Burnt Beaver 2027
Region: Northeastern
ID: 7781

Project Status: Proposed

Project Details

The project area has been significantly impacted by a recent mountain pine beetle epidemic that resulted in up to 90% mortality of lodgepole pine. Resulting downed and standing dead trees have significantly increased surface fuel loads and the risk of severe wildfire. Previously logged areas have regenerated with dense, even aged lodgepole pine stands that are now overstocked, resulting in suppressed tree growth, limited understory development, and elevated wildfire risk. Hand treatments and mastication will be used to improve the health, growth, and value of the forest stands, with TSI mastication and lop/scatter proposed on the Ashley National Forest and slash lines and lop/scatter used on the Uinta-Wasatch-Cache National Forest to help carry prescribed fire and expand future fire management options during uncharacteristic wildfire events. Hand treatments will also be used to remove encroaching conifers from aspen stands and restore and enhance riparian areas. Habitat resiliency and game forage availability are expected to increase through more diverse canopy cover and improved stand age structure resulting from these treatments.

Provide evidence about the nature of the problem and the need to address it. Identify the significance of the problem using a variety of data sources. For example, if a habitat restoration project is being proposed to benefit greater sage-grouse, describe the existing plant community characteristics that limit habitat value for greater sage-grouse and identify the changes needed for habitat improvement.

1. Reduce the risk of large-scale, uncharacteristic wildfires.

2. Improve the resilience and adaptive capacity of the project area by managing stand densities.

3. Improve wildlife habitat for a wide range of species, including improvement of summer and transition range habitat for mule deer.

4. Restore, maintain, or improve the ecological function of riparian areas.

5. Reduce the potential for erosion and sediment transport associated with wildfire, thereby improving fisheries habitats.

6. Maintain or promote tree vigor and form in young stands through stand density management to minimize the future impacts of biotic (e.g., mistletoe and bark beetles) and abiotic damage (e.g., snow damage and windthrow).

7. Restore, maintain, or improve aspen ecotones.

8. Reintroduce low severity fire to the landscape.

To achieve these objectives, we plan to reduce hazardous fuels, address conifer encroachment in riparian and aspen stands, and create a mosaic of age/size classes, stand structures, and species composition on the landscape level. Treatments are intended to return the area closer to its historically functioning condition and allow for low-severity prescribed and natural fire to be reintroduced to maintain those properly functioning conditions. Reduced wildfire risk and increased habitat diversity should positively impact water quantity and reduce the risk of water quality issues associated with high-severity fires in these watersheds.

Proposed treatments to reach these objectives include conifer removal, pre-commercial thinning via mastication and lop and scatter, prescribed burning, cut pile and burn, cut skid and deck, and traditional commercial timber sales.

Provide an overall goal for the project and then provide clear, specific and measurable objectives (outcomes) to be accomplished by the proposed actions. If possible, tie to one or more of the public benefits UWRI is providing.

Timing:If left untreated, advanced conifer regeneration will continue the self-pruning process, growth rates will gradually slow, and understory vegetation will continue to decline under crowded, closed-canopy conditions. Mature lodgepole pine and even-aged mixed conifer stands will move further away from properly functioning condition, lacking a sustainable distribution of younger age classes. Proposed treatment areas, which are already poor habitat for many wildlife species due to excessive conifer density, will continue to decline in habitat value over time.

Previously logged and regenerated areas are currently at an ideal stage for thinning and timber stand improvement. In addition, extensive dwarf mistletoe infestation in portions of the overstory is impacting stand health and growth rates and inhibiting regeneration. Without intervention, mistletoe will continue to spread from the overstory into the understory, delaying large tree development and limiting recovery. In some areas, desired stand structure and individual tree size may be unattainable without active density management. Overall forage values will remain low, wildlife movement will be restricted, and current fuel conditions will continue to pose a high risk of high-intensity, stand-replacing wildfire.

Implementation timing is appropriate given current stand conditions, fuel loading, and the completion of NEPA analysis on the Ashley National Forest, which now allows coordinated treatments to occur across both the Uinta-Wasatch-Cache and Ashley National Forests.

Location: In the Utah Wildlife Action Plan, the project area is designated by the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources as crucial summer range for mule deer, elk, and black bear, crucial moose winter range, and documented transitional habitat for bighorn sheep. It is located within key seasonal migration routes for the Big Game Management Unit 8 North Slope mule deer herd, supporting animals moving between the Chalk Creek and Kamas units to the west and the South Slope Uintas to the east. Habitat management objectives for this unit emphasize conserving and improving habitat on crucial ranges, including addressing conifer encroachment into sagebrush and aspen communities.

