Monitoring Report For Wisconsin (1987 - 1999)
"An Assessment of Landowner Participation and Habitat Accomplishments"
Art Kitchen, Wildlife Biologist
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Wisconsin Private Lands Office
4511 Helgesen Drive
Madison, WI 53718
608/221-1206
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY |
This report summarizes the results of a monitoring and program assessment project that used both landowner surveys and field visits to gauge habitat quality and landowner acceptance of the Partners for Fish and Wildlife (PFW) program administered by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service).
This year-long effort began in 2000 with a random selection of past program participants from throughout the state that were sent a landowner survey. A total of 249 surveys were returned from 311 received by landowners, or a rate return of 80 percent. Following this, site visits were scheduled from May to November for those landowners indicating an interest in participating in the study.
A total of 197 properties were visited and monitoring data sheets were completed for 216 individual projects--26 prairie plantings (267 acres) and 335 wetland restorations (927 acres). Monitored wetland and prairie projects represented approximately 8.3 percent and 5.5 percent, respectively, of all projects in the database (1987-1999). Projects ranged in size from 0.5-41 acres, with the majority of projects from 1-10 acres in size.
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INTRODUCTION |
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) developed a nation-wide private lands habitat restoration program in 1987 called the Partner’s for Fish and Wildlife program. Since it’s inception in Wisconsin, the USFWS, in cooperation with many partners, has completed over 5,000 individual habitat restoration projects on over 21,000 acres of private, municipal or county lands.
This report summarizes the results of a year-long monitoring effort initiated to determine the relative success of the Partner’s for Fish and Wildlife program (Partner’s) in Wisconsin. This study was designed to focus on two levels of program delivery. The first level addresses landowner attitudes, experiences and acceptance of the program; the second level looks at the quality and appropriateness of habitat restoration projects completed through this program. Additionally, the study reviewed consistency in program delivery and documentation by randomly sampling a set of completed projects in each of the field offices participating in this program in Wisconsin. |
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METHODS |
During the winter months of 2000 a grab sample of Partner’s projects from each USFWS field station was selected from records obtained from the International Tracking System database (ITS). Projects completed in FY 2000 were not selected for the study. Projects completed prior to 1994 (the start of the ITS record-keeping system) were selected by manually reviewing each station’s files and pulling a random sample. The criteria used to select the project sites were:
1) There must be a signed landowner agreement with the USFWS.
Once selected, a questionnaire was sent to each landowner informing them of the study and asking them to participate (Appendix A). Interested landowners were then asked to comment on their satisfaction with the project, future plans to maintain the project, and whether they had additional restoration opportunities on properties they own. Additionally, participants were asked to provide written permission to visit the property and also to indicate if they wanted to be present during the site visit phase of the study.
The habitat evaluation portion of the study involved visits to project sites throughout the summer and fall of 2001. Only those landowners that expressed an interest in participating in the study were contacted for a site visit. A monitoring form was developed to record and track the various site criteria being examined (Appendix D). Information collected included: project type and acreage, plant species assemblages and relative dominance, practices applied, adjacent land cover, repair and maintenance needs, observed wildlife species, and in the case of wetland projects, the proportion of water at various depths. Several projects had multiple restoration sites and, where conditions were similar, a composite evaluation was made for all. Finally, a photograph was taken of each project site and the azimuth recorded. Additional landowner comments were also recorded as part of the field evaluation. Location information was gathered using a GPS hand-held receiver that allows each site to be viewed spatially through a GIS ArcView format. |
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Landowner Survey
A total of 351 landowners were selected for the study, involving 8 of the 9 USFWS contact stations serving Wisconsin. Although precise numbers are not available, it is believed that this sample size represents 10 to 15 percent of the aggregate number of landowners that participated in the program during the study period. The McGregor District had too few private land’s projects to warrant inclusion in the study. (Refer to Map 1 for USFWS contact station boundaries and the counties participating in the study.)
80 percent of the landowners (311) that received the survey returned it and 85 percent of those returned had completed questionnaires. Table 1 summarizes the results of the questionnaire. Sample bias, computed by the formula (50% divided by the square root of the sample size) multiplied by 2 degrees of error, resulted in a confidence interval of (+/-) 7 %.
