agriculture biological assessment service...

United States Department of

Agriculture

Forest Service

DRAFT Salmon Salvage Project Biological Assessment Wildlife Salmon/Scott River Ranger District Klamath National Forest

Township 40 North, Range 11 West, Sections 7-10, 15-21, and 30; Township 41 North, Range 12 West, Section 35; and Township 40 North, Range 12 West, Sections 10-24; and 27-31, Mount Diablo Meridian. Township 10 North, Range 8 East, Sections 4-6, and 8-9; and Township 11 North, Range 8 East Sections 28, 32, and 33, Humboldt Meridian

Prepared by: /s/ Sam Cuenca Date: _ _

Sam Cuenca Wildlife Biologist USDA Forest Service

Salmon Scott River Ranger District Klamath National Forest Service

Approved by: _/s/ _______ Date: _

Russell Hayes, District Ranger Salmon/Scott River Ranger District Klamath National Forest

Wildlife Biological Assessment Salmon Salvage Project 2

INTRODUCTION

The Salmon Salvage Project (Project) was developed in response to the August 2013 Salmon Fire Complex on the Salmon River Ranger District of the Klamath National Forest (KNF). The Salmon River Complex (the fire) burned approximately 14,779 acres of Klamath National Forest land in Siskiyou County, CA between July 31 and August 30, 2013. The fire was a combination of the Boulder and the Shelly fires that were human-started along the Sawyer’s Bar road (County road 1C01). The fire re-burned steep granitic watersheds that had burned at high intensity during the 1987 fires and to a lesser degree during the Hog Fire of 1977. The Project boundary follows the fire perimeter, excluding five acres of private property.

This Biological Assessment (BA) analyzes the possible direct, indirect, and cumulative effects for threatened, endangered, and proposed species resulting from the implementation of Alternative 2. The purpose of the project is to (1) reduce safety hazards to the public and forest workers; (2) obtain the maximum economic commodity value from burned timber; and (3) increase the likelihood and speed by which burned conifer stands are reforested.

This document is a site-specific Biological Assessment (BA) to identify and evaluate the effects of proposed Forest Service actions on Threatened and Endangered (T&E) species. This BA will provide biological information to ensure USDA Forest Service and the Klamath National Forest compliance with the National Forest Management Act (NFMA), National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), Forest Service Manual 2670, Section 7 of the Endangered Species Act of 1973, as amended [16 U.S.C. 1536 (c) et seq. 50CFR 402], and follows the standards established in the Forest Service Manual direction (FSM 2672.42; USDA Forest Service 1991) and 1995 Record of Decision for the Land and Resource Management Plan (Forest Plan) for the Klamath National Forest. This document complies with the requirements of the Endangered Species Act to disclose effects on listed species and their habitats. For the purposes of this analysis, the project area is defined by the Salmon Complex fire perimeter. The analysis area was established by a 1.3 mile buffer around treatment units and NSO home range that intersects the treatment unit buffers. The treatment area is the area for which the action will occur. FEDERALLY LISTED SPECIES

A forest-wide list, from the United States Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), Arcata Field Office of Proposed, Endangered, and Threatened species, which may occur in or be affected by projects in the area of the Klamath National Forest (#305501372-134243), was accessed on May 19, 2014).

Table 1. Species list of threatened, endangered and candidate species

Common Name Scientific Name

Status

Critical Habitat

Invertebrates Vernal pool fairy shrimp Branchinechta lynchi T Y Fish Shortnose sucker Chasmistes brevirostris E P

Lost River sucker Deltistes luxatus E P S. OR/N. CA Coho salmon*

Oncorhynchus kisutch T Y


green sturgeon* Acipenser medirostris T Y tidewater goby Eucyclogbius

newberryi E Y

Birds Western yellow-billed cuckoo

Coccyzus americanus PT N

Northern spotted owl Strix occidentalis caurina

T Y

marbled murrelet Brachyramphus marmoratus

T Y

Mammals gray wolf Canis lupus E Y fisher Martes pennant C N

Status = Threatened (T), Endangered (E), or Candidate (C). Critical habitat = Yes (Y), no (N), or proposed (P). *Species covered under the National Marine Fisheries Service are covered under the Fisheries Biological Assessment and are therefore not covered in the terrestrial wildlife BA.

Critical Habitat for the vernal pool fairy shrimp was designated on August 11, 2005. Critical Habitat for the shortnose sucker and Lost River sucker was re-proposed on December 7, 2011. Critical Habitat for tidewater goby was designated on February 6, 2013. Critical Habitat (revised) for the northern spotted owl was designated on November 21, 2012. Critical Habitat (revised) for the marbled murrelet was designated on October 5, 2011. Critical Habitat for gray wolves was designated on March 9, 1978. The northern spotted owl (NSO) is the only Federally-listed Threatened species known to occur within the Analysis Area. The fisher (West Coast DPS) is candidate species and does not require consideration under this analysis. However, the fisher is a Forest Sensitive species and will be analyzed as such in the Salmon Salvage Biological Evaluation. The proposed western yellow-billed cuckoo is not known to occur in the analysis area nor does suitable habitat occur within the analysis area; therefore, the cuckoo will not be addressed further. The gray wolf (Canis lupus) was added to the USFWS species list after the GPS-collared wolf known as OR-7 dispersed from Oregon into California. As of the writing of this document, OR-7 has returned to Oregon. While OR-7’s dispersal event suggests that unmarked wolves may occur in California without our knowledge, OR-7 was the only recorded wolf in California since 1924 and was never recorded to have interacted with potential unmarked individuals in California. Therefore, because there are currently no known, established wolves in California and the only wolf known to have dispersed from Oregon has not been observed within or anywhere near the Project area, the Project is expected to have no effect to gray wolves and the species will not be addressed further in this document. The Project area is outside the range of the marbled murrelet (Brachyramphus marmoratus), tidewater goby (Eucyclogobius newberryi, shortnose sucker (Chasmistes brevirostris), Lost River sucker (Deltistes luxatus), and vernal pool fairy shrimp (Branchinechta lynchi) and is not within these species’ designated or proposed Critical Habitat. The proposed Project will not affect the marbled murrelet, tidewater goby, shortnose sucker, Lost River sucker, or the vernal pool fairy shrimp or their designated or proposed Critical Habitat. These species will not be further addressed in this document.


Consistency with Recovery Plans and Conservation Agreements

NSO Critical Habitat: In the 2012 designation of NSO critical habitat, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife developed management suggestions for managing within critical habitat. These suggestions included conserving high quality habitat and actively managing forests to restore ecosystem health such as natural fire regimes. Although the Final Rule doesn’t explicitly address the use of post-fire harvest of dead trees within critical habitat, the USFWS did comment on the need to conserve and recruit high quality NSO habitat and the need for work inside LSRs to be consistent with Standard and Guides of the Northwest Forest Plan (NWFP).

Northwest Forest Plan (NWFP): The NWFP was adopted in 1994 to guide the management of more than 9.7 million hectares (24 million acres) of Federal in portions of western Washington and Oregon, and northwestern California within the range of the NSO. Because the Klamath National Forest Plan ROD incorporates the NSO. NWFP amends the management plans of National Forests and BLM Districts and is intended to provide the basis for conservation of the NSO and other late-successional and old-growth forest associated species. The NWFP identifies the high risk of large scale disturbance in mixed conifer forests and suggests, in the event of a stand replacing fire, the resulting excessive fuel loads may interfere with stand regeneration. Excessive fuel loads also elevate the potential for future fires that may expand into existing high quality habitat. The Salmon Salvage Project uses the Forest Plan Standards and Guides to minimize impacts to habitat and reduce the risk of additional fires resulting from the excessive fuel load through land management. This project will not eliminate the potential of future fires in the Salmon Fire perimeter, but it will reduce the potential of high severity fire moving into additional habitat.

Forest-wide Late-Successional Reserve Assessment (LSRA). The Klamath National Forest Forest-wide Late-successional Reserve Assessment (1999) sets the objective that salvage effects in LSRs must be neutral and should have a long-term positive effect late-successional habitat. Salvage should not diminish suitable habitat now or in the future. The Salmon Salvage project is designed to meet these LSR objectives by adhering to the salvage treatment standards identified in the LSR Assessment.

NSO Recovery: The 2011 NSO Revised Recovery Plan (RRP) was prepared by a Recovery Team consisting of Federal agencies, State governments, and other interested parties. The RRP was published in June 28, 2011 (USDI Fish and Wildlife Service 2011a). This replaced the 1992 Draft Recovery Plan which had been used as a foundation for the 1994 Northwest Forest Plan, and the Klamath Forest2008 Final Recovery Plan. The 2011 RRP identifies three main threats to NSO (current and past habitat loss and competition with barred owls) and describes a Recovery Strategy which includes habitat conservation and active forest management as means in which to address these threats. As a result, the RRP identified a series of Recovery Actions to guide activities that would contribute to recovery objectives. For this Project, Recovery Action 10, 12, and 32 are most applicable.

Recovery plans are not regulatory documents and are not required to be addressed as part of Section 7 consultation under the ESA. However, in order to provide decision makers and the USFWS, with relevant information, and to address the general compliance requirements as listed under 7(a)(1) of Endangered Species Act, we have provided information regarding project consistency with the Recovery Plan in Table 2.


Table 2. Recovery Actions Applicable to the Salmon Salvage Project Recovery

Action Description Applicable Recommendations

10 Conserve spotted owl sites and high value spotted owl habitat to provide additional demographic support to the spotted owl population

Intent of this recovery action is to protect, enhance, and develop habitat in the quantity and distribution necessary to provide for the long-term recovery of spotted owls. Action: Project design specifications have been incorporated to maintain key habitat characteristicsfeatures in the areas treated such as large snags and large course woody debris for future(Table 9). Proposed treatments were designed to avoid activites in known NSO cores, nesting/roosting habitat and to minimize effects to post-fire foraging habitat throughout the treatment areas. The treatments provide for long term improvement to the habitat by removing fuels and consequently reducing the potential of high severity fire moving across the treatment into exisiting NSO habitat. Since the proposed action doesn’t affect high quality nesting/roosting or foraging habitat or habitat that may provide additional support to the spotted owl, no areas within the treatment areas were conserved within the treatment units for RA10 purposes.

12 In lands where management is focused on development of spotted owl habitat, post-fire silvicultural activities should concentrate on conserving and restoring habitat elements that take a long time to develop (e.g., large trees, medium and large snags, downed wood)

Intent of this recovery action is to protect, enhance, and develop habitat in the quantity and distribution necessary to provide for the long-term recovery of spotted owls. Action: In salvage units, snags and downed logs will be retained in designated riparian reserve leave areas and in clumps throughout the treatment units (Table 9, Wildlife 1-7). Snags in retention clumps will be of the largest available to maximize long term persistance for future stand development. Outside of these treatment areas snags and logs of all size classes will be retained and appear to be abundant and well distributed. The proposed salvage is expected to accelerate the regrowth of suitable habitat by reducing competition. Salvage will also reduce the fuels accumulations and reduce the potential of future fires carrying into the adjacent habitats.


Recovery Action Description Applicable Recommendations

32 Federal and non-federal landowners should work with the Service to maintain and restore older and more structurally complex multi-layered conifer forests …allowing for other threats, such as fire and insects to be addressed by restoration management actions.