The project area also occurs on a highly used recreational landscape, with multiple trailheads, campgrounds, and access points located within and adjacent to proposed treatment areas, supporting long-term public safety and resource protection objectives across both forests.

LOCATION: Justify the proposed location of this project over other areas, include publicly scrutinized planning/recovery documents that list this area as a priority, remote sensing modeling that show this area is a good candidate for restoration, wildlife migration information and other data that help justify this project's location.

TIMING: Justify why this project should be implemented at this time. For example, Is the project area at risk of crossing an ecological or other threshold wherein future restoration would become more difficult, cost prohibitive, or even impossible.

1. 2003 Wasatch-Cache Forest Plan: - (Sub-goal 3d) Restore or maintain fire-adapted ecosystems (consistent with land uses, historic fire regimes, and other Forest Plan direction) through wildland fire use, prescribed fire, timber harvest or mechanical treatments.

Vegetation/fuel treatment, prescribed fire, and wildland fire use are allowed:
for the purposes of maintaining, improving or restoring watersheds to desired conditions, and to protect property in the wildland urban interface.(G3.1W-1) for the purposes of maintaining, improving or restoring terrestrial habitat, for hazardous fuel reduction, and to protect property in the wildland urban interface. (G3.2U-1)

To mimic historic conditions and to restore ecosystem functioning. (G4.2-1)Timber harvest, vegetation/fuels treatment, road construction, prescribed fire and wildland fire use are allowed:

To mimic historic conditions and to restore ecosystem functioning as compatible with the backcountry recreation opportunity and natural setting desired. (G4.3-1)
to maintain or improve forage production or for hazardous fuel reduction. (G6.2 -1)

Timber harvest, road construction, vegetation/fuel treatment, prescribed fire, new recreation development, and new trail construction are allowed for the purposes of providing public enjoyment, safety, and protection of site investments. (G4.5-1)

Use prescribed fire in wilderness only to meet wilderness management objectives. The objective of prescribed fire management in wilderness (FSM 2324.21) is to reduce, to an acceptable level, the risks and consequences of wildfire within wilderness or escaping from wilderness. (G37)

Prior to use of prescribed fire and wildland fire use, investments made for timber production, such as road systems and silvicultural improvements, and the value of the timber for wood production receive consideration. (G5.2)

Burnt Beaver 2027 (BB2027) will help address UWC Forest Plan Objective 3.b., "stimulate aspen regeneration and reduce other encroaching woody species in aspen by treating (fire use and/or timber harvest) approximately 3,200 acres average annually for a 10- year total of 32,000 acres. "

Vegetation cover types will form a mosaic of plant communities representing a diverse mix of ages, sizes, and species. Fire use will play a role in reducing fuels, maintaining the historic dynamic of aspen regeneration and ratio of conifer to aspen and mountain brush vegetation patterns and age classes. Mechanical treatment of fuels along with limited use of prescribed fire will emphasize the safety of people and protection of property in the heavily populated and increasingly developed urban wildland interface adjacent to National Forest .

2. Ashley National Forest- Forest Plan for Land and Resource Management Plan:

At-Risk Plant Species Standards - 01 Manage total tree and shrub canopy cover to not exceed 10 percent within the habitat of Evert's wafer-parsnip (Cymopterus evertii) to maintain its persistence on semi-barren habitat. - Page 20;

At-Risk Plant Species Goals - 01 Persistence and recovery of federally protected plants includes cooperation with other government agencies, conservation groups, and landowners who help expand inventories, identify new habitat, and promote other actions to enhance plant habitat conservation or restoration. - Page 21

Desired Conditions: 02 The Ashley National Forest supports the distribution and abundance of forested structural stages that are ecologically resilient and sustainable and that support a diversity of forest size classes. - Page 24

Coniferous Forests - Objectives: 01 To complete forested vegetation management treatments, such as timber harvest, planned ignitions, thinning, and planting, every year on an average of 2,400 acres (2,100 acres in the second decade) measured on a decadal basis, to maintain or move toward achieving desired conditions for forested ecosystems. - Page 26

Wildlife Goals - 01 Cooperate with other agencies and tribal governments on conservation strategies, recovery plans, and habitat management for (1) the recovery of federally listed wildlife species populations that occur on the Ashley National Forest and (2) ecological conditions necessary to maintain the long-term persistence of wildlife species of conservation concern. - Page 37

3. 2001 Roadless Rule: -Prohibits cutting, sale, and removal of timber in inventoried roadless areas, except: For the cutting, sale, or removal of generally small diameter trees which maintains or improves roadless characteristics and to: 
Improve habitat for threatened, endangered, proposed, or sensitive species, or maintain or restore ecosystem composition and structure, such as reducing the risk of uncharacteristic wildfire effects.

