The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
Focus on brooding habitat
A new restoration project will restore 1,680 acres of Gunnison sage grouse habitat in Crawford, Colo. Funded by a grant from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, the National Wild Turkey Federation (NWTF) is coordinating the removal of piñon and juniper trees from what was historically sagelands.
Together with the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and the local Gunnison Sage Grouse Working Group, the project will spend approximately $150,000 to restore a tract of land in the Gunnison Gorge National Conservation Area.
“It’s basically a tract of land that has a good number of grouse and we want to keep it that way,” said Brandon Houck, director of conservation operations with NWTF.
The trees will be removed in such a way that they can be mulched on-site instead of littering the landscape with trees. In addition, the funding will be used to create four wet meadow habitat areas using water storage tanks and drip systems, and to seed the area with native grasses and wildflowers that provide brood-rearing habitat for sage grouse and their chicks.
“Sage grouse chicks need what we call wet meadow habitat—any area with a spring or seep or abundant water,” Houck said. “It’s not that they need the water but they need the plants and insects associated with it.”
According to Houck, these plant communities include wildflowers such as Indian Ricegrass, Sandburg Bluegrass and Bottlebrush Squirreltail that provide the habitat for the insects that sage grouse chicks feed on.
On Friday, Houck visited the site with local ranchers and landowners, and agencies such as the BLM and the Forest Service. According to Houck, the group flushed more than 20 sage grouse, nearly all of which were in wet meadow habitat.
“It proved to us that’s a good feature to expand upon,” said Houck.
The wet meadow development and the tree removal will be completed by November 1, and seeds will be spread this fall or early next spring. The NWTF hopes to expand the project into surrounding areas.