Maintaining forests with high-quality habitat will provide additional support for reducing key threats faced by NSO; protecting these forests should provide NSO high-quality refugia habitat from negative competitive interactions with barred owls that are likely occurring where the two species’ home ranges overlap. Action: High quality spotted owl habit stands that meet the intent of RA-32 have not been proposed for treatment. Treatments will not occur in stands that currently provide RA-32 characteristics.

Consultation History Initial conservations regarding the Salmon Salvage Project were made with the Level 1 team on 9/9/13 as the Salmon Fire Complex was coming to a close. The initial interdisciplinary team field trip to the project to review post-fire habitat conditions occurred on 10/29/2013 with Bob Carey (FWS(USFWS Yreka Field Office).On 11/6/2013, Level 1 Team was given a short presentation on post-fire habitat typing. Areas burned with high severity effects were mapped as areas that no longer provided long-term habitat for NSO. Areas burned at low and moderate severity areas were generally unchanged from the original pre-fire habitat condition. A follow-up field trip to the project area was made on 11/20/2013 with Bob Carey to review more of the burned areas. Another brief salvage project update was given to the Level 1 Team on 12/2/2013. An additional progress update was presented to the Level 1 Team on 3/6/2014. There was a key change in USFWS representation on this project from Bob Carey to Jan Johnson (FWS biologistUSFWS). A meeting to transfer information occurred on 3/7/2014. This meeting allowed the FS Interdiciplinary Team leader Travis Coughlin and FS wildlife biologist Sam Cuenca to give a complete review of the analysis process to Jan Johnson. Current maps were made available and project design standards were discussed including snag standards in LSRs (> 8 per acre in clumps of largest trees of the stand). Snags levels and LSR/CH objectives were also discussed on a follow-up meeting on 4/7/2014. On 4/22/12014, Jan Johnson made a field visit to review salvage units and hazard tree mark within two known NSO home ranges (KL1043 and KL4042) with Travis Coughlin and Lauren McChesney. During this field trip additional snags were marked for retention in Units 284 and 285 in the LSR.. A brief update was made to the Level 1 Team on 5/1/2014 and a draft biological assessment was submitted to USFWS on 5/2/2014. A final draft BA was submitted to USFWS on XX and an agreed upon BA was finalized and dated on XX.


General Objectives The desired future condition for the project area is a healthy, mixed conifer forest that provides a diversity of habitat conditions which include meeting objectives of the Late-Successional Reserve Assessment and Revised NSO Recovery Plan. Treatments are intended to meet these objects as well as improve firefighter safety and increase the likelihood of successful suppression to reduce further NSO habitat loss. Objectives include: 1. Reduce safety hazards to the public and forest workers from falling trees. Trees killed or severely burned by wildfire are often unstable and at risk for falling or snapping off, especially during high wind events. It is important that infrastructure, especially roads and trailheads, are maintained for use by public and Forest workers (i.e, abating “hazard trees”). Furthermore, dead and dying trees within proposed salvage areas present a safety hazard to fire fighters (should the area burn again), visitors and forest workers. 2. Obtain the maximum economic commodity value from burned timber by offering a sale while the wood is still marketable. The Forest Plan directs the Forest to harvest dead or dying trees to produce wood products as consistent with Forest goals. Dead timber loses significant value if left standing beyond two winters and is most profitable if salvaged even sooner. Capturing the marketability of the timber provides the agency a viable means of meeting this and other project needs, since the timber sale can be used to fund implementation. If treatment is delayed beyond the marketability period of the timber, the Forest Service will need to pay for the hazard tree abatement and removal of dead and dying trees in order to meet the first need described above. By contrast, if salvage occurs during the marketability period, funds gained from the salvage sale can be used for additional restoration work. 3. Increase the likelihood and speed by which burned conifer stands are reforested. Although wildfires have some benefits (e.g. snag and downed wood creation), intensely burned forested areas may be slow to recover or may not recover at all and heavy fuel loading will result from fallen snags. Following a high severity wildfire, heavy fuel loading predisposes an area to future higher intensity and severity wildfires that inhibit conifer regeneration and may result in stand type changes to brush or other non-conifer stand types. Forest Plan goals include providing a programmed flow of timber products sustainable through time, accelerating the development of late-successional conditions for wildlife habitat, and providing for a resilient, forested ecosystem for future generations. 4. Forest-wide goals (Forest Plan, pages 4-4 and 4-5) include pursuing ecosystem sustainability through integrated resource objectives, managing for a diverse and productive environment, and managing with the highest standards of stewardship by working to meet the needs of the Nation for wood, water, forage, wildlife, recreation, and other resources.

Methods

The treatment area is the area in which the action will occur. Short-term is the period of time encompassing implementation and the time for the habitat to respond to the treatment defined as ≤10 years. Long-term will be the time period during stand development in 30 years.


NSO Habitat Typing

For this analysis, NSO habitat was split into three categories: nesting/roosting, foraging, and dispersal. Nesting and Roosting habitat contain very similar habitat characteristics and for this analysis are grouped together representing high quality NSO habitat. Nesting/roosting is generally described as mid- to late-seral forests that contain stands of large trees with high canopy cover, multilayered canopies, and nesting platforms. Foraging habitat can be described as slightly reduced canopy cover, less large trees, and enough space for NSO to maneuver through the trees for hunting prey when compared to nesting/roosting habitat. Dispersal habitat contains a moderate level of canopy closure and trees large enough to provide shelter and potential foraging opportunities for traveling NSO.

Habitat was assessed using pre-fire habitat GIS layer and a combination of post-fire habitat information. Pre-fire habitat was assessed with the use of pre-fire GIS habitat layers delineating nesting/roosting, foraging, and dispersal habitat. The final habitat layer was developed using a series of tools. The initial GIS habitat layer was developed using satellite imagery and modeling of habitat attributes associated with the habitat type. This layer provided a course assessment of the habitat over the entire project area. Using hands-on assessment and local knowledge in combination of aerial photos and satellite imagery was used to further refine the habitat type. Finally, a sample of the habitat types was checked with on-the-ground habitat assessment to calibrate the habitat typing accuracy.

The post-fire assessment used the RAVG data which is a vegetation burn severity modeling approach to assess the change in vegetation over a particular area. Typically, high severity burn results in the loss of habitat while moderate and low severity areas retained incrementally larger proportion of habitat retention. The RAVG data was overlaid with the pre-fire condition to build a habitat layer with likely changes in habitat based on the burn severity. A sample of each changed habitat type was assessed on-the-ground and the layer was calibrated for inaccuracies. In addition to the basic habitat assessment, each of the treatment units was individually assessed for habitat typing.

NSO Analysis

The northern spotted owl analysis is split into multiple biologically relevant analyses to estimate

Two spatial areas are considered when evaluating potential effects of the proposed actions on NSO habitat and NSO Activity Centers. NSO habitat analysis considers potential effects the nesting/roosting, foraging, and dispersal habitat and the potential resulting effects to NSO. NSO AC analysis uses known activity centers to create a specified analysis area around the nest to estimate the effects to habitat by the prosed actions and the potential effects to NSO reproduction in those ACs. In addition, these analyses will also consider the changes to prey populations and disturbance created during implementation.

NSO Habitat Analysis: NSO Habitat was analyzed at the landscape level (analysis areas) which encompasses an area larger than the project area. A 1.3 mile buffer from all treatment units was used to represent the average NSO home range radius in California. Direct positive or indirect effects to habitat were assessed by determining the level of effects to canopy closure, basal area, number of large trees (>26in dbh) per acre, and the quadratic mean diameter. The resulting level of effects to the habitat was determined to be either no effect, degraded, downgraded, or removed. No effect means that the action will not decrease any of the four measurable attributes. Degrade means the


effects are minimal and the habitat remains functional at the same level. Downgrade means the habitat has been affected to the point where the habitat will not continue to function at its initial level and it will drop down one level. Removal means the once habitat is no longer habitat.

NSO Activity Center Analysis: This analysis will focus on the potential affects to NSO nesting territories by assessing potential affects to habitat at the two spatial scales: 1) home range and 2) nest core. Because the actual configuration of a home range is rarely known, the estimated mean annual home range of a northern spotted owl pair in the California Klamath Province is represented by a 1.3-mile radius circle (3,340 acres) centered upon an owl activity center (e.g. nest site). A 0.5-mile radius circle around an owl activity center is used to delineate the area most heavily used (territory or “core area”) by owls during the nesting season. Temporal bounding for disturbance effects is narrowed to the time during project implementation because this would be the source of the potential impacts to NSO by way of possible disturbance to owls, if present. Temporal bounding also is inclusive of long-term beneficial effects to NSO post-fire habitat restoration.

NSO Critical Habitat Analysis

Critical habitat analysis is focused on potential affects to NSO from the proposed actions. Since all the proposed actions occur within the Project Area, the analyzed area was confined to the portion of critical habitat within the project area. For this project, the critical habitat analysis area is smaller than the project area. Only changes to the Primary Constituent Elements as a result of proposed actions were analyzed. These effects to critical habitat were analyzed over the short- and long-term.

Description of Proposed Action

The project area which is located within the perimeter of the 14,779 acre Salmon Complex fires. Fire severity ranged from low to high in a mosaic pattern in the project area. Only stands that burned in the high category were considered for salvage with some small inclusions of directly adjacent areas that burned at moderate fire severity.

The project area ranges in elevation from 2,000 to 6,800 feet and encompasses 14,000 acres of oak woodlands in the lower slope, mixed conifer in the mid to upper slope, and some true fir in the upper slope position. The proposed action will treat about 1,303 acres and about 973 acres (23 miles) of roadside hazard within the 14,779-acre fire perimeter. The proposed treatments fall within five Management Area types which each have different management objectives (Table 3). This proposed action includes two types of treatments: (1) salvage harvest; and (2) hazard tree reduction. Table 3- Acres of Management Areas (MAs)

Management Area Management Objectives Acres

MA 5-Special Habitat, LSR Provide habitat conditions and management activities that contribute to the recovery of

Federally listed T&E species 605

MA 10-Riparian Area (Hydrologic)* Provide benefits to riparian-dependent and associated species other than fish 109


MA 13-Recreational River Preserve the Recreational Rivers in a free-flowing condition 9

MA 15-Partial Retention VQO Manage for sustained yield of wood products in areas capable, available, and suitable for timber

productions 462

MA 17-General Forest

Maintain stand health as well as resilience to wildland fire, insect, disease, and other damage.

Emphasize salvage and restoration from catastrophic events.

119

Grand Total 1,303 *Although salvage units contain hydrologic Riparian Areas within their boundaries, no salvage treatment will occur in hydrologic Riparian Reserves.

Salvage Harvest (330 acres) The Forest proposes treatments for salvage logging treatment only in areas classified as having high severity fire effects (greater than 75% canopy cover killed) with a small number of acres that burned with moderate severity effects on the edges or interwoven with areas of high severity fire effects. Severity classes are defined in the Fire and Fuels Resource Report for this project. About 4,470 acres (30% of the fire area) burned at moderate to high severity (25% at high severity and 5% at moderate severity). About 1,440 acres of conifer stands greater than 10 inch average diameter at breast height (dbh) were classified with moderate to high burn severity. From these 1,440 acres, 507 acres (about 3% of the fire area) were evaluated for potential salvage but the potential treatment area was reduced mainly by Forest Plan guidance and potential resource concerns. Of these reduced acres, 330 acres (2.2% of the fire area) were determined feasible in terms of logging systems, accessibility, and amount of mortality and are proposed for salvage logging treatments within 16 units. In some treatment units, both salvage and roadside hazard treatments are proposed (overlap) to be initiated in late summer of 2014.