4. Utah Mule Deer Statewide Management Plan: -Initiate broad scale vegetative treatment projects to improve mule deer habitat in ranges being diminished by encroachment of conifers into aspen habitats. 
-Seek opportunities through WRI to improve aspen communities that provide crucial summer habitat for mule deer. 
-Encourage land managers to manage portions of aspen/conifer forest in early successional stages using various methods including timber harvest and managed fire. 
-North Slope is a habitat restoration priority area for mule deer in Utah.

5. Utah Statewide Elk Management Plan: -Identify habitat projects on summer range (aspen communities) to improve calving habitat. -Increase forage production by annually treating a minimum of 40,000 acres of elk habitat -Encourage land managers to manage portions of forests in early successional stages through the use of controlled burning and logging. Controlled burning should only be used in areas with minimal invasive weed and/or safety concerns.

6. Utah Moose Statewide Management Plan: -Initiate prescribed burns and other vegetative treatment projects to improve moose habitat lost to ecological succession or human impacts.

7. Utah Bighorn Sheep Statewide Management Plan: -Encourage land management agencies to use fire as a management tool to improve bighorn sheep habitat. When possible, allow fires that can have beneficial effects for bighorn sheep to burn. -Initiate vegetative treatment projects to improve bighorn habitat lost to natural succession or human impacts.

8. American Goshawk of Utah: Habitat Assessment and Management Recommendations: -Early and mid-seral species should be increased using both mechanical means and fire. -Policies should be adopted to manage for the production of large early seral species through clearings, thinnings, and weedings, using mechanical means or fire. -Fire or mechanical treatments or both should be used to create conditions favorable to lodgepole pine and quaking aspen.

9. Guidelines for Aspen Regeneration on National Forests in Utah: - Much of the loss of aspen-dominated acreage is attributable to encroachment and overtopping by conifer. It has often been presumed that this encroachment i.e., the natural succession process for seral stands, is the result of fire suppression.

10. Utah Black Bear Management Plan: -Successional replacement of aspen stands by conifers can significantly reduce bear-food production in aspen communities. Both fire and selective logging of conifers can be used to maintain aspen vigor.

11. UDWR Wildlife Action Plan: - While the Aspen-Conifer physical (abiotic) habitat remains largely intact in Utah, coverage of aspen itself within that setting has declined greatly for two main reasons: (1) departure from natural fire regime (reduction in disturbance), resulting in widespread forest succession to conifer dominance; and (2) heavy ungulate browsing on young aspen stems, following disturbance. - Increased disturbance from either prescribed or natural fire over a large treatment area helps distribute ungulate browse pressure. Mechanical disturbance can also be used to stimulate aspen regeneration and improve disease resilience. As with fire, larger mechanical treatment areas serve to distribute browsing pressure and reduce damage to individual stems, increasing regeneration success.

12. State of Utah Catastrophic Wildfire Reduction Strategy: - Rather than just reducing fires, the ultimate goal is to return landscapes to a condition of health and resilience that allows for wildfires to burn without becoming catastrophic to either human or natural systems.

13. Conservation Agreement and Strategy for Colorado River Cutthroat Trout in the State of Utah -Natural climatic events such as flood, fire and drought may threaten specific populations of Colorado River cutthroat trout (CRCT); Small, isolated populations are more susceptible to catastrophic loss and impacts from demographic stochasticity.

14. Unit 8 Deer Management Plan -Work with federal, private, and state partners to improve crucial deer habitats through the Watershed Restoration Initiative (WRI) process. Also work with federal and state partners in fire rehabilitation on crucial deer habitat through the WRI process. -Manage conifer encroachment on important summer ranges by utilizing prescribed fire.

15. Unit 8 Elk Management Plan Work cooperatively with the USFS and BLM to utilize prescribed burning, mechanical conifer and PJ removal, and grazing to enhance elk forage quantity and quality.

