and 8.0
million acres of forest land...
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...
In 2013, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) Conservation
Objectives Team (COT) identified wildfire and the associated
conversion of low- to mid-elevation sagebrush (Artemisia tridentata)
habitats to invasive annual grass-dominated vegetation communities
as the two primary threats to the sustainability of Greater sage-grouse
(Centrocercus urophasianus, hereafter GRSG) in the...
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...
In the arid West, life follows water. Habitats near water – streamsides, wet meadows and wetlands — support the greatest variety of animal and plant life, and attract wildlife during their daily and seasonal movements. In a water-scarce landscape, these lush habitats are also where people have naturally settled. A...
The Southern Oregon Forest Restoration Collaborative (SOFRC), the Model Forest Policy Program (MFPP) and the Rogue River-Siskiyou Forest Service (RRSFS) have a shared vision to enhance the resiliency of our communities and forests. In 2012, the Collaborative took the leadership role to engage in the Climate Solution’s University (CSU) Plan...
The Coos Estuary Inventory Project, an in-depth assessment of environmental and socio-economic status and trends, is part of Phase 2 of the Partnership for Coastal Watersheds. The project began in January 2013 and is focused on the larger Coos estuary and its direct tributaries.
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On Feb. 24, 2011, thirty-one people met at the Charleston Power Squadron building in Charleston, Oregon, to develop a foundation for a Partnership for Coastal Watersheds (PCW) Collaboration Compact. This document outlines the commitment of Partnership members and the practice of ―collaboration‖ as a central feature of the PCW. On...
The Integrated Landscape Assessment Project (ILAP) was a multi-year effort to produce information, maps, and models to help land managers, policy-makers, and others conduct mid- to broad-scale (e.g., watersheds to states and larger areas) prioritization of land management actions, perform landscape assessments, and estimate cumulative effects of management actions for...
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...
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...
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 document is a companion to the Partnership for Coastal Watersheds State of the Watersheds assessment (also accessible from the Partnership for Coastal Watersheds web site) which is a summation of newly collected and existing data which describe the environmental and socioeconomic conditions in the South Slough and Coastal Frontal...
The Partnership Steering Committee has developed a set of vision statements or desired conditions for the future of the project area (20-25 years). The community vision describes desired future conditions we want to see in 20 years in our quality of life, environment and economy. We will work toward attaining...
This report describes results of baseline monitoring at the Ni-les’tun tidal wetland restoration site, Bandon National Wildlife Refuge, Coquille River estuary of Oregon. Baseline monitoring provides a basis for comparison to post-restoration conditions, allowing future determination of project effectiveness. The report focuses on 2010-2011 baseline data, but it also includes...
Against the backdrop of growing concern about dead zones, rare and endangered sea mammals, depletion of Oregon’s once‐abundant fish stocks, acidification threatening coastal molluscs, and proposals for marine reserves along Oregon’s coastline, a multidisciplinary group of scientists was called together in 2008 to discuss what is known about Oregon’s coastal...
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...
The metric is encompassed in two documents, the Sagebrush/Sage Grouse Habitat Metric User’s Guide and a Sagebrush/Sage Grouse Habitat Metric Calculator.
Partnership for Coastal Watersheds (PCW) Phase 2 projects are aligned with the following three objectives to be pursued in parallel: Coos Estuary Inventory Project, Coos Estuary Monitoring Tools, and Phase 1 PCW Action Plan Implementation, Partnership for Coastal Watersheds, [2012].
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),...
In March 2007, Craig Cornu (South Slough National Estuarine Research Reserve), with the assistance of Laura Brophy (Green Point Consulting/Estuary Technical Group, Institute for Applied Ecology), John Bragg (South Slough NERR) and Derek Sowers (former South Slough NERR), developed the Pacific Northwest Estuarine Wetland Restoration Information Gaps Survey using the...
Greater sage-grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus) were once found in most grassland and sagebrush (Artemisia spp.) habitats east of the Cascades in Oregon. European settlement and conversion of sagebrush steppe into agricultural production led to extirpation of the species in the Columbia Basin by the early part of the 1900s, but sagebrush...
This assessment outlines an enhanced planning approach for West Coast estuaries that incorporates an evaluation of the regional context for estuarine conservation and recommends an approach to site-scale planning with more focus on ecological processes and functions.