Salvage logging treatments will be accomplished by ground-based, skyline, and helicopter logging systems; acres are broken down in Table 5 below.

Table 5.-Acres by Logging System

Fire salvage marking guidelines will be based on tree mortality models developed through the latest scientific research by Forest Health Protection (Marking Guidelines for Fire-Injured Trees in California, Report #RO-11-01, May 2011). The project will use a predicted probability of mortality (Pm) of 0.7. All coniferous trees meeting or exceeding this Pm will be selected for removal except those designated and retained as wildlife trees. It is anticipated that the majority of the trees within salvage units will be salvaged, as most burned at high severity. The majority of trees to be harvested are less than 26” dbh (Table 6).

Logging System Salvage Only Salvage- Roadside Overlap Total Acres

Ground Based 15 3 18

Skyline 102 82 184

Helicopter 121 7 128 Total 238 92 330


Table 6. Total Number of trees to be salvaged in Units by diameter class.

Snag Retention

Project design features for wildlife will dictate the number of snags left standing in order to meet or exceed Forest Plan forest-wide standards and guidelines (Table 9). Snag retention guidelines will be met in the salvage-only portion of treatment units. Leaving snags within the roadside hazard tree treatments (described below) would be contrary to management direction, not meet the purpose and need element of providing safety for forest workers and visitors, and would be most likely to be cut for fuelwood due to proximity to the road. Snags left in each unit will vary based on unit size, shape, and land allocation in which units occur. Where snags are retained, they will be left in groups to provide structure and cover for wildlife, as well as allow for wildlife protection during operation and post-harvest fuels treatments. There are 36.4 acres of snag retention areas within salvage units (Appendix A). These areas range from a tenth acre to eight acres in size, and were identified during project layout. The majority of these retention areas are within hydrologic riparian reserves, where there are generally larger trees due to water availability. The objective for snag retention in LSRs will be >8 snags per acre of the largest size classes for each particular unit left in clumps to allow for long term snag persistence. Outside of LSRs, snags will be left > 5 per acre of the largest size classes for all the treatment units and retained in clumps within the unit.

Fuels Treatment

Fuel treatments being considered include: yarding, lop and scattering, chipping, broadcast burning, jackpot burning, and pile burning. Within salvage units, fuels treatments will be used to treat non-commercial dead material and activity-generated fuels. Fuels treatments in salvage areas will not remove snags retained for wildlife habitat needs. To provide safe access to a defensible area, removal of all fire-killed hazard trees, followed by fuels treatment including hand piling and burning, is prescribed for all hazard tree treatments. Within hazard tree units, only fuels generated by the hazard tree reduction activities will be treated. Table 7 shows anticipated fuels treatments for the salvage and hazard tree (roadside) units; these may change after salvage and hazard tree reduction depending upon location on slope, proximity to natural and man-made fire breaks, fuel loading, existing soil cover, abundance of natural regeneration, and concentration of hazard trees


felled. Burning will not occur in snag retention areas. Fuels treatments will be initiated following completion of salvage operations and are expected to be implemented over a 3 year period.

Table 7. Anticipated fuels treatments for Alternative 2. Unit Acres Logging System Post-Activity Fuels Treatment

300 3.0 Ground Based Whole Tree Yard; Landing Burn 316 1.2 Ground Based Whole Tree Yard; Landing Burn 345 12.6 Ground Based Whole Tree Yard; Landing Burn. Handpile slash on

and adjacent to trail. 315 1.5 Endline Lop and Scatter tops and limbs; Landing Burn 311 26.0 Helicopter Jackpot Burn 353 57.6 Helicopter Jackpot Burn 308 28.9 Helicopter Jackpot Burn 312 2.4 Skyline Hand Pile and Burn 347 16.8 Skyline Broadcast Burn 307 30.0 Skyline Broadcast Burn 352 6.1 Skyline Hand Pile and Burn 296 7.3 Skyline Broadcast Burn 295 17.3 Skyline Hand Pile and Burn 285 10.9 Skyline Hand Pile and Burn 329 40.8 Skyline Broadcast Burn 284 43.0 Skyline Broadcast Burn 401 585.8 Roadside Lop and Scatter, Machine/ Hand Pile and Burn 402 387.7 Roadside Lop and Scatter, Machine/ Hand Pile and Burn Hazard Tree Reduction (973 acres) The Forest Service will identify and remove hazard trees within 200 feet of the roads, along about 23 miles of maintenance level 2 (about 18 miles) and level 3 (about 5 miles) National Forest Transportation System (NFTS) roads. The total treatments include approximately 873 acres of roadside hazard only, and approximately an additional 100 acres of roadside that overlaps with salvage units. Both the mileage and acres are an estimate of treatment proposed and are likely an overestimation; the numbers are merely representative of the entire length and area being evaluated for hazard trees. Trees along the roadway and within these areas will only be removed if they are identified as a hazard. Hazard trees within Riparian Reserves would felled and maintained as coarse woody debris. Hazard trees will be identified using the Regional Hazard Tree Guidelines for Forest Service Facilities and Roads in the Pacific Southwest Region (Report #RO-12-01). Because of safety concerns associated with hazard trees, the responsible official has chosen to salvage trees with a 0.7 probability of mortality, meaning that the Forest Service will mark trees with a70% or greater chance of dying over a 3-5 year period for harvest. Roads, Landings, and Trails

There will be no system roads or new temporary roads constructed in this project. System roads will be maintained as needed for project implementation. Project access will mainly require the use of NFTS roads and County Roads. Access to Unit 345 will be on a temporary road on an existing roadbed. For Unit 345, a small section of the Garden Gulch Trail will be used, which is overlaid by an existing roadbed. After the proposed salvage operation is complete, drainage control features along the Garden Gulch Trail will be constructed to restore the trail back to an 18- to 24-inch wide tread, suitable for single track hiking/equestrian/bicycle use. This stabilization shall include


constructed rolling dips, nicks (shallow cuts in the trail to drain water), grading, and berm removal. The public will have access to slash piles for firewood cutting for a two week period following thinning operations. After this period, vehicle access will be closed and drainage control features will be installed where needed.

Overall, two existing road beds will be used for temporary access to salvage units, totaling about 1,600 feet. About 13 landings varying in size about 0.5 -2.0 acres will be needed. It is anticipated that five (5) of these landings will be new landings that will need to be constructed. Landings and temporary roads will be closed and hydrologically stabilized upon project completion. No new landings will be near any known NSO cores.

Interrelated and Interdependent Actions Interrelated and interdependent activities include normal road maintenance specific to this project. Due to the increased use of the roads, we expect road maintenance such as road grading, road wetting, and cleaning culvert pipes to occur during the implementation of the project.

PROJECT DESIGN SPECIFICATIONS

Table 8. Project Design Specifications for the northern spotted owl

Wildlife – 1 Retain important northern spotted owl habitat components in treatment units when possible. Important components include large snags and downed logs, large diameter conifers and hardwoods, trees with previous indications of wildlife use (cavities, platform nests) or other characteristics such as large horizontal limbs or mistletoe brooms that provide wildlife value. Retained components will be arranged in multi-layer stands and clumps where feasible.

Units 284, 285, 295, 307, 308, 311, 312, 329, 345, 347, 352, 353, portion of 401, portion of 402

Wildlife -2

Retain downed logs to an average of at least six logs/acre (greater than 20” diameter and 10’ long) when possible, but do not exceed the fuel management objectives.

All Units

Wildlife - 3 Within Late-Successional Reserves (LSRs), when available, retain at least 8 snags per acre with the emphasis on the largest size class snags within each particular stand (as per Forest Plan EIS for high capability northern spotted owl habitat Appendix I-4, Table I-1). Priority should be given to snags with physical attributes for wildlife value such as cat faces, broken tops, and cavities and will last the longest. Based on human safety concerns, units proposed for broadcast burning (helicopter treatments), retain these snags on the downhill lower 1/3 of the units. For treatment areas above the road retain clumps on the upper portions of the units to reduce potential removal from public firewood harvesting. In units proposed for handpiling, pile away from the retained snags. Retained snags or clumps of snags will be distributed throughout the treatment areas when possible. Coordination with marking crew and biologist will be incorporated to clarify snag retention.

Units 329, 285, 284, 312, 352, 347, portion of 307, 308, 345, portion of 353, and portion of 295

Wildlife – 4 Outside of LSRs, retain five (5) snags per acre. Snags will be left in Units 315,


clumps (skips of 0.25 to one acre in size) where possible. Snags will be retained to provide wildlife habitat value and priority for retention based on physical structure and longevity (snags appearing to remain standing for the longest period of time). Based on human safety concerns, units proposed for broadcast burning (helicopter treatments), retain these snag clumps on the downhill lower 1/3 of the units. For treatment areas above the road retain clumps on the upper portions of the units to reduce potential removal from public firewood harvesting. In units proposed for handpiling, pile away from the retained snags. These will be distributed throughout the treatment areas. Coordination with marking crew and biologist will be incorporated to clarify snag retention.

316, 312, 352, 311, 347, 307, 308, 345, 296, 300

Wildlife - 5 Cull trees, large diameter hardwood (>15”dbh), and snags identified for retention will remain standing unless otherwise identified as a safety hazard. If these trees are felled as a safety hazard, retain as downed wood. When retaining snags and burned trees to meet snag PDFs, those with cat faces, broken tops, and cavities will be retained where possible.

All Units

Wildlife – 6 Noise producing treatments that are above ambient noise levels within 0.25 miles of an occupied NSO activity center or un-surveyed suitable habitat will have a seasonal restriction of February 1st to July 9th. This Limited Operating Period can be lifted if protocol surveys determine NSOs are not nesting on year of action.

All Units except 353, 296, 295,

Wildlife – 7 For helicopter units restrict over flight paths to avoid noise disturbance that may affect nearby nesting northern spotted owls.

Units 285, 311, and 308

Wildlife – 8 Surveys will follow regionally approved protocol or as agreed upon by local Level One Team (team of Forest and U.S. Fish and Wildlife specialists).

Suitable habitat in analysis area

Wildlife – 9 No more than 50% of an occupied NSO home range within any given year will receive treatment. No more that 50% of the nesting, roosting, or foraging habitat will be burned or mechanically treated in a single year in any one 7th field watershed up to 3,500 acres in size. If the 7th field watershed is greater than 3,500 acres, apply the design criteria at the 8th field watershed scale.

All Activities

Wildlife – 10 No more than 50% of suitable northern spotted owl habitat within 0.5 mile of a northern spotted owl 0.5 mile core will be underburned in a given year.

All Activities

Wildlife – 11 When burning in spring, manage smoke so that light to moderate dispersed smoke may be present within a canyon or drainage but dissipates or lifts within 24 hours. When spring burning is conducted within 0.25 miles and uphill of a known northern spotted owl activity center or within 0.25 miles of un-surveyed nesting/roosting habitat (separated by a topographic feature), smoke is managed as described above, and ignition will be discontinued if heavy, concentrated smoke begins to inundate suitable habitat late in the afternoon.