16. Summit County Resource Management Plan pgs. 21-25
Wildlife goal 1: provide for healthy wildlife habitats.
Wildfire management goal 1: continued prevention of catastrophic wildfires in Summit County.

Forest management goal 1: provide for healthy and sustainable ecosystems while including benefits for people. Sub goal -- timber for commercial harvest: Use timber harvest where allowed, to contribute to the economy while achieving properly functioning conditions of vegetation and watersheds.

17. Daggett County Resource Management Plan pgs. 86-87
Resource Management Objectives: 
1. To Support the wise use, conservation and protection of public lands and its resources including well-planned, outcome based, management prescriptions. 
Action 2. Multiple-use and sustained-yield management means that federal agencies should develop and implement management plans and make other resource-use decisions that: 
-Are designed to produce and provide the desired vegetation for the watersheds, timber, food, fiber, livestock forage, and wildlife forage, and minerals that are necessary to meet present needs and future economic growth, community expansion, without permanent impairment of the land
- Insures proper stewardship of the land and natural resources necessary to ensure the health of the watersheds, timber, forage, and wildlife resources to provide for a continuous supply of resources for the people of the County who depend on these resources for a sustainable economy. 

18. 2020 Utah Forest Action Plan objectives include: 
Use all available management tools, including forest industry, to restore and maintain healthy ecosystems. Utah's forested resources are used to meet public needs while being appropriately managed to provide sustainability for future generations. 
Treatments will utilize local industry to reduce overstocked/encroaching conifers, providing public needs benefits of utilizing industry and improve water quality/quantity with decrease of wildfire risk, creating sustainability of aspen ecosystems for wildlife and future generations.

List management plans where this project will address an objective or strategy in the plan. Describe how the project area overlaps the objective or strategy in the plan and the relevance of the project to the successful implementation of those plans. It is best to provide this information in a list format with the description immediately following the plan objective or strategy.

The Burnt Beaver 2027 Project builds upon a series of fuels treatments previously implemented within the Burnt Beaver Restoration Project area. The primary emphasis of this phase is reducing hazardous fuels and improving fire management options through the construction of slash lines, shaded fuel breaks, and strategic fuels reduction treatments across both the Uinta-Wasatch-Cache and Ashley National Forests. On the Uinta-Wasatch-Cache National Forest, slash lines will be constructed between Fish Lake and the Burnt Fork Trail to support prescribed fire operations and improve the ability to manage wildfire within the project area. These slash lines are intended to increase flexibility in meeting prescribed fire prescription windows, which have become increasingly difficult to achieve due to narrow burn windows caused by weather, fuel moisture conditions, lack of fine fuels, higher National Fire Preparedness Levels (NPL) during burn season, and political climates. Shaded fuel breaks will be created to reduce fire intensity and improve suppression effectiveness along key access routes.

On the Ashley National Forest, treatments will focus on mastication and lop/scatter to improve timber stand conditions; however, in units adjacent to roads, 100 percent of fuels will be masticated within 30 feet of each side of the roadway. This approach will create an effective fuel break to support future prescribed fire implementation and reduce risk during uncharacteristic or catastrophic wildfire events. These treatments are designed to decrease fire intensity and spread potential while improving firefighter access and enhancing public safety across a heavily used landscape.

The project area is heavily used during the summer months for recreation, including camping, hiking, hunting, and motorized use, and provides critical habitat for elk, moose, mule deer, and black bear. Treatments will help protect Forest infrastructure, recreation sites, and adjacent private lands while reducing wildfire risk to nearby communities. The project lies within the Green River Watershed, which is primarily characterized by Fire Regime Groups III and IV and Condition Classes 2 and 3, indicating moderate to high departure from historic fire regimes. Reducing hazardous fuels in these areas will move the landscape toward more resilient fire behavior and improve long-term ecological function.

If applicable, detail how the proposed project will significantly reduce the risk of fuel loading and/or continuity of hazardous fuels including the use of fire-wise species in re-seeding operations. Describe the value of any features being protected by reducing the risk of fire. Values may include; communities at risk, permanent infrastructure, municipal watersheds, campgrounds, critical wildlife habitat, etc. Include the size of the area where fuels are being reduced and the distance from the feature(s) at risk.

