A VISION FOR WILD GRASSLANDS A SUSTAINABLE USE CONSERVATION ALTERNATIVE FOR THE CIMARRON AND COMANCHE NATIONAL GRASSLANDS REVISED LAND MANAGEMENT PLAN INTRODUCTION On December 28, 2005 the U.S. Forest Service released its Draft Cimarron and Comanche National Grasslands Land Management Plan (70 FR 77373-77374). The Forest Service has been working on the revised plan for several years. Every 10 to 15 years each Forest Service management division must undergo a management plan revision, and the existing plan is over 20 years old. The Comanche and Cimarron National Grasslands revision process and subsequent Revised Plan will affect the general character and specific components of these public lands including native species and habitat viability, livestock grazing, oil and gas development, and recreation. The revision process presents an opportunity to highlight the diverse wildlife and unique natural and cultural features of the Southern Great Plains prairie region and to promote a shift to biodiversity protection and a nature-based economy. This is also an opportunity for the public to influence management direction on its lands. The purpose of this Sustainable Use Conservation Alternative is to provide a set of land and resource management planning options for the Comanche and Cimarron National Grasslands that promote restoration and protection of native wildlife and natural communities while allowing sustainable human uses of these federal lands. The Comanche and Cimarron National Grasslands Context The Comanche and Cimarron National Grasslands are hidden jewels within the vast network of public land managed by the federal government. Though containing just over half a million acres these lands host over 1,000 vertebrate and plant species, rare plant communities, picturesque rocky canyons and expansive mesas, numerous sites displaying ancient Native American rock art, long stretches of the Santa Fe National Historic Trail, and the largest assemblage of preserved dinosaur tracks in North America. The Comanche and Cimarron are also home to the largest complex of black-tailed prairie dogs on public land in the Southern Plains. Prairie dogs are keystone species (Kotliar et al. 1999; Kotliar 2000; Miller et al. 2000). They serve as prey for a variety of prairie wildlife and some use their burrows for breeding sites and shelter. The endangered black-footed ferret, now extirpated from the Cimarron and Comanche, rely on prairie dogs for over 90 percent of their diet. Several Forest CONSERVATION ALTERNATIVE FOR THE March 2006 Guardians CIMARRON & COMANCHE NATIONAL GRASSLANDS Page ~2 A VISION FOR WILD GRASSLANDS birds, including the imperiled mountain plover, nest and feed in prairie dog towns because of the increased insect biomass and vegetative diversity on colonies verses un-colonized grassland. Black-tailed prairie dog populations have declined by close to 99 percent, and this decline is linked to the imperilment of other species. Prairie dog recovery and protection—especially on our public Grasslands—is essential to the survival of dependent species. Commercial livestock grazing by locally based ranchers has traditionally been the primary use of the Cimarron and Comanche Grasslands. Located off the beaten path in the rural Southern Great Plains—far from urban centers and major highways or the mountains and forests most people associate with public lands—these national grasslands have historically received relatively few recreational visitors and little attention from the general public. However, this is changing. As Colorado’s human population grows, especially along the Front Range and in the mountains, residents seek new places to find open space, natural beauty, solitude, and opportunities to experience wildlife, wild plants, and nature. Colorado’s mountains are getting crowded. More urbanites now head east to the plains to recreate and to see more of the wildlife, including prairie dogs, foxes, coyotes, pronghorn, eagles, and hawks, disappearing from their own backyards to make way for more people and businesses. Kansans are taking greater advantage of opportunities provided by their largest public land area as well. Nation- wide activities such as bird- and other wildlife watching, hiking, and camping are on the rise. Additionally, there is a growing realization that it is not just our forests, waterways, and coastlines that are suffering biological destruction and species loss; North America’s grasslands are among the most imperiled natural areas in the world. This is not surprising. It should be clear to anyone who flies over the Great Plains and looks down to see the impressive grid of crop fields and cow pastures interspersed with center pivot irrigation circles. We have devoted grasslands almost exclusively