All Activities

ENVIRONMENTAL BASELINE

NORTHERN SPOTTED OWL (Strix occidentalis caurina) Status: Federal Threatened; State of California-species of special concern


Current Condition and Past Influences The Project Area has experienced wildfire over the recent decades. Nearly half of the Salmon River Complex Fire area, the western half, burned in the 1977 Hog Fire which, at that time, mature conifer stands burned at high intensity. Much of the area was salvage logged and replanted with conifers. Some of this same area burned again in 1987 during the Yellow Fire which was also reforested. Unlike the western side, most of the eastern half of the project area burned for the first time since fire records have been kept on the forest. Although much of eastern portion burned at low intensity, there are numerous areas of moderate and high intensity. Directly to the north of the project area is the Marble Mountain Wilderness which has experienced thousands of acres of moderate and high intensity fire over the past 10 years. Research has determined the average fire return intervals for the project area range from 11.5 and 16.5 years prior to effective fire suppression in the West and varied with aspect but not with composition or elevation (Taylor and Skinner, 2003).

Recent analysis using a different habitat typing approach of NSO nesting/roosting and foraging across the entire Klamath National Forest reported in 2011 about 260,054 acres of nesting roosting and 258,655 acres of foraging habitat. Substantial loss of approximately 30,000 acres of NR habitat and 13,385 acres of foraging habitat from wildfire and suppression actions occurred during the 2006-2008 fire seasons (USDA Forest Service 2009, 2010). In addition, nesting/roosting and foraging habitat was reduced by the Goff Fire (2012), but the actual number of affected habitat acres has not been calculated for this fire (Biological Assessment in review).

Prior to the Salmon Complex Fire (2013), the Project Area contained a diversity of vegetation types which is reflective of the ecological diversity found throughout the Klamath Province. Forested stands occur as a result of soil type, aspect, harvest history, fire history, and slope position. The past wildfire still influenced the forest types in the landscape. Yellow Jacket Ridge contained only small portions of NSO surrounded by early seral habitat. The remaining area within the project area had less obvious wildfire influenced habitat distribution especially south of the County Road (1C01) Hardwoods were a dominant feature in the understory of all seral conditions. The highest quality forest habitats that provide suitable conditions for NSO occurred on the lower 2/3 of slope in the watersheds.

After the Salmon Complex Fire, much of the project area experienced a mosaic burn of mixed low and moderate fire intensity while other areas burned at high fire severity. Yellow Jacket Ridge lost most of the remaining NSO habitat while the rest of the project area had a mix of burn severities. Over all, the Salmon River area contains few areas that support foraging and nesting habitat conditions on the upper 1/3 of slopes. The post-fire analysis area contains approximately 2,736 acres of older forest, 8,367 acres of mid-seral forest, 3,205 acres of open mid-seral forest, and 9,436 acres of early-seral vegetation forest.

Late-Successional Reserve

The Salmon Salvage Project is partially within the North Fork/ Crapo LSR (RC347). The LSR is 9,197 acres and is located on the North Fork of the Salmon River. This LSR was known to contain 59% of area capable of developing mid to late successional habitat at the time of the Forest-wide Late Successional Assessment (1999). The Regional Ecosystem Office (REO) found the assessment


sufficient under the requirements of the NWFP and Forest Plan, and emphasized the need for fuels treatment to the extent possible to be done while minimizing the affects to late-successional habitat.

Salmon Complex Fire 2013

The Salmon Complex Fire ranged in burn severity ranged from low to high severity and burned in a mosaic pattern in the project area. Approximately 30% of the fire acreage burned at medium to high severity and about 33% burned at low intensity (Fuels Report, Table 4). About 1,440 acres of the high severity burn were previously conifer stands with an average diameter at breast height of more than ten inches (Silviculture Report). The Fire resulted in the loss of about 1,043 acres of NSO habitat. The stands that burned at high severity ranged in species composition and structure from shrub/oak stands, to single layered 25 year conifer plantations, to multi layered, mixed conifer stands and one stand in the higher elevations that is true fir dominated. Douglas fir is the dominant species in the overstory, less the true fir stand, and in the mixed conifer stands, hardwoods are very common in the understory. Table 9. Acres of NSO habitat Pre and Post Fire in the Fire Perimeter Area.

Habitat Pre-fire Acres Post-fire Acres Loss of Habitat Acres (high severity burned)

Dispersal 4,955 4,771 183

Foraging 11,888 11,065 823

Nesting/Roosting 2,767 2,731 37

Total Habitat Acres 19,610 18,567 1,043

Nesting/Roosting Habitat In 2009, the USFWS conducted a thorough review and synthesis of published literature, unpublished data sets and direct communication with NSO researchers to develop guidance for describing NSO habitat and evaluating the effects of habitat management on NSO within the interior Klamath Province. Nesting/roosting habitat for this analysis is generally defined by (1) average crown closure >60%, (2) average diameter at breast height for canopy trees (>18 inches), basal area (>180 square feet per acre), and trees with cavities or platforms. On the Klamath National Forest, in the California Klamath and Cascade provinces, 41% of 29 nests were in cavities and 59% on platforms, with cavity nests occurring predominantly in Douglas-fir forest and platform nests found mainly in mixed conifer forest. Eighty-six percent of the 29 nests were in Douglas-fir trees. Marshall et al. (2003) noted that approximately 90% of known Spotted Owl nests on the Applegate Ranger District of the Rogue River National Forest (Klamath Province, Oregon, 50 miles northwest of the Project area) were in dwarf mistletoe brooms in Douglas-fir trees.

In the analysis area, the existing 2,236 acres of nesting and roosting habitat is fragmented and limited due to past fire history, past logging and natural fragmentation. Most of this habitat occurs on the lower 2/3 of the slopes within the watersheds. Nesting and roosting habitat occurs mostly on the upper slopes of the watershed. Fire histories in the Salmon River area have resulted in few areas that support nesting and roosting habitat conditions on the upper 1/3 of slopes. Early vegetative mapping from the 1940s indicate that


upper slopes were represented by more open canopy pine dominate stands with low growing shrub understory (Salmon Salvage Project Silviculture Report).

Foraging Habitat

NSO The 2009 Guidance describes foraging habitat as including a mix of basal areas ranging from 120-180+ square feet, and > 15 Quadratic Mean Diameter (QMD) with and > 5 trees per acre of > 26” DBH and a mix of > 40% to 100 % canopy closures. It also recognizes “low quality” foraging habitat as a mix of basal areas ranging from 80-120+ square feet, > 11” QMD and > 40% canopy closure (USDI USFWS 2009, Irwin et 2004 and 2007).

In the analysis area, the 8,367 acres of foraging habitat is fragmented and limited due to past fire history, past logging and natural fragmentation. Most of this habitat occurs on the lower 2/3 of the slopes on the eastern and southern portion of the project area. In recent years, with fire exclusion, white fir ingrowth and stand diseases have influenced stand conditions to be denser in canopy on the upper slopes (Silviculture Report). This may have provided some level of increase in foraging habitat for NSO. Fire histories show that these upper slope stands will not be sustainable under conditions of wildfires due to the high probability of stand replacing fires on the upper 1/3 of slopes (Fuels Report).

Dispersal Habitat Dispersal of animals can be defined as the relatively permanent movement of individuals from one location to another. Usually dispersal is the movement of juveniles from their natal area to a site where they eventually settle to breed (Thomas, et al. 1990). Modeling efforts by Thomas et al. (1990) indicated that long-term spotted owl persistence is unusually sensitive to the distance between blocks of suitable habitat in relation to the percentage of the landscape that a dispersing individual can search before perishing. The distance between adjacent pairs or groups of breeding owls should be such that the dispersal of juveniles can replace losses among existing pairs and provide for the colonization of suitable, unoccupied habitats. They suggested that the distance between Habitat Conservation Areas (the concept of HCAs was used in the NWFP to develop LSRs) should be within the known dispersal distances of at least two-thirds of all juvenile owls (Thomas, et al. 1990); 12 miles is the distance that satisfied that criteria. To provide an additional measure of security for smaller HCAs, they suggested using shorter distances to increase the likelihood of successful dispersal; they selected 7 miles, which is less than the median distance estimated from banded birds and within the dispersal range of more than 75% of all radio-marked juveniles studied (Thomas, et al. 1990).

In addition to short distances between habitat areas (<7 miles), Thomas et al. (1990) suggest that management practices, such as visual corridors, riparian corridors, streamside management zones, geologic reserves, and other special management zones, provide habitat attributes conducive to spotted owl dispersal between habitat areas. To facilitate dispersal between habitat patches, they suggest maintaining 50% of each quarter-township in forest crown closure over 40% with average diameter at breast height of 11 inches.

Dispersal habitat in the analysis area (3,206 acres) (excluding NR and F habitat) across the Salmon Salvage Project area is patchy and is influenced by geology, past fire and past timber harvest. Dispersal habitat is provided in stands with larger than 11” DBH and greater than 40% canopy closure. This dispersal habitat is distributed within riparian reserves, geological reserves, visual corridors and untreated areas and nesting, roosting, foraging and dispersal habitat. As with nesting,


roosting, and foraging habitat distribution in the watershed, dispersal habitat is limited and not sustainable on the upper 1/3 of the slopes in the project watershed.

Potential barriers to dispersal for late-successional forest-related species would include large areas that currently do not support late-successional or mid-successional forest. The surrounding landscape is characterized by a forest influenced by past fire history, timber harvest, and natural fragmentation. There are an estimate of 9,435 acres of non-habitat areas composed of openings of plantations, small meadows and shrubs. These areas of non-habitat are distributed throughout the analysis area, but mostly occur in the northeast and west-southwest boundaries resulting from repeated effects of high severity fires in 1977 and 1987.

NSO Prey

Northern spotted owls feed mainly on small forest mammals, particularly arboreal and semi-arboreal species (Courtney et al. 2004). Northern flying squirrels and woodrats comprise a bulk of the diet, but secondary species may be important for survival and reproduction. In portions of the NSO range, deer mice, red-backed voles, and two species of lagomorphs are considered locally and/or seasonally important in the diet (Courtney et al. 2004). Within the project area, it is expected that woodrats are the most likely prey item based on available habitat.

NSOs within the Analysis Area

The analysis area contains five known historical NSO activity centers. four of the five home ranges have portions that overlap with proposed actions and may be affected by the proposed action (Table 10). Survey Summary

Site occupancy and reproductive rates have been shown to exhibit substantial annual variation that may be influenced by individual’s site fidelity, climatic extremes, shifts in prey availability, or presence of other raptors (Loschl 2008; Olson et al. 2005; Anthony et al. 2006).

Limited surveys for NSO were conducted in the analysis area in the 1980’s, mid-1990’s, and 2002. Recent protocol surveys in the portions of Salmon Salvage analysis area were conducted in 2009 thru 2013 as part of other projects: Little Cronan, Kelly Thin, and Little North Fork Plantation Project. These surveys determined presence in two of the five activity centers since 2010 and KL0233 is the only Activity Centers (AC) with a recent pair (2012), but no recent reproduction has been detected. Comprehensive protocol surveys for this project will commence during the 2014 survey season and be conducted throughout the life of the project. Survey histories are summarized in Table 10.