Runoff and erosion rates associated with high-intensity/severity wildfires are much higher than those associated with prescribed burns. After severe and intense wildfires, soils become hydrophobic, increasing runoff and decreasing the soil moisture content in the ecosystem. Runoff introduces large quantities of sediment, ash, and other chemical contaminants into the river system, negatively impacting water quality. Intense/severe wildfires can cause riparian areas to be denuded of vegetation, increase water temperature, decrease dissolved oxygen, and lead to eutrophication and poisoning of aquatic organisms.

This project would remedy catastrophic wildfire effects to water quality by using prescribed fire and fuel reduction treatments to reduce hazardous fuel loads. Five sub-watersheds (West Fork Beaver Creek, Beaver Creek-Henry's Fork, Gregory Basin, Burnt Fork, and Birch Creek) would be protected against uncharacteristic wildfire effects. These systems flow into the Green River and are used for recreation and many municipalities along its course. The Green River also flows into Flaming Gorge, which provides drinking water to eastern Utah. The project area encompasses several ecological communities, e.g., lodgepole pine, aspen, aspen-conifer, spruce-fir, Douglas fir, and the tributaries that flow through these forest communities. Implementing this project would benefit the American Beaver and Colorado Cutthroat Trout habitat from future degradation from wildfire risk.

This project will help sustain and improve water quantity by maintaining soil function. Fuel reduction and prescribed fire treatments will reduce the risk of high-severity wildfire that can lead to soil hydrophobicity and rapid runoff, instead promoting infiltration and soil moisture retention across the watershed. By reducing overstocked conifer conditions and maintaining healthier forest and riparian vegetation, the project supports improved enhanced natural water storage. These processes contribute to water storage capacity within the project's sub-watersheds and downstream systems. By reducing vegetation density, the remaining trees face less competition for water, improving their survival and maintaining watershed health.

This project improves overall watershed health and resilience by treating multiple ecological communities and prioritizing high-value ecological types, particularly aspen. By reducing conifer encroachment and promoting aspen regeneration, the project enhances soil stability, infiltration, water retention, and understory diversity, strengthening watershed function and long-term resilience across the project area.

Describe how the project has the potential to improve water quality and/or increase water quantity, both over the short and long term. Address run-off, erosion, soil infiltration, and flooding, if applicable.

Description of efforts, both completed and planned, to bring the proposed action into compliance with any and all cultural resource, NEPA, ESA, etc. requirements. If compliance is not required enter "not applicable" and explain why not it is not required.

In past phases, shaded fuel breaks were created to serve as holding lines for prescribed fire and to moderate fire behavior during unplanned wildfire events. This project phase will continue using that approach by enhancing and expanding shaded fuel breaks along key access routes. On the Uinta-Wasatch-Cache National Forest, slash lines will be constructed between Fish Lake and the Burnt Fork Trail to provide effective holding features and improve fire management options on the west side of the Burnt Beaver Project Area. Slash lines will be designed to modify fuel continuity and increase flexibility in meeting narrow prescribed fire prescription windows. Lop and scatter treatments will also be conducted in the Lost Creek area to promote aspen regeneration and enhance meadow conditions.

On the Ashley National Forest, treatments will focus on TSI mastication and lop/scatter along existing roads to improve timber stand conditions by reducing conifer competition, improving stand structure, and lowering surface and ladder fuel loads. As a secondary benefit, these road-based treatments will function as shaded fuel breaks, improving firefighter access, enhancing public safety, and reducing the likelihood of high-intensity fire spread while maintaining visual screening and minimizing impacts to recreational users.

Across both forests, treatments are designed to mitigate wildfire intensity and severity while improving overall forest health by reducing competition, enhancing stand vigor, and increasing landscape resilience.

Livestock grazing the Burnt Fork Allotment will be fitted with virtual fence e-collars for a fourth year following an initial three-year trial evaluating effectiveness for livestock management and cost-benefit compared to installing nearly 40 miles of new physical fencing. Based on early results and because fewer than 20 percent of the permitted cattle were collared in 2023, the project is proposed to continue through at least the 2027 grazing season so that all 182 permitted cattle can be collared for multiple years. This extended timeframe will allow for a more complete evaluation of effectiveness and benefits, provide permittees with meaningful experience using virtual fencing, and includes a request for an additional $10,000 to install another communication tower to address known coverage dead zones in the current system (see Documents section for additional information).

Describe the actions, activities, tasks to be implemented as part of the proposed project; how these activities will be carried out, equipment to be used, when, and by whom.

