Conservation Plan    Reports   Projects

  • Next Meeting: Summer field tour, details forthcoming. Contact Todd Black at 770-9302 or todd.black@usu.edu if you have any questions.

 

Meetings planned for 2012

 February meeting—

At this meeting participants:
1-review and report on implemented actions and strategies for the previous year
2-discuss and plan lek count/search needs
3-schedule, coordinate and plan summer events

 May/June   summer field tour TBA

 August meeting—

At this meeting participants:
1-plan, discuss, and coordinate various actions and strategies
2-state wide/range wide sage-grouse issues
3-report on any LWG sage-grouse research

 November meeting—

At this meeting participants:
1-review and revise the LWG plan
2-schedule, coordinate and plan

 

 To be placed on mailing list and or for specific meeting location and times please contact:  Todd A. Black, CBC EXT Specialist, cell 435-770-9302 or todd.black@usu.edu

 

Castle Country Sage-grouse Conservation Plan

           A note about the CaCoARM plan:. This is an adaptive plan, it will be reviewed annually and therefore is likely to be amended, changed, updated, and reported upon but it will not be ignored and just put on the shelf as a monumental accomplishment of those involved.

Sage-grouse Conservation Plan December 2006

 

Reports

  • 2011 Accomplishment Report, Castle Country Section
  • 2011 Presentation to County Commission
  • 2010 Accomplishment Report, Castle Country Section
  • 2010 Chris Perkin's Thesis, "Ecology of Isolated Greater Sage-grouse Populations Inhabiting the Wildcat Knolls and Horn Mountain, Southcentral Utah."
  • 2010 Tamra Luke and Todd Black, Annual Report "The Summer Ecology of Greater Sage-grouse Populations on Horn Mountain and Wildcat Knoll."
  • 2008 Accomplishment Report; Castle Country Section
  • 2008 Annual Report of USU Research Study
  • 2006-7Accomplishment Report, Castle Country Section
  • 2005 Draft Report by Brad Crompton (UDWR). The sage-grouse of Emma Park - survival, production, and habitat use in relation to coalbed methane development. 
  •  2010 Chris Perkin's Defense Powerpoint Presentation (pdf file). Ecology of Isolated Greater Sage-grouse Populations Inhabiting the Wildcat Knolls and Horn Mountain, Southcentral Utah. March 31, 2010.

 

Minutes:

Male at Night

 

 

Wildcat Knoll and Horn Mountain: A Castle Country LWG Flagship Project

By Chris Perkins

The Castle Country Adaptive Management Local Working Group (CCARM) was formed in 2006 to address concerns regarding local sage-grouse populations in Carbon and Emery Counties.  In Utah, greater sage-grouse currently inhabit < 50 % of their historic range. Currently, little is known about greater sage-grouse ecology and populations on the Wildcat Knolls and Horn mountain sites. Previous data collection efforts have included monitoring male attendance on local leks since 1991.  CCARM conservation goals for this include obtaining estimates of sage-grouse lek attendance, distribution, habitat-use patterns, and the factors affecting production, and survival.

Chris Perkins, a graduate research assistant in Jack H. Berryman Institute, the Department of Wildland Resources at Utah State University, began capturing male and female sage-grouse and fitting them with radio-collars in spring 2008. Over the next two years, these birds were monitored to determine habitat-use, nesting and brood-rearing success, survival, sources of mortality, seasonal movement patterns, and male lek fidelity.

This research provides CCARM, Canyon Fuel Company (CFC), the U.S. Forest Service, and the Utah Division of Wildlife with information to guide management actions to enhance habitat conditions for the greater sage-grouse populations that inhabit the Wildcat Knolls and Horn Mountain areas of Carbon and Emery Counties.  A link to the thesis is in the report list above.

 

Biography

 

Chris Perkins was a M.S. student in the Wildland Resources Department at Utah State University.  Chris received a B.S. degree in Wildlife Science from Utah State University in the spring of 2006 and earned his M.S. in 2010.  Chris’s research interests include reproductive ecology, human wildlife conflict, understanding public perceptions of sage-grouse and public lands, and developing innovative methods of habitat management. Chris can be contacted at:c.j.perk@aggiemail.usu.edu.