Table 10: NSO Survey Summary NSO Activity

Center Year First Recorded/

Status

Highest Status/ Year

Recent Surveys/

Status

Project Specific Mitigation

KL0233 Shiltos

1991- Occupancy Pair

Occupancy Pair 1991, 1998, 2002, 2012

2012 – occupancy pair (3 surveys), 2013 –single male (3 surveys), 2014- no response as

Core use area is outside project area.


NSO Activity Center

Year First Recorded/

Status

Highest Status/ Year

Recent Surveys/

Status

Project Specific Mitigation

of 4/17/14 (3 surveys)

KL1043 Little North Fork/Garden Gulch

1987- Occupancy Pair

1989-Reproductive Pair

2009 – no response (3 surveys), 2010 – single male presence (3 surveys), 2011-2013 no response (3 surveys), 2014 – no response as of 4/17/14(6 surveys)

Area will be surveyed for each year of action prior to implementation, for the duration of the project.

KL1052 Specimen

1988 – Reproductive Pair

1991- Reproductive Pair

2010-2011 – no response (3 surveys), 2014 – no response as of 4/17/14 (6 surveys)


KL1053 Sur Cree

1988 – Single Presence

1989 Occupancy Pair

2010- single presence(3 surveys), 2011-2013 – no response(3 surveys), 2014 – no response as of 4/17/14(6 surveys)


KL4042 Jackass

1981- Single Presence

1984 – Reproductive Pair

2009 – single presence(3 surveys), 2010-2011 no response (3 surveys), 2014 – no response as of 4/17/14(6 surveys)



Home Range and Core NSO Habitat Summary

The post-fire habitat analysis for the activity center core areas shows that all five core areas are deficit of the threshold of 500 acres of NR and F habitat in the 0.5 mile core. KL1052 is considerably low due to influences of the historic Specimen Fire that burned and high fire intensity.; this territory is not likely currently viable but is considered in this analysis All cores are low in nesting roosting habitat. Four of the five home ranges are above the 1,325 acre NR and F thresholds at the 1.3 mile home range area (Table 11).

Without long-term monitoring data it is difficult to determine demographic trends within the Analysis Area. For the purposes of this analysis, it is assumed that not all activity centers are occupied consistently through time, and that “currently” unoccupied activity centers that have been occupied in the past could remain important to NSOs in the Salmon Salvage Project’s landscape Table 11. Home Range and Core Post fire Habitat Acres of NSO Activity Centers. Activity Center Number

Activity Center Name

0.5 mi Radius Entire 1.3 mi Radius Total

NR` F Total NR F Total

KL0233 Shiltos 10 346 356 630 1,884 2,514 KL1043 Little

North Fork 101 329 430 101 1,679 1,780

KL1052 Specimen 0 0 0 123 444 567 KL1053 Sur Cree 5 246 251 1,095 541 1,636 KL4042 Jackass 55 317 372 252 1997 2,249

NSO Critical Habitat Critical habitat for a listed species contains the physical or biological features (primary constituent elements) essential to the conservation of the species. For the northern spotted owl, the physical or biological features (PBFs) essential to the conservation of the species are forested areas that are used or likely to be used for nesting, roosting, foraging, or dispersing. PBFs are made up of primary constituent elements that provide one or more of the following life-history requirements:

1. Space for individual and population growth and for normal behavior; 2. Food, water, air, light, minerals, or other nutritional or physiological requirements; 3. Cover or shelter; 4. Sites for breeding, reproduction, or rearing (or development) of offspring; and 5. Habitats that are protected from disturbance or are representative of the historical,

geographical, and ecological distributions of a species. The 2012 ruling addressed several influences on these PBFs, including: 1. climate, 2. elevation, 3. topography, 4. disturbance regimes, 5. the pattern and distribution of habitat, 6. forest community type (composition), and 7. population spatial requirements.


Disturbance Regimes Management actions usually do not affect the larger influences of disturbance regimes such as climate and climate patterns, but may affect the severity or frequency of events on the local landscape. A primary purpose of the Salmon Salvage Project is to reduce long-term hazardous fuels within burned areas of the Salmon Fire, which is immediately adjacent to the community of Sawyer’s Bar, California. If left untreated, some burned areas will have a buildup of fuels in the form of falling dead trees as time passes. Proposed treatments address this concern by reducing hazardous fuels in Salvage/fuels/planting (Fuels Report).

The Pattern and Distribution of Habitat Suitable forest types in the drier parts of the range occur in a mosaic pattern interspersed with infrequently used vegetation types, such as open forests, shrubby areas, and grasslands. As described in the final ruling, natural disturbance processes in these drier regions likely contributed to a pattern in which patches of habitat in various stages of suitability shift positions on the landscape through time.

Forest Community Type (Composition) Landscape-level patterns in tree species composition and topography influence the distribution and density of northern spotted owls. Even when different forest types have similar structural attributes, these differences in northern spotted owl distribution occur. NSO select forests with high proportions of Douglas-fir trees in areas east of the Cascade Crest probably because of the propensity for Douglas-fir to become infected with mistletoe that creates deformities often used by NSO. The effects of tree species composition on habitat selection also extend to hardwoods within conifer-dominated forests (Meyer et al. 1998). At the home range and core area scales, locations occupied by northern spotted owls consistently have greater amounts of mature and old-growth forest compared to random locations or unused areas (Dugger et al 2011).

The proportion of older or structurally complex forest within the home range varies greatly by geographical region, but typically falls between 30 and 78 percent (Courtney et al. 2004, Blakesley et al. 2004). Differences between northern spotted owl sites and random locations diminished as circles of increasing size were evaluated suggesting habitat selection is stronger at the core area scale than at the home range and landscape scales.

Population Spatial Requirements Areas that contain the physical or biological features described in the Final Rule must provide habitat in an amount and distribution sufficient to support persistent populations of NSOs. This includes meta-populations of reproductive pairs, and opportunities for nonbreeding and dispersing owls to move among populations to be considered essential to the conservation of the northern spotted owl.

Northern spotted owls maintain large home ranges that vary in size across nearly an order of magnitude across the species‘ range, from about 1,400 to 14,000 ac (570 to 5,700 ha), depending on geographic latitude and prey resources. Overlap occurs among adjoining territories, but the large size of territories nonetheless means that populations of northern spotted owls require landscapes with large areas of habitat suitable for nesting, roosting, and foraging. For example, in the northern parts of the subspecies’ range where territories are largest, a population of 20 resident pairs will


require at least 100,000 ac (about 40,500 ha) of habitat that is relatively densely distributed and of high quality. Primary Constituent Elements Primary constituent elements are those specific elements of the physical or biological features that provide for a species’ life-history processes and are essential to the conservation of the species.

In the 2012 Critical Habitat ruling the Primary Constituent Elements (PCEs) focuses on four components, the first of which must be included along with one of the last three. The four elements are

1. Forest types that may be in early-, mid-, or late-seral stages and that support the northern spotted owl across its geographical range,

2. Nesting and roosting habitat, 3. Foraging habitat, 4. Dispersal habitat (subdivided into transience and colonization phases of dispersal). These PCEs are quoted from the final rule and included as Appendix 4. In the following analysis, we will refer to these PCE categories as PCEs 1, 2, 3 and 4 with subdivisions discussed as appropriate. PCE 1, Forest Type These activities can occur in early-, mid-, or late-seral forest types identified in the PCEs in the final rule. On the Klamath, this includes the mixed conifer and mixed evergreen type, the Douglas-fir type, the Shasta red fir type and a small amount of the moist end of the ponderosa pine, coniferous forest zones. PCE 2, Nesting and Roosting habitat

1. Sufficient foraging habitat to meet the home range needs of territorial pairs of northern spotted owls throughout the year.

2. Stands for nesting and roosting that are generally characterized by: 3. moderate to high degrees of canopy closure (60 to over 80 percent): 4. Multilayered, multispecies canopies with large (20–30 in (51–76 cm) or greater dbh)

overstory trees; 5. High basal area values (greater than 240 ft2/ac (55 m2/ha)); 6. High diversity of different diameters of trees; 7. High incidence of large live trees with various deformities (e.g., large cavities, broken tops,

mistletoe infections, and other evidence of decadence); 8. Large snags and large accumulations of fallen trees and other woody debris on the ground;

and 9. Sufficient open space below the canopy for northern spotted owls to fly.

PCE 3, Foraging habitat in the East Cascades and Klamath/Northern California Interior Coast Ranges Ecological Zones


Klamath and Northern California Interior Coast Ranges 1. Stands of nesting and roosting habitat; in addition, other forest types with mature and old-

forest characteristics; 2. Presence of the conifer species, incense-cedar, sugar pine, Douglas-fir, and hardwood

species such as big leaf maple, black oak, live oaks, and madrone, as well as shrubs; 3. Forest patches within riparian zones of low-order streams and edges between conifer and

hardwood forest stands; 4. Brushy openings and dense young stands or low-density forest patches within a mosaic of

mature and older forest habitat; 5. High degrees of canopy cover (87 percent at frequently used sites); 6. Multiple canopy layers; 7. Mean stand diameter greater than 21 in (52.5 cm); 8. Increasing mean stand diameter and densities of trees greater than 26 in (66 cm) increases

foraging habitat quality; 9. Large accumulations of fallen trees and other woody debris on the ground; and 10. Sufficient open space below the canopy for northern spotted owls to fly.

PCE 4, Habitat supporting the transience and colonization phases of dispersal Habitat supporting the transience phase of dispersal, which includes:

1. Stands with adequate tree size and canopy cover to provide protection from avian predators and minimal foraging opportunities; in general this may include, but is not limited to, trees with at least 11 in (28 cm) dbh and a minimum 40 percent canopy cover; and

2. Younger and less diverse forest stands than foraging habitat, such as even-aged, pole-sized stands, if such stands contain some roosting structures and foraging habitat to allow for temporary resting and feeding during the transience phase.

3. Habitat supporting the colonization phase of dispersal, which is generally equivalent to nesting, roosting, and foraging habitat as described in PCEs (2) and (3), but may be smaller in area than that needed to support nesting pairs.

One of the primary threats to NSO is identified as past and current habitat loss. While loss due to timber harvest has slowed considerably since the time of listing, loss due to high severity fires in some portions of the range remain high. Recent information pertaining to habitat lost to wildfire in the relatively dry East Cascades and Klamath Provinces suggests that fire may be more of a threat than was previously thought. Specific to the California Klamath Province, approximately 40,000 acres of NSO nesting and roosting habitat has been lost to fires between 1996 and 2006, most of which is in reserved land allocations.

The Salmon Salvage Project occurs within the almost 1.2 million acre Klamath West (KLW) Critical Habitat Unit (CHU). The KLW CHU is located along the western portion of the Klamath Mountains with very high climatic and vegetative diversity. CHU subunit KLW8covers a large portion of the analysis area and overlaps a portion of the Little North Fork/Crapo LSR along with other land allocations including General Forest. This subunit provides an important low to mid elevation habitat link from the Marble Mountain Wilderness to the Trinity Alps wilderness.


The subunit was established to function as NSO demographic support (USDI FSW 2012 pg. 71933) and resource agencies are encouraged to work toward maintaining or enhancing the characteristics of older forest and provide large habitat blocks and associated forest conditions. Regional variations should be taken into account; in the Klamath Province this means providing mosaics of interior habitats and edges to provide for the diversity of prey. Management activities that contribute to recovery goals through risk reduction such as the removal of ground and ladder fuels, and the restoration of ecosystem processes that lead to the development or replacement of spotted owl habitat are recommended.