The Guano and Thousand-Virgin Sub-basins occupy over 1.8 million acres in Harney and Lake Counties in Oregon. The portions of the sub-basins in Nevada are not assessed in this document. Harney County Watershed Council (HCWC) watershed assessments focus on summarizing data from existing research, resource inventories, and management plans. This...
A major goal in greater sage-grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus, hereafter ‘sage-grouse’) conservation is to spend limited resources efficiently by conserving large and functioning populations. We used maximum count data from leks (n = 4,885) to delineate high abundance population centers that contain 25, 50, 75, and 100% of the known breeding...
Coos Watershed Association (CoosWA) and the South Slough National Estuarine Research Reserve (SSNERR) are interested in forming a community stakeholder group as the foundation of the Partnership for Coastal Watersheds project. CoosWA and SSNERR have engaged Oregon Consensus to conduct a neutral assessment of issues related to the convening of...
Green Point Consulting created a GIS layer of current and likely former tidal wetlands in the Yaquina and Alsea estuaries, working from the National Wetland Inventory (NWI) mapping and applied their field knowledge of the estuaries, as well as newly available data such as LiDAR and recent aerial orthophotos. They...
This report is intended for citizen advocates. The goal is to provide a concise summary of current issues and problems for native salmonids in the Upper Deschutes and describe the actions needed to resolve those problems. It is based on information from all federal and Oregon agencies involved in the...
Ecosystem services markets represent potential revenue streams for small- and medium-scale rural agricultural and forest producers, many of whom have faced significant economic downturns over the past several decades. Demand for ecosystem services (ES) in the form of investments by public agencies, mitigation funds from regulated entities, and voluntary payments...
This report is laid out as a progressive exploration of how the economics of ES production interacts with finance, broadly construed, in actual credit transactions. The inquiry proceeds in several steps. First, the economics of ecosystem services production is explored to provide critical context for potential financing approaches. This section...
From 3 April – 23 September 2009 we monitored the distribution, abundance and productivity of the federally Threatened Western Snowy Plover (Charadrius alexandrinus nivosus) along the Oregon coast. From north to south, we surveyed and monitored plover activity at Sutton Beach, Siltcoos River estuary, the Dunes Overlook, North Tahkenitch Creek,...
INR’s long-term goal with this and other projects is to help revitalize rural economies and contribute to rural sustainability, while increasing ecosystem restoration and thoughtfully developing ecosystem services markets. To assist in meeting these goals, this project aims to understand and overcome a significant hurdle on the supply side of...
This report was written as a resource for water quality managers, watershed councils, municipalities and citizens to help understand the status of watershed conditions in the Willamette Basin. Our interpretations are based on chemical, physical and biological indicators at three different spatial scales: the basin scale, the subbasin scale and...
The Oregon Built Environment & Sustainable Technologies Center (Oregon BEST), an independent nonprofit organization, is a catalyst for research and university-industry collaboration in green building and renewable energy to create business opportunities and jobs in Oregon. Oregon partnered with the Institute for Natural Resources (INR) to conduct a series of...
This project was part of the Siuslaw Watershed Restoration Initiative. We designed and established a monitoring program at five sites totaling 319 A: two tidal wetland restoration sites (97A) and two reference sites (205 A) in the Siuslaw River estuary, and one 17 A reference site in the Yaquina River...
The United States is one of the wealthiest countries in the world, yet accessing enough healthy, fresh food to meet basic nutritional needs is a critical issue faced by millions of Americans. There are a number of reasons for food insecurity in the United States, the primary causes being lack...
The purpose of this report is to characterize the December 2007 storm and long-term storm variability along the Oregon and Washington coast, present the results of a rapid assessment of randomly selected OWEB restoration projects (restoration activities including large wood placement, fish passage, and riparian planting), and based on the...
The Western Snowy Plover (Charadrius alexandrinus nivosus) breeds along the coast of the Pacific Ocean in California, Oregon, and Washington and at alkaline lakes in the interior of the western United States (Page et al. 1991). Loss of habitat, predation pressures, and disturbance have caused the decline of the coastal...
From 1 April – 24 September 2008, we monitored the distribution, abundance and productivity
of the federally Threatened Western Snowy Plover (Charadrius alexandrinus nivosus) along the Oregon
coast. From north to south, we surveyed and monitored plover activity at Sutton Beach, Siltcoos River
estuary, the Dunes Overlook, North Tahkenitch Creek,...