Describe plans to monitor for project success and achievement of stated objectives. Include details on type of monitoring (vegetation, wildlife, etc.), schedule, assignments and how the results of these monitoring efforts will be reported and/or uploaded to this project page. If needed, upload detailed plans in the "attachments" section.

Uinta-Wasatch-Cache National Forest and Ashley National Forest staff have partnered with the Mule Deer Foundation through a stewardship agreement. The Mule Deer Foundation has contracted and overseen the implementation of over 4,000 acres of habitat restoration work since the project's inception. They will continue to provide oversight for the contracting and implementation of this phase of work. The project builds on past coordination with the Utah Division of Forestry, Fire and State Lands (FFSL) and will continue working with FFSL to engage private landowners in adjacent areas to support complementary treatments and landscape-scale outcomes. UDWR has supported the selection of treatment areas and project implementation.

The Utah Wild Sheep Foundation supports proactive work in the area. Burnt Fork grazing allotment permittees are participating in a three-year virtual fence trial with USFS as a possible alternative for almost 40 miles of costly new wire fence installation. Summit County Conservation District is working with the virtual allotments and the UWC to help with payment needs.

Funding partners for past phases include UT Habitat Council Account, Federal Aid (PR), USFS-WRI, Internal Conservation Permit (ICP Bighorn), Utah Wild Sheep Foundation, Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, Safari Club International, Sportsman for Fish & Wildlife, Mule Deer Foundation, and Utah Archery Association.

List any and all partners (agencies, organizations, NGO's, private landowners) that support the proposal and/or have been contacted and included in the planning and design of the proposed project. Describe efforts to gather input and include these agencies, landowners, permitees, sportsman groups, researchers, etc. that may be interested/affected by the proposed project. Partners do not have to provide funding or in-kind services to a project to be listed.

Detail future methods or techniques (including administrative actions) that will be implemented to help in accomplishing the stated objectives and to insure the long term success/stability of the proposed project. This may include: post-treatment grazing rest and/or management plans/changes, wildlife herd/species management plan changes, ranch plans, conservation easements or other permanent protection plans, resource management plans, forest plans, etc.

Conifer removal and aspen regeneration open the forest canopy and increase the richness and diversity of understory plant species. These outcomes will be achieved through Timber Stand Improvement (TSI), mastication, and slash line treatments that reduce conifer competition, improve stand structure, and promote healthy aspen regeneration. Studies within the project area and across the district indicate successful aspen regeneration and sustainability concurrent with permitted livestock grazing and wild ungulates following disturbances such as fire, timber harvest, fuel reduction treatments, etc. The project has the potential to provide and improve sustainable timber harvesting, hunting, fishing, and recreational use.
Virtual fencing supports sustainable grazing on the Uinta-Wasatch-Cache National Forest by improving livestock distribution and keeping cattle out of sensitive riparian areas and regenerating vegetation. This targeted management reduces overuse and resource damage while maintaining vegetation recovery, watershed function, and compatibility with wildlife habitat and multiple-use objectives.

This project also improves habitat for the following species. Creating sustainable opportunities for public hunting, fishing, and wildlife viewing.

American Beaver -- Removing conifers encroaching on riparian areas will promote willow and aspen growth Willow and aspen are not only an excellent food source for beavers, but are also used as building material for dams and lodges.

American Black Bear -- As stated in the Utah Black Bear Management Plan, successional replacement of aspen stands by conifers can significantly reduce bear-food production in aspen communities. Both fire and selective logging of conifers can be used to maintain aspen vigor.

Rocky Mountain Elk - Project would improve summer calving habitat and forage. Thinning would open the canopy allowing for herbaceous growth, which in turn, would create forage for big game. Aspen regeneration would create forage for big game.

Moose - Project would improve summer calving habitat and year-round forage habitat, particularly shrubs in wet meadow, riparian and overstory thinning. First naturally established resident moose population documented in UT on the North Slope from early 1900's to 1947. (pg. 2 UT Statewide Moose Plan) Natural and transplanted populations remain relatively low across the state, staying around 2500-3000 per 2017 estimates, meaning improved habitat and forage availability is important in this area.

Mule Deer - Project would improve summer habitat. Thinning would open the canopy allowing for herbaceous growth, which in turn, would create forage for big game. Aspen regeneration would create forage for big game.