The current number of acres for PCE 2, 3, and 4 are presented in Table 12. Table 12. Existing Acres of Nesting/Roosting and Foraging habitat in Critical Habitat in the Analysis Area

Habitat Acres % of Analysis Area

Dispersal 1,983 16%

Foraging 5,731 47%

Nesting/Roosting 2,004 16%

Non-habitat 2,547 21%

Total Acres 12,265 100%

Interrelated and interdependent activities that may affect wildlife include using existing road beds as temporary roads and constructing landings which would facilitate thinning activities and temporary material storage. Due to the increased use of the roads, we expect road maintenance such as road grading, road wetting, and cleaning culvert pipes to occur during the implementation of the project.

DIRECT, INDIRECT, AND CUMMULATIVE EFFECTS

Short –term vs. Long –term Timeframes of Post-fire NSO Habitat. When considering temporal bounding of post-fire effects on habitat, one must consider how long a high severity burned patch of snags will remain standing. Cluck and Smith (2007) reported the fall rate of ponderosa pine snags >24” DBH in Oregon to be at 50% in ten years and 78% in twenty two years in the landscape of the Salmon Fire area. Comparatively, the Salmon Salvage Project fuels report determined that in high severity burn areas, within ten years most of the smaller diameter conifers (<10” DBH) would fall. A majority of the larger diameter (>24”DBH) conifers would fall within twenty years. The fuels report that after the twenty year period there is a probably of another high intensity fire which may result in a vegetative type change to brush. Within a twenty year timeframe snag leave areas are not expected to persist. As a result, snag leave areas are expected to be short-term habitat. For areas within LSR, snag leave areas were delineated at a rate of 8/snags per acre minimum with an emphasis if retaining the largest snags in the stands. Outside of LSRs snags are to be retained at 5/per acre (Appendix A).

Long-term timeframes for this project are defined in the Salmon Salvage Silviculture Report at 75 to 85 years after implementation and planting. It is estimated that this is the time when reforested areas start to become large enough to begin to provide trees with large enough DBH and canopy cover where foraging habitat conditions could be present. The long-term habitat restoration would become established after this timeframe.


Northern Spotted Owl The extent to which owls will use severely burned areas of previously suitable nesting, roosting or foraging habitat is unknown. Research is inconclusive and contradictory regarding the use of severely burned coniferous forests by spotted owls (Bond 2002, Gaines 1997, Elliot 1985). Some studies have shown owls to exhibit site fidelity, mate fidelity, and reproductive success after fires have burned with low to moderate severity within their territories (Bond 2002). Others studies have shown owls to move completely away from previously occupied areas after high intensity burns (Elliot 1985, Gaines 1997) particularly when burns occurred within nest core areas of resident birds. Clark (2007) found that severe wildfires in NSO home ranges caused owls to increase their home range size in order to encompass more suitable habitat. He also found that spotted owls with territories located immediately adjacent to moderate and high severity burned areas, avoided these areas and had < 5% of their locations fall within the boundaries of the fire. Owls that ventured into the burned areas were typically individuals that were displaced by fire and periodically visited their old territory. So, according to Clark’s study, when given the opportunity, owls focused their activities in unburned habitat. In his study, several owls with territories inside the fire frequently traveled long distances to forage in unburned habitat, supporting his prediction that owls would focus activities in the oldest forest stands with the least amount of fire damage (Clark 2007 pgs.117, 102-103).

Clark (2007) determined that owls were present in severely burned areas but did not determine these areas to be suitable habitat for nesting, roosting or long term occupation by spotted owls. The burned areas may have contained individual features providing a short-term structure for either roosting or foraging but were not suitable for long-term sustainability of a given owl or owl pair. Clark found that 60% of NSO detections within the salvaged/burned areas on his study sites were associated with patches of untreated wildlife leave groups and riparian buffers also known as “skips” and stands of thinned trees. If NSO use these features (i.e. burned trees or snags) within the harvest units, these “skip” areas may increase their prey availability, cover and subsequent foraging success. The areas to be salvaged will continue to provide some habitat components as “skip” areas and should not preclude foraging however after a five year period it is expected that foraging opportunities will begin to degrade as leave trees begin to decompose and fall and brush densities increase (Silviculture Report).

For purposes of this analysis, large areas burned with high burn severity are no longer considered suitable habitat for nesting, roosting, or long term occupation by spotted owls because these areas no longer supply the habitat attributes needed for thermal protection, nesting structure and cover from predators necessary for long term viability. Even though some use of high severity burned areas, particularly small patches of high severity that are within a mosaic of unburned, low, and moderate severity burned habitats may still support dispersal or possible foraging use along the edges or transition zones between burn severities or possibly along the edge of existing NSO habitat and high severity burn, these areas do not contain the forest structure to provide persistent foraging opportunity especially after the snags begin the fall over creating obstacles during foraging to capture prey on the ground. Even without snag fall over, treatment units have a high likelihood of being dominated by a dense brush understory, few scattered young conifers and high fuels accumulations.

The proposed salvage could increase the likelihood of seedling survival of natural regeneration by removing fuels that would otherwise increase the probability of fire. The proposed salvage will help


prepare the area for regeneration but it doesn’t include planting of conifers. Artificial regeneration with native conifer seedlings will allow for the return of forest cover in a much shorter time period than natural recovery would allow is included in another project in the same treatment areas (Salmon Reforestation). Adding the benefits of the two projects can accelerate the recovery of habitat for forest wildlife species. Without preparation for reforestation efforts in the Salmon Salvage Project, these areas would likely re-vegetate to grass and shrubs, resulting in the loss of older forest habitat which has determined to be limited in this landscape that has experienced such a high fire frequency.

The spatial arrangement of fire severities and patch size and shape of the habitat is important for NSO habitat use. The proportion and juxtaposition of unburned suitable habitat within an NSO home range that has burned at moderate or high severity is one of the key factors in determining the likelihood of use by NSOs. In some studies, researchers found fires with large patches of high severity burn appeared to adversely affect occupancy in some NSO territories while other territories experiencing high severity fire appear to continue to be active and reproduce (MacCracken et al. 1996, Gaines et al. 1997, and Jenness et al. 2004).

Habitat selection by NSOs is strongly influenced by abiotic features such as distance to water, proximity to nest, slope position, and elevation. It is possible that use of the burned habitats by NSO as described by Clark (2007) may be influenced by the juxtaposition of the burned areas in relation to some other feature, such as a nest site or water, rather than based on the “suitability” of the area, particularly if the owls were accustomed to using the area prior to the fire. Factors involved in the NSO’s periodic selection of burned areas for foraging have not been fully explored, and further research is needed to account for the many other aspects of a burned landscape that would factor into the NSO selection process.

The Salmon Fire area that burned in pre-fire NSO habitat burned in a mosaic pattern resulting in 786 acres of high severity burn (5% of the fire) and 3,220 acres of moderate severity burn (21% of the fire) in the analysis area. The high and moderate severity burn resulted in some loss of NRF habitats that was burned in mosaic pattern with the largest high severity patch at approximately 120 acres in size. The Salmon Fire may have slightly influenced the use patterns of NSO in the analysis area by the reconfiguration of habitat patches across the post-fire landscape. The amount of change in owl use pattern is not known but it is not expected to be large due to the low change in habitat post-fire. Protocol surveys throughout the implementation of this project will help to determine the current condition and distribution of NSO activity centers on this landscape.

NSO Prey

Under some conditions, positive effects of fire on spotted owls are possible, but it is dependent upon the size of burned patches and the overall amount and severity of burned habitat in the NSO’s home ranges. Habitat that supports prey for NSO is an important component for the survival of owls and their offspring. Woodrats are one of the two more important prey species for NSO on the Klamath NF, the other being northern flying squirrels. Franklin (2000) hypothesized that wildfire may serve to enhance spotted owl habitat by creating openings that provide habitat for prey such as woodrats and an increased edge effect that may facilitate the foraging effort. The proposed harvest of fire-killed trees may positively influence the amount and availability of NSO prey species by creating openings that would otherwise be congested with woody debris. In addition, the retention of leave groups situated around Riparian Reserves, drainages, and groups of pre-existing snags would offer


cover adjacent to open areas for prey species while also creating a perch for NSO that may increase NSO foraging success.

Effects to Northern Spotted Owl The proposed action will occur within 214 acres of areas that once provided suitable habitat. This represents approximately 25% of the 859 acres of suitable NRF habitat lost in the wildfire. The remaining 645 acres (75%) of burned NRF habitat will remain un-harvested.

Salvage Harvest The actual use of areas where the fire burned most intensely, especially large patches, are least likely to be utilized by NSOs due to the lack of important habitat attributes such as canopy cover. The Salmon Complex Fire provides ample amount of no burn to low severity burn that will provide higher quality habitat. It is estimated that 37% of the fire area was unburned and 26% was burned at low severity. Even though research has shown evidence of NSO using high severity burn areas for possible foraging, it is difficult to assess the amount actual use and determine the quality of severely burned habitat. According to the physical characteristics associated with NSO habitat as defined in several documents such as NSO Recovery Plan, severely burned habitat does not meet the characteristics of NSO habitat. The project will remove 330 acres or about 2% of the 14,779 acres wildfire affected area. The small amount of area being harvested will likely only have minor affects to NSO in the area. Removal of standing dead trees from within habitat already degraded by the fire itself is not expected to cause any further degradation or an increased loss of suitable nesting, roosting or foraging habitat.

Instead of focusing on the potential NSO short-term use of these severely burned areas, the focus should be on the long-term benefit of providing for the increase in recovery of habitat. The current condition of the habitat will only continue to degrade and form more ground fuels as the snags degrade and fall. These fuels will increase the potential for subsequent wildfires to move through the area and possibly increase in severity. Treating the entire fire area is not practical, but applying a strategic approach of defensibility will increase the chances of stopping a wildfire that threatens the remaining NSO habitat.