In analyzing the results of the survey, 68 percent of respondents were fully satisfied with their participation in the Partner’s program. Only 11 percent were not satisfied, many of these involving wetland restorations that did not have standing water or dried out seasonally. Much of this dissatisfaction can be attributed to a lack of understanding of wetland types, hydrologic considerations and wetland ecology. Also of interest is the 89% of respondents that plan to maintain their projects beyond the expiration of the project agreement. This implies that habitat accomplishments of the program are long-term and that program participants support increased wildlife habitat on their land. It should also be noted that 58% of respondents thought there were additional habitat restoration opportunities on their land.
Habitat Accomplishments
Habitat evaluation records, based on site visits, were completed on 216 projects involving 191 different landowners located throughout the state (Table 2). Project size ranged from 0.5 acre to 41 acres with 1,188 acres evaluated in total. Of this total, 921 acres involved wetland development or restoration on 335 sites, with the remaining 267 acres consisting of prairie planting on 26 sites. It should be noted that these 2 project categories represent the vast majority of "Partner’s" projects completed in Wisconsin during the study period. The number of wetland and grassland projects evaluated in the study period represents 8.3% and 5.5% respectively of all projects in the database, and 9.1% and 4.9% respectively of all acres reported under this program in Wisconsin. Projects were also selected to represent all years of the study, from 1987 to 1999. Table 3 shows a breakdown of projects by year of completion.
Although many variables were looked at in the field, the number of failed projects was of particular interest. For prairie plantings this criteria was met when less than 50% of the planted grass and forbs were observed in the stand. The results of this study show that 11 of the 26 grassland sites met the test for failure (42%). However 5 of these were 1998 or 1999 plantings and it may be premature to judge these as failures since it often takes 3 years or more for establishment. The small sample size also indicates a need for further study and sampling to confirm the preliminary findings of this study. However, these results do point out the difficulty in establishing prairie communities, with a range of 25% - 42% possible failure. Weather conditions at the time of planting, planting methods, weed control and follow-up management all are critical variables that can affect plant establishment.
For wetland projects, the results show significantly higher success rates. Of the 335 wetlands sampled, only 6% were failures. Another 13% were classified as partially successful, with 1 or more factors such as excessive grazing, muskrat damage or off-site impacts negatively influencing the wetland. Failures were caused by one of the following primary factors:
In analyzing the data on wetland projects, in addition to causes of failure I also looked at failure rates by year to see if older restorations tended to have higher failure rates. 1997 projects had the highest failure rate (6 sites) and wetlands 3 to 5 years old exhibited the highest failure rates. However, the differences between years was not significant due to the overall low level of failure in all years. Causes of failure were evenly distributed among the 3 primary factors noted above.
Vegetation
Re-colonization of restored wetlands by hydrophytic plants was also evaluated as part of this monitoring study (See Appendix C for a list of species). Dominant and co-dominant plant communities in the wetland fringe and littoral zones were documented and approximate percent of each primary species noted. There was no attempt to do a comprehensive botanical inventory of each site. Results were organized into 3 broad wetland classes based on vegetative quality:
Results show an equal number of high and low quality sites (32 % and 30%, respectively). Medium quality sites represented 38 % of the total. When viewed spatially however, sites in the agricultural areas of the southern and eastern parts of the state are approximately 50% low quality and less than 20% percent high quality. Conversely, sites in the north and northwest part of the state are 50% or greater high quality and 10% or less low quality. This suggests that seed banks in high agricultural use areas may not be present or have low species richness, or that invasive/aggressive species are re-colonizing these sites before high quality native species can establish. State-wide, the primary invasive/aggressive species in the littoral or near-shore zone is Typha (T. angustifolia, T. latifolia, T. glauca), occurring as a dominant or co-dominant on 54% of all wetlands. In the shoreline and wetland fringe areas, the primary aggressive species is Phalaris arundinacea, occurring as a dominant or co-dominant in 63% of all wetlands monitored.