The Rural Studies Program (RSP) at Oregon State University (OSU) and the OSU Libraries collaborated to create a Rural Communities Explorer portal (phase 1). (www.oregonexplorer.info/rural).
The research reported here was conducted to identify interests and needs among various sectors of the Oregon agricultural community regarding sustainable agriculture. The study also sought to gauge potential for establishing a program in Oregon to serve those needs.
The project focuses on nonequilibrium ecosystem dynamics, a body of scientific research that characterizes and interprets ecosystem change. INR summarizes knowledge from this field, describes ways in which the current management framework may be inconsistent with scientific findings, and helps identify options for future management. This paper is designed to...
The Vital Signs Indicators Project incorporates multiple goals, most particularly:
1. Provide a tool upon which to base statutory assessment of the effectiveness of the Management Plan in implementing the Scenic Area Act;
2. Increase performance accountability and tie Commission actions to the purposes of the Act;
3. Foster dialogue...
In 2008, the Department of Land Conservation and Development (DLCD) asked the Institute for Natural Resources (INR) to assess whether the Oregon Land Use Program, as designed, is helping the state meet its land use goals. More specifically, this intensive but highly time-limited research effort set out to answer the...
The purpose of this project was to conduct a preliminary examination of the environmental use of plants in Oregon by gauging the breadth of opportunities and challenges faced by growers, users, and researchers who are involved in the general area of the environmental uses of plants. More specifically, the project...
A systematic review of evidence was conducted concerning the effects of large wood placement on salmonids. In contrast to a general literature review, a narrowly focused question was targeted. The question was formulated before the review commenced and specified the subject, treatment, and outcomes of interest. The primary review question...
This report documents an Oregon Department of Forestry pilot project conducted through the Institute for Natural Resources at Oregon State University on a science synthesis method known as systematic review- a rigorous, transparent literature review technique developed and now widely used in clinical medicine. A systematic review focuses narrowly on...
This chapter is divided into three main sections. The first section discusses land cover map development. It begins by providing background information on the regional division of labor and the regional land cover legend. It then focuses on our land cover mapping methods, including a description of data sources, the...
From 3 April – 21 September 2007, we monitored the distribution, abundance and productivity of the federally Threatened Western Snowy Plover (Charadrius alexandrinus nivosus) along the Oregon coast. From north to south, we surveyed and monitored plover activity at Sutton Beach, Siltcoos River estuary, the Dunes Overlook, North Tahkenitch Creek,...
The purpose of this Management and Action Plan is to help guide the Nestucca-Neskowin Watersheds Council (Council) in accomplishing three main goals:
To provide opportunities for watershed-related education to the people who live, work, and recreate in the watershed
To update the Nestucca/Neskowin Watershed Assessment (May 1998).
To protect and...
When voters considered Measure 37 in 2004, what it would do was a guessing game. Moreover, arguments made to justify the measure were untested. Today, three years and 7,462 claims later, what Measure 37 would do is increasingly clear. In addition, new research shows two key Measure 37 justifications were...
This study examines the ways in which land-use regulations in general and Oregon’s land-use planning system in particular may affect property values. The study is focused on Oregon, but it is framed within the broader context of research in economics. Our analysis of Oregon land value data finds no evidence...
The Oregon University System, working in partnership with the Oregon Economic & Community Development Department, commissioned a bio-fuels industry readiness survey for Oregon. This report serves as one component of the readiness survey. The report has three primary sections:
• An overview of the current forest products industry in Oregon...
The purpose of the study is to gauge the scope of bioenergy opportunities by identifying and profiling bioenergy projects and potential projects in Oregon, and learning directly from developers the key challenges and issues this nascent sector faces. Bioenergy projects are defined as projects that would produce biofuels (ethanol and...
In summary, as detailed below in Section III, we recommend the 2007 Legislature put
Measure 37 back on the track of fair and honest compensation for all claimants, and corral the
threat to Willamette Valley agriculture at the same time, by providing as follows:
• Whether in the form of...
ORNHIC maintains extensive databases of Oregon biodiversity, concentrating on rare and endangered plants, animals and ecosystems. The program is managed by OSU, but has been a
cooperative project, with significant support from The Department of State Lands, The Nature Conservancy in Oregon, USFWS, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), the...