Salvage Harvest in Home Ranges All proposed salvage in NSO cores and home ranges will be in non-habitat for NSO as described in Table 13. There is no expected loss of habitat acres in known cores and home ranges. There will be a beneficial effect to re-establishment of habitat in the areas treated by reducing fuels. Table 13. Pre and Post Habitat Salvage Unit Acre by NSO Core and Home Range

Activity Center

Pre Salvage Treatment Acres Post Salvage Treatment Acres

Dispersal Forage Nesting /Roosting

Non Habitat Dispersal Forage Nesting/ Roosting

Non Habitat

KL1043 Core

0 0 0 Unit 285 (7 acres)

0 0 0 Same as Pre-treatment acres


KL1043 Home Range

0 0 0 Unit 284 (46 Acres), Unit 285 (16 acres), Unit 295 (1 acre), Unit 329 (47 acres), Unit 353 (3 acres)

0 0 0 Same as Pre-treatment acres

KL1053 Core

0 0 0 0 0 0 0 Same as Pre- treatment Acres

KL1053 Home Range

0 0 0 Unit 284 (1 acre)

0 0 0 Same as Pre- treatment Acres

KL4042 Core


KL4042 Home Range

0 0 0 Unit 307 (30 Acres), Unit 308 (18 acres), Unit 311 (26 acre), Unit 312 (2 acres), Unit 315 (1 acre), Unit 316 (1 acre), Unit 347 (17 acres), Unit 352 (6 acres)


KL 0233 Core


KL0233 Home Range


KL1052 Core


KL1052 Home Range

0 0 0 Unit 315 (1 acre), Unit 316 (1 acre)


Roadside Hazard Tree Reduction There may be some direct disturbance effect to nesting NSO in the areas of where hazard trees are to be removed. The amount of disturbance is expected to be short term and dispersed over 23 miles of road. Hazard tree removal will have no limited operating period, however, removal of trees in nesting roosting habitat will be prioritized for removal during the mid-summer of 2014. The project area will be surveyed to protocol throughout implementation. Potential disturbance effect to nesting NSO will be accounted for and reported to US Fish and Wildlife Service after implementation. This is to allow for immediate abatement of the hazard. Roadside hazard is proposed on 23 miles of road with an estimated 895 trees identified for removal due to safety concerns (average of 39 trees/mile). The roadside treatment will occur in 576 acres of


NRF habitat (Table 14). The size distribution of trees to be treated as hazard range from 14” to 62” DBH with the majority of the removal occurring on trees <32” DBH (Figure 1). Within LSR, hazard tree removal will occur in 12 acres of nesting roosting habitat and 241 acres of foraging habitat. There will be a reduction of snags within the roadside treatment areas however the number of trees to be removed will not limit snag habitat distribution on the surrounding landscape. Over the entire project there will be an estimate degradation of 576 or acres of NRF habitat (5% of habitat in analysis area) however this habitat will remain functional after treatments since there is no expected measurable reduction of canopy cover or forest structure. There is no expected downgrading or removal of suitable habitat with this roadside hazard treatment. Table 14. Acres of pre-treatment habitat in proposed roadside hazard areas and post treatments expected habitat outcomes.

Unit Acre Rx

Pre- Project

Nest Roost

Pre- Project

Foraging

Pre- Project

Disp

Non Habitat

Post- Project

Nest Roost

Post- Project

Foraging

Post- Project

Disp

Non Habitat

401 586 Hazard Tree Removal 6 256 116 207 6 256 116 207

402 389 Hazard Tree Removal 29 285 8 67 29 285 8 67

Figure 1.. Total Number of Roadside Hazard Trees Treated by Size

Roadside Hazard Reduction in Home Ranges Roadside hazard treatments will degrade 576 acres of NRF habitat but this habitat will remain suitable after treatment. No roadside hazard tree removal will take place in the core or home range of KL0233 or the cores of KL1052 and KL4042. There will be some hazard tree removal and habitat degradation in the cores and home ranges of KL1043 and KL1053. Degradation will also occur in the home ranges of KL1052 In all home ranges a cores and home ranges habitat will be


degraded but will retain suitable habitat character based the low number of trees to be removed (approximately an average of 39 trees/mile over 23 miles). There will be no expected downgraded, or removal of habitat. The proposed salvage will occur in NSO cores and home ranges as described in Table 15. These habitats are expected to remain suitable habitat after treatment.

Table 15. Pre and Post Habitat Acre in Roadside Hazard Areas by NSO Core and Home Range

Activity Center

Pre Salvage Treatment Acres Post Salvage Treatment Acres

Dispersal Forage Nesting /Roosting

Non Habitat

Dispersal Forage Nesting/ Roosting

Non Habitat

KL1043 Core

Unit 401 (1 acre),

Unit 401 (17 acres)

Unit 401 (4 acres)

Unit 401 (8 acres)

Same as Pre-treatment acres




KL1043 Home Range

Unit 401 (108 acres)

Unit 401 (214 acres)

Unit 401 (4 acres)

Unit 401 (17 acres)





KL1053 Core

Unit 401 (9 acres)

401 (1 acre)

0 0 Same as Pre-treatment acres



Same as Pre- treatment Acres

KL1053 Home Range

Unit 401 (22 acres)

401 (45 acres)

0 Unit 401 (6 acre)





KL4042 Core

402 (1 acre)

402 (32 acres)

0 402 (7 acres)





KL4042 Home Range

402 (16 acres)

402 (277 acres)

0 Unit 402 (62 acres)





KL 0233 Core

0 0 0 0 Same as Pre-treatment acres




KL0233 Home Range





KL1052 Core





KL1052 Home Range

0 Unit 402 (54 acres)

Unit 402 (8 acres)

Unit 402 (17 acres)






Effects to NSO Critical Habitat The proximity of potential nesting or roosting habitat to harvest units which may contain some useful features for an NSO foraging opportunity may disturb NSO during project implementation. See Appendix 1 for a map of the northern spotted owl activity centers, home ranges and affected habitat in the analysis area. It is also possible that some feature within the harvest units (e.g. snag) may be used by owls while foraging. While the extent to which owls will use these areas is not well understood, there is a possibility for use and therefore the possibility of impacts to NSO from the proposed project. However, it is unlikely that project activities on 330 acres, 7% of the total moderate to high severity burned area within the Salmon Fire, would cause detrimental impacts to an owl’s ability to breed, feed, or shelter due to the overall scale of the project and for the reasons discussed above.

Approximately 214 acres of salvage is proposed in critical habitat (Table ?) and approximately 977 acres of roadside hazard tree removal is proposed in critical habiat (Table 18). Proposed activities are not expected to negatively affect patterns of habitat distribution. Tree planting is designed to increase the likelihood of re-establishment of conifer forest suitable for NSO. Potential effects to suitable NSO habitats as defined in the Critical Habitat final rule (UDSI Fish and Wildlife Service 2012) will be limited to hazard tree abatement and fuels reduction treatments, and no effect to the pattern and distribution of habitat is expected to result from project activities.

PCE 1 - Proposed activities are expected to have no effect on forest type. As noted above, the proposed activities may act against the conversion of portions of this landscape to areas other than PCE 1 forest types. The proposed planting with the Salmon Reforestation Project includes replanting burned forest areas, replicating as closely as possible the mix of species found prior to the wildfire. Primary species selected for planting are Douglas-fir, ponderosa pine, sugar pine and incense cedar. These are the most common conifer tree species occurring in forests in this area, and this action will result in accelerated and certain reestablishment of forest ecosystems representative of this area. The planting prescriptions to be implemented with the Salmon Reforestation Project will be designed to re-establish suitable NSO habitat in an accelerated timeframe (Silviculture Report). PCE 2 - As stated in the analysis of effects to NSO, no salvage will occur in NSO nesting/roosting or foraging habitats, and treatments potentially affecting habitat suitability will be limited to hazard tree abatement. The density of hazard trees to be treated is low, and snags will remain abundant in adjacent non-treatment areas. As a result, these treatments are not expected to have any meaningful or measurable effect on functionality of these habitats for NSO. In the long term, prompt implementation is expected to substantially improve the likelihood of timely development of suitable northern spotted owl habitat within the Salmon Fire area through reestablishment of conifer forest habitat and the specific retention of high habitat value snags, large cull trees, deformed trees, and coarse woody material on the ground. PCE 3 - As stated in the analysis of effects to NSO, no salvage will occur in vegetation types designated by the 2012 final Critical Habitat rule as NSO foraging habitats, and treatments potentially affecting habitat suitability will be limited to hazard tree abatement. The density of hazard trees to be treated is low, and snags will remain abundant in adjacent non-treatment areas. As a result, these treatments are not expected to have any meaningfully detectable or measurable


effect on functionality of these habitats for NSO. In the long term, prompt implementation is expected to substantially improve the likelihood of timely development of suitable northern spotted owl foraging habitat within the Salmon Fire area through reestablishment of conifer forest habitat and the specific retention of high habitat value snags, large cull trees, deformed trees, and coarse woody material on the ground. PCE 4 - As stated in the analysis of indirect effects to NSO, no salvage will occur in NSO habitats, and treatments potentially affecting habitat suitability will be limited to hazard tree abatement. The density of hazard trees to be treated is low, and snags will remain abundant in adjacent non-treatment areas. Areas within treatment units have been specifically designated for retention in order to provide some level of visual obscurity and increase ability of spotted owls that could disperse through this area to avoid predators. As a result, these treatments are not expected to have any meaningful or measurable effect on functionality of these habitats for NSO. In the long-term, prompt implementation is expected to substantially salubrious effect to habitat restoration through the re-establishment of conifer forest habitat, and reduce the current levels of hazardous fuels buildup These acres will be planted to accelerate suitable habitat under the Salmon Reforestation Project.

Table 16 displays the acreage of habitat that occurs in roadside treatment areas within Critical Habitat. Within Critical Habitat hazard tree removal will occur in 6 acres of nesting roosting habitat and 468 acres of foraging habitat. The 474 acres of NRF that will be treated will remain suitable after treatment. The 143 acres of dispersal habitat will remain functional as dispersal after treatment. Treatments potentially occurring in habitat will be limited to hazard tree abatement. The density of hazard trees to be treated is low, and snags will remain abundant in adjacent non-treatment areas. As a result, these roadside hazard treatments are not expected to have any meaningful or measurable effect on functionality of these habitats for NSO. Table 16. Acres of NSO Habitat in Roadside Treatment Areas in Critical Habitat

Unit Acres of Habitat in Roadside Hazard Treatments in Critical

Habitat Total Dispersal Forage Nest/Roost Non-Habitat

401 115 245 6 106 471 402 29 223 0 41 293 Total 143 468 6 147 977 Roadside Hazard Treatments Effects to Late Successional Reserve Table 17 displays the acreage of habitat that occurs in roadside treatment areas within LSR. The 253 acres of NRF that will be treated will remain suitable after treatment. The 115 acres of dispersal habitat will remain functional as dispersal after treatment. Treatments potentially occurring in habitat will be limited to hazard tree abatement. The density of hazard trees to be treated is low, and snags will remain abundant in adjacent non-treatment areas. As a result, these roadside hazard treatments are not expected to have any meaningful or measurable effect on functionality of these habitats for NSO.


Table 17. Acres of NSO Habitat in Roadside Treatment Areas in LSR

Unit Acres of Habitat in Roadside Hazard Treatments in LSR

Total Dispersal Forage Nest/Roost Non-Habitat 401 115 228 4 106 453 402 0 13 8 9 30 Total 115 241 12 115 483

Effects on Prey Habitat The proposed treatments may reduce some habitat components for the short-term. This reduction will result in some loss of smaller diameter downed wood or ground cover as a result of fuels treatments. There may be some short term decrease in prey habitat quality; however these effects will be maintained as moderate habitat capability levels. The scope of this effect is not significant at a project scale since only a small portion of the landscape will be treated. On average, Forest Standards and Guides for snags and CWD will be met or exceeded post-treatment. Large snags and logs, suitable for prey will be retained at levels that meet moderate capability for NSO foraging habitat in areas where NSOs are expected to forage (Forest Plan).

Effects on Barred Owl / Spotted Owl Interactions Many studies have found negative correlations between NSOs and barred owls where they co-occur but the effect of forest management on barred and spotted owl interactions is not well documented. Limited habitat availability combined with negative influences of barred owls may compound effects to NSO (Dugger 2005, 2011, Kelly and Forsman 2004). The Salmon Salvage Project contains NSO habitat that is well distributed throughout the analysis area with most occurring on the lower 2/3 of slope. These habitats have experienced the recent fire of 2014 but the effects of the fire to barred owls are not known. Proposed treatments will not downgrade or remove suitable habitat. Therefore, it is unlikely that these actions will have a significant effect on influencing the likelihood or outcome of barred owl and northern spotted owl interactions. The salvage treatment will accelerate the restoration of suitable NSO habitat and reduce fuel loadings and risk of stand replacing fire. At this point, barred owls have not been observed in the Salmon Salvage Project landscape. Barred owls have been detected in 2013 as nighttime detections in the adjacent Jess Project surveys. No barred owls were detected during daytime follow-ups in the Jess Project. For 2014, to date, no barred owls have been detected in the Jess or Salmon Salvage areas. The long-term trend of barred owl and spotted owl interactions in this area are not known. The proposed treatments will accelerate the re-establishment of suitable habitat and reduce the fuels accumulations.

