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Prescribed Burns to Enhance Ungulate Habitat in the Ospika Area

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Prescribed Burns to Enhance Ungulate Habitat in the Ospika Area ANNUAL REPORT Prescribed Burns to Enhance Ungulate Habitat in the Ospika Area HCTF Project CAT-7-7-417 A.D. WOODS1 AND R.S. MCNAY1 AUGUST 21, 2017 1Wildlife Infometrics Inc., PO Box 308, Mackenzie, BC, V0J 2C0, [email protected] Prepared for the Habitat Conservation Trust Foundation, Project CAT-7-7-417. CITATION: Woods, A.D. and R.S. McNay. 2017. Prescribed burns to enhance ungulate habitat in the Ospika Area. Wildlife Infometrics Inc. Report No. 578b. Wildlife Infometrics Inc., Mackenzie, British Columbia, Canada. WII_Report578b_Prescribed_burns_to_enhance_habitat_2016 -17_HCTF_170823.docx WOODS AND MCNAY WILDLIFE INFOMETRICS INC. AKNOWLEDGEMENT We wish to acknowledge several individuals for their contributions to this project: Jordy McAuley for his insight into possible prescribed burn locations and for his many in-kind contributions; Luke Gleeson for his insight into the project and continued support; John DeGagne for his contributions and expert opinions; Sam Davis, Mike Pritchard, and Wayne Desmond for their participation and expert advice during the preliminary reconnaissance flights; and Larry McCulloch for providing excellent guidance that helped us formulate field level sampling techniques. This project boasts a unique operating partnership between outfitters (Finlay River Outfitters), First Nations (Tsay Keh Dene) and the provincial government (Society for Ecosystem Restoration of BC). The generous funding and sponsorship for this project has been provided by the Habitat Conservation Trust Foundation and the Fish and Wildlife Compensation Program, Peace Region. Financial support provided by the Fish and Wildlife Compensation Program was on behalf of its program partners BC Hydro, the Province of BC, Fisheries and Oceans Canada, First Nations, and Public Stakeholders who work together to conserve and enhance fish and wildlife impacted by existing BC Hydro Dams. We especially want to recognize the excellent work of Randy Sulyma and the contributions from his papers in this report - his work continues to benefit wildlife management. The Fish & Wildlife Compensation Program and Habitat Conservation Trust Foundation provided funding for the fourth year of the project. In-kind support was provided by Tsay Keh Dene, Finlay River Outfitters, and the BC Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations. Prescribed burns to enhance habitat for ungulates i WOODS AND MCNAY WILDLIFE INFOMETRICS INC. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Over the past 50 years, fire suppression and local climate change, due to the Peace River’s W.A.C. Bennett Dam, has reduced the total extent and spatial distribution of early seral forests which ungulates rely on. Many areas that were historically maintained by fire, in a vegetative successional stage of grasses and shrubs, are now advancing to more mature structural stages. The goals of this project are to enhance ungulate habitat using prescribed fire, decrease overlap in habitat use by large ungulates (primarily moose (Alces alces) and elk (Cervus elaphus)) and threatened woodland caribou (Rangifer tarandus caribou), and effectively monitor the results of this management action. This report provides a summary of the work and results of the project, in this (4th) year of project activities (2016-17). Due to circumstances out of our control (poor weather, site conditions and the unavailability of BC Wildfire Service staff) in the spring and fall of 2016, the proposed burns were not ignited in 2016; however we were still able to achieve the other project objectives. The implementation plan developed in 2014 has been expanded to include new proposed burn sites, increasing the scope and scale of the project. We conducted pre-burn monitoring to increase the data set for future post-burn data collection, and we developed extension materials and increased involvement and knowledge transfer with members of Tsay Keh Dene. In 2016, using our past successes and failures in designing effectiveness monitoring sampling design, we focussed this year’s monitoring activities on standardizing and aligning our sampling methods with other prescribed burn and ecosystem restoration programs in BC. We implemented our new sampling design by conducting intensive pre-burn sampling of proposed burn blocks, and expanded the scope of the project to include habitat enhancement for not only moose and elk, but also to improve grizzly bear, mountain goat and Stone’s sheep habitat, which was not previously considered. We measured twenty-five sample sites, on fifteen proposed burn sites, in 3 biogeoclimatic zones. One hundred vegetation plots and twenty-five 200 m x 4 m wildlife transects were established and sampled in 2016. Using the results of our pre-burn data collection, we developed a model to predict the potential forage improvement for each of the proposed burn sites for each targeted wildlife species. Prescribed burns to enhance habitat for ungulates ii WOODS AND MCNAY WILDLIFE INFOMETRICS INC. TABLE OF CONTENTS AKNOWLEDGEMENT ..................................................................................................... i Executive Summary ........................................................................................................ ii LIST OF Figures .............................................................................................................. v LIST OF TABLES .......................................................................................................... viii LIST OF PHOTOS .......................................................................................................... 1 INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................. 3 Rationale for the Project .............................................................................................. 3 General Goals and Objectives ..................................................................................... 4 Objective 1 ............................................................................................................... 5 Objective 2 ............................................................................................................... 5 Objective 3 ............................................................................................................... 5 Objective 4 ............................................................................................................... 5 Specific Objectives for Year 4 (2016-17) ...................................................................... 6 Objective 2 – Implementation: .................................................................................. 6 Objective 3 – Effectiveness Monitoring: .................................................................... 6 Objective 4 – Reporting and Extension: ................................................................... 6 STUDY AREA ................................................................................................................. 6 General Location and Biophysical Characteristics ....................................................... 6 Natural Fires ................................................................................................................ 7 Forest Logging ............................................................................................................. 8 Use of Prescribed Burning ......................................................................................... 12 METHODS .................................................................................................................... 12 Implementation .......................................................................................................... 12 Effectiveness Monitoring ............................................................................................ 13 Indicators ............................................................................................................... 13 Biophysical Characteristics .................................................................................... 14 Vegetation Characteristics ..................................................................................... 14 Browse Characteristics .......................................................................................... 16 Wildlife Use ............................................................................................................ 16 Data Analysis ......................................................................................................... 16 Habitat Improvement Modelling and Mapping ........................................................ 18 Reporting and Extension ............................................................................................ 20 RESULTS FOR YEAR 4 (2016-17) ............................................................................... 20 Implementation .......................................................................................................... 20 Effectiveness Monitoring – Vegetation ....................................................................... 21 Prescribed burns to enhance habitat for ungulates iii WOODS AND MCNAY WILDLIFE INFOMETRICS INC. Cover and Composition .......................................................................................... 23 Species Count ........................................................................................................ 26 Coarse Woody Debris ...........................................................................................
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