Wetland Practices
Another aspect of the study looked at wetland cover types being restored and whether existing wet meadow, shrub/scrub or forested wetlands were being converted to deep-water marshes through this program. Table 4 lists the proportion of restored wetlands in each cover type and Table 5 shows the practices used to restore or enhance the wetlands evaluated in this study. Of the 921 acres of wetlands inventoried, 361 acres (39%) were classified as open water or deep marsh; 318 acres (35%) classified as shallow, emergent wetland; and 162 acres (18%) restored as wet meadow or low prairie. In comparing this with wetland restoration practices, 50% of the 335 wetlands had embankments or dikes, and another 20% were shallow scrapes (note that some sites used more than one restoration practice such as a dike combined with a tile break). This suggests that many sites were enhanced beyond original wetland depth and size. This is not surprising as over and over during the study landowners expressed concern with low water levels, increasing wetland vegetation, and a desire to see more open water on many of the sites visited. Many landowners would not be satisfied with restoration of a wetland to a "saturated only" condition. While this landowner preference is broadly recognized, conversion of an intact sedge meadow, forested wetland or other un-disturbed wetland community into an open-water or emergent wetland is not condoned under the Partner’s program guidelines. While wetland conversion was difficult to determine in many cases due to lack of documentation of prior vegetation or land use, a few sites (8) were definite conversions of existing tag alder or shrub/scrub wetlands to deep-water wetlands. Additionally, another 17 sites appeared to convert wet drainage ways or wet meadows to emergent or deep-water wetlands. In addition, small tributary streams were impounded on 2 sites for a total of 27 conversions, approximately 8 % of the total. Since many of the wet drainage way sites typically are degraded from siltation and agricultural runoff, the ecological impacts of these conversions may be minimal in the agricultural regions of the state. The findings from this study suggest that conversion of one wetland type to another is not a significant practice in Wisconsin.
Wildlife Use
Quantitative measurements of wildlife species occurrence and frequency using standard survey protocols were beyond the scope of this project. However, during the course of visiting and collecting monitoring data on each site, visual observations of wildlife species encountered while at a site were noted. No attempts were made to thoroughly canvas each site for waterfowl broods or secretive wading birds, so data presented in this report should be interpreted with caution. A total of 33 species of waterfowl, shorebirds, raptors and passerines were identified in the course of the study as well as several resident game species, small mammals, fish, reptiles and amphibians. Of particular interest was the occurrence of waterfowl broods on 21% of all wetlands 1 acre or larger in size during the brood-rearing period from May 20th to August 16th.
No broods were encountered on wetlands less than 1 acre in size or before or after these dates in this study. Disturbance created by the landowner and/or biologist and the limited time on-site precluded observance of all waterfowl and broods occupying a wetland. Time of day can also greatly influence waterfowl sightings. Even with the less than desirable conditions for observing waterfowl, 490 adult and juvenile ducks and geese were recorded using the study wetlands. The majority of sightings were individuals, pairs and small groups of mallards (39%) and wood ducks (36%), with blue-wing teal (10%) and canada geese (14%) also well-represented. The general lack of other observed waterfowl species can be attributed to the field visits generally occurring outside of the spring and fall migration periods (see Appendix C for a listing of bird species observed).
Program Administration
The Partners for Fish and Wildlife program in Wisconsin is delivered by one Private Lands office, one Ecological Services office, one Fisheries office, 2 Wetland Management District offices, and 4 Fish and Wildlife Refuge offices. With this complex delivery system, it is no surprise to see some variation in records management, program delivery, staffing and contracting procedures. Some offices contract all work to area businesses, while one or more offices do much of the restoration work with rented or Service-owned equipment. Many offices have full-time private lands biologists to administer the program while other offices utilize other state and federal agencies to design and implement the habitat work. A variety of partners are also commonly involved, often providing a mix of technical, financial and in-kind contributions to a project. The complexity and variability of program delivery did not allow for a detailed analysis of this aspect of the program, but an cursory review of some of the important quality control issues was attempted. Several projects completed by other agencies using Partner’s funding were reviewed in the field. The only concern identified with this class of projects is a general lack of adequate records (location information, documentation of cost, permits, design information ). Another issue looked at was a comparison of what was reported in the ITS reporting system with what was found on-site. With few exceptions, the numbers and acres reported matched what was found during the site visits. Three prairie plantings (12.8 ac.) were not found - two were destroyed by the landowners because the desired vegetation did not establish, another appears not to have been planted. Seven wetlands (4.2 ac.) could not be found and two others had been dug into deep-water fish ponds. A comparison of acres reported to acres observed showed 12 wetlands over-reported by 38 acres and 6 wetlands under-reported for 13 acres. The total impact of over-estimated, missing or destroyed projects amounted to 42 acres out of a total of 1,188 acres evaluated, suggesting that the reported accomplishments of the Partner’s program in Wisconsin are accurate. |
RECOMMENDATIONS |
Technical
A primary cause of damage to wetland restoration projects that use embankments is muskrat burrowing along the face of the dam or beaver blocking pipe outlet structures. In the last few years embankment front slopes have been extended and flattened to reduce the impact of muskrat activity. This practice should be encouraged, along with wider 10 to 12 feet top- widths for embankments. An alternative would be to consider armoring the front slope shoreline with rock or galvanized fencing. A majority of the embankments constructed with steep front slopes and narrow top widths had moderate to severe damage from muskrat burrowing. Landowners repeatedly voiced concerns over muskrat damage and the amount of effort they spent to repair this damage. While only 3 or 4 sites exhibited alteration by beaver, biologists can often anticipate which sites will have beaver activity and should take appropriate measures to prevent damage or blocking of outlet structures during design and construction.