Disturbance Effects on NSO Direct effects on NSOs as a result of implementing the Salmon Salvage Project include potential noise disturbance associated with use of helicopters, heavy equipment and falling of trees during timber harvest, fuels treatments, landing construction/maintenance and hauling of logs; and potential smoke disturbance associated with burning.

NSOs are highly mobile, and noise and smoke have a low probability of affecting NSOs that are foraging or dispersing across the landscape because of their ability to move away from disturbances. Noise and smoke have a higher likelihood of affecting adult and juvenile NSOs early in the


breeding season when they are closely associated with the nest core; this is the period when juvenile owls are not yet able to fly and adults are closely defending the nest core.

The USFWS has determined that creating noise above ambient levels or smoke during the breeding season within 0.25 mile of active nest sites or unsurveyed suitable nesting habitat has the potential to disrupt essential breeding behaviors. The Salmon Salvage Project treatment area was surveyed three times in 2010 and six times in 2011. To minimize potential noise disturbance to NSO Project Design Features will be applied to all proposed actions that apply. LOPs as described will help to minimize the potential disturbance effects to nesting NSO that are determine to be active on the year of implementation of the specific activity planned.

Prescribed Fire The project proposes to broadcast burn, jackpot burn, or pile/burn to reduce the fuel load within the harvest units. The harvest units burned with moderate to high severity resulting in mostly snags with some large woody debris. These features provide important cover for prey species such as woodrats. Prescribed fire will avoid these features and will focus on small activity fuels generated from the harvest. The prescribed fire will likely be patchy and may burn some smaller existing fuels or herbaceous plants that may provide additional cover to prey species, but the effects are expected to be small and last for a short period of time while regrows.

Roads, Landings, and Trails The re-construction of roads on existing roadbeds are not expected to change the existing habitat. The existing roadbeds already create a small gap in the trees and the use of these roadbeds are not going to change the habitat function or quality. The construction of possibly 5 landing ranging size from 0.5-2.0 acres will create openings in the canopy cover, but the size and distribution of these landings are within the natural variation in the landscape. Exact locations of these new landings is not known but could remove in up to 10 acres of foraging habitat along existing roadsides.

Cumulative Effects Under the ESA, cumulative effects of this alternative include the direct and indirect effects mentioned above and the effects of non-federal projects being implemented in the area. The Glassups and the Jess Projects overlap the Salmon Salvage analysis area. The proposed Salmon and Butler Reforestation Projects also overlap into the analysis area. These are Forest Service projects are not applicable to ESA cumulative effects therefore, are not considered in this BA. There are no known projects occurring on private land now or into the known future. Therefore, we don’t expect any actions that would be cumulative to the effects of the Project.

Conclusion of Effects on NSO

• Due to the short-term and limited nature of these effects described above, combined with spatial and temporal project design standards, direct and indirect effects to NSO in this landscape are not expected to be significant. The proposed project will not downgrade or remove northern spotted owl habitat.

• Salvage treatments will retain important skip areas for snag retention of the largest snags in each stands. These will be left as riparian buffers and individual snags at levels to meet or exceed Forest-wide Standards and Guidelines for snags habitat.

• Buffering along riparian areas and leave groups within harvest units offer pockets of habitat that may provide cover and benefit foraging owls.


• Surveys are being conducted throughout all suitable habitat within 1.3 miles of harvest units to determine occupancy and/or nesting status of any NSOs that may be present in the analysis area. Nesting owls would not be disturbed during project implementation. Protocol surveys will be completed prior to project implementation and will be conducted for each season of operation for the duration of the project.

• The proposed roadside hazard treatments may result in disturbance of nesting NSO since no LOP will be applied, however, protocol surveys will be conducted throughout the implementation of the project which will all for annual assessment and reporting of any take that may have occurred after implementation. The amount of disturbance is expected to be short term and dispersed over 23 miles of road. Hazard tree removal will have no limited operating period applied however removal of trees in nesting roosting habitat will be prioritized for removal during the mid-summer of 2014. The project area will be surveyed to protocol throughout implementation. This is to allow for immediate abatement of the hazard.

• The proposed roadside treatment will occur in 35 acres of nesting/roosting, 541 acres of foraging, and 124 acres of dispersal habitat. The low number of trees to be removed (an average of 39 trees per mile over 23 miles) will not result in any downgrading or removal of these habitats.

• Application of Project Design Specifications are expected to minimize effects to NSO habitat and the likelihood that NSOs will be harassed, killed or injured during project implementation.

• Proposed treatments will not remove or downgrade NSO habitat within the deficit cores or 1.3-mile home ranges.

• Treatments are likely to have long-term beneficial effects on prey species from treatment activities.

DETERMINATION OF EFFECTS

The following conclusions led to my final determination of the effects that the proposed Salmon Salvage Project would have on federally listed species: 1) Marbled Murrelet: The proposed project area is outside the range of this species and therefore will not affect the marbled murrelet or marbled murrelet designated Critical Habitat. 2) Northern spotted owl: It is my determination that the Salmon Salvage Project may affect, but is not likely to adversely affect northern spotted owls because 1) impacts from this project will be temporary, 2) no suitable nesting/roosting or foraging habitat would be removed, downgraded, 3) year of action protocol surveys will be conducted prior to implementation, and 4) seasonal restrictions within protection buffers would be in place. It is my determination that the proposed Salmon Salvage Project will not adversely affect critical habitat for the northern spotted owl because the proposed action is not expected to change the function of the PCEs of critical habitat.


LITERATURE CITED

Bond, M.L., R.J. Gutierrez, A.B. Franklin, W.S. LaHaye, C.A. May, and M.E. Seamans. 2002.

Short-term effects of wildfires on spotted owl survival, site fidelity, mate fidelity, and reproductive success. Wildlife Society Bulletin (30) 1022-1026.

Clark D.A. 2007. Demography and Habitat Selection of Northern Spotted Owls in Post-Fire Landscapes of Southwestern Oregon. M.S. Thesis. Oregon State University. 218pp.

Elliott B. 1985. Changes in distribution of owl species subsequent to habitat alteration by fire. Western Birds 16:25-28.

Franklin, A.B., D.R. Anderson, R.J. Gutierrez and K.P. Burnham. 2000. Climate change, habitat quality, and fitness in northern spotted owl populations in northwestern California. Ecological Monographs 70:539-590.

Gaines, W.L. R.A. Strand and S.D. Piper. 1997. Effects of the Hatchery Complex fires on northern spotted owls in the Eastern Washington Cascades. In J.N. Greenlee ed. Proceedings of the Fire Effects on Rare and Endangered species and habitats conference, International Association of Wildlife and Forestry, Coeur d’Alene, Idaho.

Hood, S., S. Smith and D. Cluck. 2007. Delayed conifer tree mortality following fire in California. In: Powers, Robert F., tech. editor. 2007. Restoring fire-adapted ecosystems: proceedings of the 2005 national silviculture workshop. Gen. Tech. Rep. PSW-GTR-203. Albany, CA. Pacific Southwest Research Station, Forest Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture. p. 261-283.

Jenness, J.S. 2000. The effects of fire on Mexican spotted owls in Arizona and New Mexico. MS Thesis, Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, Arizona

McIver, J.; and L. Starr. 2000. Environmental Effects of Postfire Logging: Literature Review and Annotated Bibliography. Gen. Tech. Rep. PNW-GTR-486. USDA-Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Research Station. 72p.

Parsons, A., Orelemann, A., Davis, M., McCammon, B., Howes, S., Robichaud, P. Sirucek, D., Shovic, H. 2003. Burned area emergency rehabilitation soil burn severity definitions and mapping guidelines. USDA Forest Service.

Safford, H. D. , J. Miller, D. Schmidt, B. Roath, A. Parsons. 2007. BAER Soil Burn Severity Maps Do Not Measure Fire Effects to Vegetation: A Comment on Odion and Hanson (2006). Ecosystems (2007) DOI: 10.1007/s10021-007-9094-z.


Sexton J. Ecological Effects of Salvage Logging and Grass Seeding Following the Lone Pine Fire, Winema National Forest. Fire and Wildlife in the Pacific Northwest-- Research, Policy, and Management: Post-Fire Rehabilitation and Recovery; Spokane, WA. 61-64.

Smith, S.L. and D.R. Cluck. 2007. Fire salvage marking guidelines. USDA Forest Service. Forest Health Protection, Region 5, Susanville, CA. Report # RO-07-01. 14 pp.

Taylor AH, Skinner CN. 2003. Fire History and Landscape Dynamics in a Late-Successional Reserve, Klamath Mountains, California, USA. Forest Ecology and Management. 1998;111:285-301. Western Birds 16:25-8.

Thomas J.W, Forsman E.D, Lint J.B, Meslow E.C., Noon B.R, Verner J. 1990. A Conservation Strategy for the Northern Spotted Owl. Portland (OR): Interagency Scientific Committee to address the conservation of the northern spotted owl. USDA Forest Service and USDI Bureau of Land Management, National Park Service, and Fish and Wildlife Service.

USDA-FS 2009. Klamath National Forest Wildlife Species Reference Document.

USDA Forest Service. 1995. Klamath National Forest Land and Resource Management Plan. Klamath National Forest, Yreka, California.

USDI Fish and Wildlife Service. 1986. Pacific Bald Eagle Recovery Plan. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Portland, Or. 163 pp.

USDI Fish and Wildlife Service. 2007. National Bald Eagle Management Guidelines. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

USDI Fish and Wildlife Service. 2008. Final Recovery Plan for the Northern Spotted Owl, Strix occidentalis caurina. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Portland, Oregon. xii + 142 pp.

USDI Fish and Wildlife Service. 2009. Technical assistance meeting at Yreka Field Office attended by regulatory biologists J. Johnson, L. Finley, and B. Woodbridge on July 15, 2009.

Zeiner, David C . ; Laudenslayer Jr., W.F.; Mayer, K.E.. 1988 . California's Wildlife, Vol. I. Amphibians and Reptiles. California Department of Fish and Game. Sacramento, CA

Zeiner, David C., Laudenslayer Jr., W.F.; Mayer, K .E. White, M . 1990. California's Wildlife, Vol. III. Mammals . California Department of Fish and Game. Sacramento, CA.


Appendix A

Snag Leave Areas in LSRs

Acres

Salvage Only LSR 64.6

Skips in LSR 22.5 Percent Skipped 34.83%

Unit

LSR Acres

Salvage Only

Skip Acres >24 24-36 36< Total Snags/Acre

284

13.8 5.2 40 33 57 130 9.4 285

11.8 4.3 89 13 14 116 9.8

329

28.4 8.4 156 63 27 246 8.7 353

10.6 4.6 * * * 84.8 8.0

64.6 22.5 285 109 98 576.8 8.9

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