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Buckskin Mountain Landscape Assessment
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| | | | The Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument completed a Landscape Assessment of the Buckskin Mountain portion of the Monument to evaluate current conditions of vegetation communities and wildlife habitat; develop desired future conditions; and to make recommendations for possible future management actions within the area.
The purpose of a Landscape Assessment is to (1) describe the existing condition of the area; (2) describe the desired condition of the area, based on the Management Plan and specialists' input; (3) describe the need for change (difference between the existing condition and desired condition), and possible management practices to reach that change. Possible management practices will then be selected to move forward in the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) process to implement on the ground. A Landscape Assessment is NOT a decision document. The Landscape Assessment contains only background information for possible decision documents to reference.
 A team of specialists from the Monument was formed in January 2003 to conduct the landscape assessment of the Buckskin Mountain area. Input on the assessment has been solicited from various other natural resource entities, including Utah Division of Wildlife Resources, Northern Arizona University, Colorado State University, North Kaibab Ranger District of the Kaibab National Forest, Arizona Strip BLM, and Cedar City BLM Field Office. The Buckskin Mountain team was charged with the task of compiling existing information on the conditions, as well as collecting vegetation, soils and wildlife information.
General observations from field data collection trips would describe the area as highly disturbed (more photos of the Buckskin Vegetation Plots). The characteristics of the vegetation have been influenced by woodcutting, off-road travel, ungulate grazing (cattle, mule deer, and elk), drought, wildfire and fire suppression.
Issues that have been identified by the team include: | - limited young shrub (browse) plants;
- wildlife browse availability;
- winter forage (grasses and forbs) availability;
- decadence and mortality of sagebrush stands;
- mule deer migration travel corridors;
- maintain mule deer hiding and thermal cover;
- vehicle-mule deer collision areas on Highway 89;
- water availability;
- availability of seed sources for migratory bird and rodent populations;
- range of native vegetation may be altered;
- presence of non-native and invasive vegetation;
- off road vehicle travel;
- soil erosion, compaction, and amount of bare ground;
- recognizable fuelwood area boundaries;
- availability of fuelwood for local communities.
|  The complete assessment is composed of the main document,
eight appendices and eight maps. | |
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