After two years of project planning by BHA Board Member and BLM Wildlife Biologist, Jason Kaitchuck, a group of 21 volunteers gathered sharing donuts and coffee on the side of the road while being briefed on what the day had in store for them. The project area, just outside of Helper, UT is an important habitat for the state’s population of Greater Sage-Grouse, Mule Deer, and Rocky Mountain Elk. Over the past couple years, erosion in these wet meadows has slowly degraded the habitat and without intervention, the damage becomes exponentially more rapid with each passing year. The flip side of this project is that the area is difficult to access with vehicles and delicate enough to warrant avoiding the use of construction equipment to back fill the erosion areas. The best option on the table to solve this issue was to leverage Backcountry Hunters and Anglers’ volunteering members and Utah’s Department of Wildlife Resources Dedicated Hunter program volunteers. Some good old fashioned manual labor was the best solution for moving a couple thousand pounds of stone into the erosion areas. And, with the group fueled up for a big day of habitat improvements, we got started.
In the same way that wildlife like the wet meadow environment, so do the cattle and sheep grazing on BLM lands. Overuse commonly caused by livestock in these wet meadow areas can lead to a significant erosion called a “head cut”. As head cuts begin to develop, they can lead to a chain reaction; starting small, getting bigger and bigger and eventually destroying the wet meadow and the wildlife that depend on it. These environments depend on a healthy sheet flow of water to maintain their health, and these erosion disturbances completely change the biodiversity and topography of the landscape. Wet meadows occur across the state and create quality habitat and water for sensitive species in a dry, arid state.
Because of the geography of the worksite, having a large group of volunteers was key to this project's success! With thousands of pounds of stone to be broken, moved, and placed into the head cuts to be repaired, this was a big lift. Along the valley bottom, where the wet meadow is located, it was necessary to move all this stone by hand. There were even some smaller rocks and fill that needed to be moved, which presented the perfect opportunity to get some youth volunteers involved. In total, there were two medium head cuts to repair, and one that was quite the monster! The group of volunteers put in an incredible effort to get all this done by noon, and we even had the extra resources to repair a guzzler on the ridge above our wet meadow site.
The guzzler we repaired was damaged from weather exposure and needed some renovations after years of hard use. The guzzler itself was cleaned out, and the collection apron was removed and replaced. It was a pleasant surprise to have the resources that we needed for the head cut Zeedyk structures plus some extras that could bite off another volunteer project while we were in the area. Wildlife biologists across the state dedicate a huge amount of time and effort to habitat improvement and support projects like this, and with the help of volunteering events like this one, the list of necessary work to be done can be chipped away a little bit faster.
The site of repair will continue to be monitored by BLM biologists into the future to ensure that the repairs are having a positive impact in their respective headcuts. This project was a great opportunity for the employees of the BLM to engage the general hunting public on public land management projects.
The Backcountry Hunters and Anglers Utah Chapter has led multiple volunteering projects over the last year in the state, with the last big effort being our Miles for Muleys event held on the Paunsaugunt Unit in South Central Utah. This event was a big success and helped provide critical fencing data to improve Mule Deer migrations. There is a lot of need for fence surveying and many volunteer efforts throughout the state by multiple organizations. However, it is important to put volunteering efforts towards other habitat improvement projects as well. With organizations like the Bureau of Land Management and United States Forest Service having a long list of projects, organizations like Backcountry Hunters and Anglers can provide additional resources in the form of project organizations and volunteers to help protect and improve the public lands we love.
Thank you so much to all the great volunteers that came out during the weekend to restore important habitat for the wildlife in our state! Keep en eye on our Events Page to RSVP for future projects and events.