Rainwater Basin Joint Venture Waterfowl Plan A regional contribution to the North American Waterfowl Management Plan and the Rainwater Basin Joint Venture Implementation Plan By the Rainwater Basin Joint Venture Contents Executive Summary ..................................................................................................................................... i Introduction ................................................................................................................................................ 1 The RWBJV Administrative Area .............................................................................................................. 2 Geographic Focus Areas in the RWBJV Administrative Area ............................................................... 2 Central Loess Hills ............................................................................................................................. 4 Central and North Platte River ........................................................................................................... 5 Missouri River .................................................................................................................................... 7 Northeast Prairies/Elkhorn River ........................................................................................................ 8 Rainwater Basin ................................................................................................................................. 9 Republican River/Blue River Drainages and Loess Canyons ........................................................... 10 Sandhills ........................................................................................................................................... 11 Verdigris-Bazile Creek Drainages .................................................................................................... 12 Continental Priority Waterfowl Species .................................................................................................... 12 Priority Waterfowl Species for the RWBJV Administrative Area ............................................................ 13 Population Objectives ........................................................................................................................... 15 Non-breeding Waterfowl Population Objectives .............................................................................. 15 Breeding Waterfowl Population Objectives ..................................................................................... 15 Wetland Habitat .................................................................................................................................... 16 Non-breeding Waterfowl Habitat ..................................................................................................... 16 Breeding Waterfowl Habitat ............................................................................................................. 18 Conservation Design ................................................................................................................................. 18 Non-breeding Waterfowl ...................................................................................................................... 18 Central Platte River Conservation Targets and Strategies ................................................................ 20 RWB Conservation Targets and Strategies....................................................................................... 20 Breeding Waterfowl ............................................................................................................................. 22 Sandhills Conservation Targets and Strategies ................................................................................. 24 Conservation Delivery .............................................................................................................................. 24 Research and Monitoring .......................................................................................................................... 25 Non-breeding Populations .................................................................................................................... 25 Breeding Populations............................................................................................................................ 26 Summary................................................................................................................................................... 26 Appendix A............................................................................................................................................... 28 Energetic Requirements of Migratory Waterfowl Using the Rainwater Basin Region ......................... 28 Population Objectives for the Rainwater Basin during Spring Migration ............................................. 29 Residency Time .................................................................................................................................... 33 Daily Energetic Requirements by Species ............................................................................................ 34 Total Estimated Energetic Requirements from Wetland Habitats..................................................... 36 Appendix B ............................................................................................................................................... 42 Developing Conservation Strategies for Wetlands within the Rainwater Basin.................................... 42 Public Wetlands ............................................................................................................................... 44 Private Long-term Conservation Lands ............................................................................................ 47 Private Short-term Conservation Lands ............................................................................................ 49 Privately owned, Non-program Wetlands......................................................................................... 51 Appendix C ............................................................................................................................................... 55 Restoring Hydrologic Functions by Filling Water Concentration Pits .................................................. 55 Methodology Used ........................................................................................................................... 55 Appendix D............................................................................................................................................... 58 Protecting Wetland Function with Vegetative Buffer Zones ................................................................ 58 Calculating Upland Buffer Acreages ................................................................................................ 58 Appendix E ............................................................................................................................................... 61 Common and Scientific Nomenclature for Species Described in the RWBJV Waterfowl Plan ............ 61 Literature Cited ......................................................................................................................................... 63 List of Figures Figure 1. Geographic Focus Areas in the Rainwater Basin Joint Venture Administrative Area.................. 3 Figure 2. Wetland diversity in the Nebraska Sandhills, based on a moving window analysis at 3km (1.86 mi) radius. ........................................................................................................................................ 23 Figure 3. Density of semi-permanent emergent wetlands and Sandhills lakes for a habitat selection model identifying possible Trumpeter Swan nesting areas. ...................................................................... 24 Appendix A Figure A-1 Traditional Survey Area (TSA) surveyed annually to estimate waterfowl breeding populations (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service 2012). .................................................................................. 29 Figure A-2. Approximate range of North America goose populations migrating through the Rainwater Basin region of Nebraska (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service 2012). ........................................... 31 List of Tables Table 1. Wetland and grassland acres and their distribution by Geographic Focus Area (Bishop et al. 2009). .......................................................................................................................................................... 4 Table 2. Priority species identified by the North American Waterfowl Management Plan that are found in the Rainwater Basin Joint Venture Administrative Area, and their conservation priority within Waterfowl Conservation Region 19 (NAWMP 2004). .................................................................. 14 Table 3. Current and projected targets for wetland acres and kilocalories provided by natural plant communities for spring-migrating waterfowl in the Rainwater Basin region of Nebraska. ....................... 22 Table 4. Current and projected targets for wetland ponding frequency and occurrence of early- succession plant communities in the Rainwater Basin region of Nebraska. .............................................. 22 Appendix A Table A-1. Continental population