to agriculture. Humans had altered the prairie grassland ecosystems for thousands of years. But the large-scale human settlement of the Great Plains over the past 150 years brought wholesale transformation, taming much of the wildness out of the region with the plow, a dense network of roads and barbed wire fences; high-tech irrigation schemes, the purposeful and accidental introduction of non-native forage and invasive plants, and the deliberate—often government-sponsored—extermination of native animals believed to lower agricultural production. The shortgrass prairie regions emerged in better shape than the more eastern tallgrass prairies, where 99.9 percent of the native vegetation is now gone. Yet, only 23 percent of the native shortgrass prairie vegetation remains (USDA Forest Service 1996). To become the “World’s Breadbasket,” the United States sacrificed most Great Plains wildlife and habitat once so vast and diverse that it rivaled Africa’s savannas. Top predators, wolves and grizzly bears were shot and poisoned out of the prairie. Systematic execution nearly exterminated the American bison population from tens of millions to a few hundred individuals at the end of the “Great Slaughter” in the early 1880s (Lott 2002). As the bison perished, the seemingly endless herds of elk and pronghorn lost the majority of their feeding grounds and ability to roam freely across the plains when fences, roads, and plowed fields circumscribed migration routes. Key stopover points for millions of migrating birds that historically made the prairie their temporary home disappeared. Still persecuted as agricultural pests, the beaver and prairie dog—both keystone species—were nearly wiped out. Black-tailed prairie dog populations are currently at only one to two percent of their historic size, and beavers are missing from most of the riparian systems where they belong. Prairie ecosystems continue to be degraded by direct habitat destruction, suppression of natural processes such as wildfire, fragmentation by roads and urban sprawl, and adverse impacts from the spread of invasive species. Forest CONSERVATION ALTERNATIVE FOR THE March 2006 Guardians CIMARRON & COMANCHE NATIONAL GRASSLANDS Page ~3 A VISION FOR WILD GRASSLANDS Every nation must feed its citizens. We all deserve high quality affordable food that benefits the country’s producers as well as consumers. Yet a country as advanced as the United States can find creative ways to make room for and protect some of the creatures who lost out in our quest to become an agricultural superpower—so successful that one of our biggest social and health problems has become an excess of food. The National Grasslands should therefore increasingly be focal areas for restoring biodiversity. We can start revitalizing the wild prairie by focusing on our National Grasslands. Very few protected areas exist in the Great Plains for native wildlife. Because most of the land in the Southern Plains is privately owned and devoted to commercial farming and ranching, the National Grasslands offer some of the best hope for restoring and conserving significant pieces of native prairie. However, shifting old management procedures and practices will be a significant social challenge as well as a biological challenge. Those who have benefited from the long-standing policy of prioritizing commercial activities over the natural heritage of public lands have strongly opposed conservation efforts by the Forest Service and continue to resist new proposals that might limit commercial use in any way. To prevent the total loss of the Southern Prairie natural heritage, Grasslands management must evolve. The U.S. Forest Service manages 20 National Grasslands primarily concentrated in the Great Plains. The Comanche and Cimarron comprise part of a cluster of National Grasslands in the Southern Plains that also include the Kiowa in northeastern New Mexico and the Rita Blanca, which sits on the Texas and Oklahoma panhandles right at the New Mexico border. The Forest Service Southwest Region Three manages the Kiowa and Rita Blanca along with Black Kettle, which is on the eastern edge of the Texas panhandle in Oklahoma and outside the shortgrass prairie range. The Rocky Mountain Region of U.S. Forest Service manages the Comanche and Cimarron Grasslands within the Pike and San Isabel and Comanche and Cimarron (PSICC) National Forest System. The Comanche’s 435,028 acres is divided into two management units in southeastern Colorado, the Timpas Unit in Otero County south of the town of La Junta and the Carrizo Unit in Baca and eastern Las Animas Counties. The Cimarron occupies part of southwestern Kansas along the Cimarron River in Morton and Stevens Counties, and at 108,175 acres, is the largest public land holding in