Rocky Mt. Bighorn Sheep - Collar data indicate use of the area primarily as a transition and movement corridor between the Gilbert Peak area and the lower-elevation Hole-in-the-Rock Ridge. Movements occur periodically throughout the year, with short-duration (1--3 day) use of the corridor rather than a single seasonal migration pattern. This project addresses a Level 3 threat related to habitat degradation and reduced forage availability by thinning overstory vegetation within transitional habitats along this movement route. Reducing overstory density is expected to increase herbaceous forage and improve horizontal visibility, a key factor influencing bighorn sheep resource selection and predator avoidance.

In landscapes with overlapping use by native ungulates and managed livestock, adaptive land management approaches that maintain forage availability and visibility along movement corridors help reduce localized overgrazing and habitat degradation for bighorn sheep.

Bonneville Cutthroat - Bonneville cutthroat trout have experienced range-wide declines and currently occupy approximately 35% of their historic range (May and Albeke 2005). This project addresses Level 3 threats to BCT, including drought, channel downcutting, and increasing stream temperatures, by using prescribed fire to reduce the risk of high-severity wildfire and maintain riparian vegetation that provides stream shading, bank stability, and sustained instream flows.

Black Rosy Finch - The black rosy-finch only breed in rugged, high-elevation mountain environments, and due to their limited distribution and inaccessible breeding habitat, they are one of the least-well understood birds in North America. The management of Rosy-finches is hindered by a lack of even basic information about the demography, distribution, and seasonal movements of this species. Filling crucial data gaps about the distribution and abundance of Black Rosy-finches is critical to ensure that their populations can be sustained in the face of habitat degradation and climate change. Black Rosy-finches are identified by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as a "Species of Concern" throughout their entire range and are a priority species for study and conservation. Partners in Flight classifies Black Rosy-finches as of "Highest Conservation Concern at the Continental Scale." In Utah, black rosy-finches are considered a Species of Greatest Conservation Need. The Ashley National Forest identifies the black rosy-finch as a Species of Conservation Concern. The lack of data for rosy-finches limits effective conservation actions and responses to potential listing petitions under the ESA. There are a lot of data gaps in winter habitat use for rosy-finches, however we do know they are less restricted by winter habitats versus their high-altitude breeding habitats. In winter, they mainly feed on seeds. The Rosy-Finch Working Group is already striving to identify potential ways to help buffer rosy-finches against the worst effects of climate change. Possibilities they are exploring include improving habitat in the birds' lower-elevation winter ranges by promoting native plants and fighting invasive weeds and physically removing trees that may encroach upslope into rosy-finches' winter foraging habitat as temperatures warm. This project will help serve to reduce trees that are expanding into rosy-finch winter foraging habitat.

Dusky Grouse, Ruffed Grouse - As the density and cover of the conifer increases and expands and climate change impacts becomes more imminent, the potential for more extreme fires will intensify. By reducing the hazardous fuel load, we will be reducing the possibility for larger scale fire events and reduce the chances of losing large quantities of high-quality forest grouse habitat. Dusky grouse, although a conifer-dependent species, rely heavily on understory vegetation for providing food such as insects, forbs, leaves, seeds, and berries. Dusky grouse are known to perform 'reverse' migration, meaning they move up to high elevation conifer forests for the winter and down to deciduous forests and open shrub vegetation for their spring and summer reproductive periods (Cade 1985, Stauffer and Peterson 1985, Cade and Hoffman 1990, 1993, Pekins et al. 1991). During the early brood-rearing season (June-August) female dusky grouse tend to select for shrubs or herbaceous cover to provide protection for their chicks and ruffed grouse select for forest edges, subalpine meadows, and aspen groves. Research has shown that forest grouse benefit from heterogeneous landscapes including shrubby grasslands, open ponderosa pine with aspen groves, and Douglas fir with true fir which help to provide a range of high-quality breeding and wintering habitats. Removing conifers from aspen stands is one of the most effective habitat treatments for ruffed grouse. There is evidence for a pattern of increased species richness with forest heterogeneity. Forest treatments can benefit forest birds, pollinators, and ungulates by reducing canopy cover, encouraging herbaceous ground cover, limiting ladder fuel species, and encouraging shrub diversity in canopy openings, while maintaining some dense forest stands on the landscape.

Potential for the proposed action to improve quality or quantity of sustainable uses such as grazing, timber harvest, biomass utilization, recreation, etc. Grazing improvements may include actions to improve forage availability and/or distribution of livestock.