In an effort to encourage the establishment of high-quality vegetation on restoration sites, a few practices should be emphasized. For wetland restorations, encouraging landowners to control Phalaris, Typha, and other aggressive species during the 1st and 2nd year post-restoration may allow many of the more conservative native wetland species to re-establish. For sites with less agricultural history, biologists should try to preserve existing seed banks by locating borrow areas outside of the planned pool area or stockpiling the top 8 inches of soil and re-spreading after removal of borrow. Efforts should be made to keep excavation and equipment traffic to a minimum in shoreline and near-shore areas to reduce disturbance, which invites colonization by aggressive/ invasive species. In agricultural areas, adequate buffers around the wetland restoration will help to reduce sediment delivery and nutrient loading to the wetland. For shallow wetlands in these landscapes, anticipate colonization by Typha and Phalaris. Designing for increased water depth will encourage muskrat survival that can provide a natural means of controlling Typha. Removing existing patches of Phalaris, if practical, at the time of construction may also reduce the spread of this species into the restored wetland. For prairie plantings, good control of existing vegetation prior to seeding and follow-up with landowners the 1st and 2nd year after planting would likely reduce the failure rate. The primary competition observed in failed prairie plantings was introduced cool-season grasses and clovers or Canada Goldenrod. Timely mowing, spraying or other management during the establishment period is critical to long-term success. Follow-up by the project biologist would ensure the appropriate practices are being used. Note: The level of failure reported in this study may not be reflective of all prairie plantings because of the small sample size.
Administrative
Due to administrative program changes, staff turnover, and inconsistent handling of records, it was sometimes difficult to locate basic landowner and site information for a project. In some cases, the records were kept by the cooperating agency that completed the project. In other cases, files were purged or lost and no information was available. Records management ranged from color-coded files organized by county or year completed, to records that were kept in a box in a storage room. Due to this variation among field offices, it is recommended that as a minimum, case file records should contain the following information:
Where offices are cooperating with other federal or state agencies for program delivery, it is recommended that wildlife management agreements be signed by a USFWS biologist. This is particularly important if other agencies are obligating the Service to long-term maintenance and repair of projects. It is also desirable that the landowner be made aware of the technical and financial contributions of the "Partner’s" program. Unfortunately, there were several landowners that responded to the survey stating they "did not know this program assisted them with their habitat projects". As a program, we should also strive to develop uniform conditions related to management agreements. It was noted that some offices include restrictions on the use of structures such as hunting blinds, swimming docks and aerators; management activities such as no dog-training, no mowing during the nesting season, no permanent trails, etc... Some offices differed over repair and maintenance responsibilities as well. Landowners were often confused about whose responsibility it is to repair damage to embankments or outlet pipes, and what level of management and maintenance is required of them. |
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CONCLUSION |
The landowner survey results clearly demonstrate the popularity and acceptance of this program among participating landowners. Further, the survey confirms the belief that the majority of cooperators are interested in maintaining their habitat projects for the long term. Many of the respondents indicated an interest in developing additional habitat projects on lands they own, suggesting their past experiences with the program have been positive.
Habitat evaluations suggest approximately 1/3 of the restored wetlands are developing high-quality plant communities and another 1/3 exhibiting monotypic or degraded plant communities.
Past land use, adjacent land use and geographic location within the state all appear to be contributing factors in the restoration of wetland plant communities. Prairie plantings successfully established on approximately 60% of the sites evaluated and wetland restoration success exceeded 80%. A review of practices applied and wetland types restored indicate a definite bias towards shallow-emergent and deep-water wetlands. However, conversion of existing wetlands from one type to another was not found to be significant for this program in Wisconsin. Projects generally appeared stable and were being maintained by landowners. Administratively, although delivery of the program is through a complex system of offices with a variety of partners, the on-the-ground accomplishments appear to accurately reflect what is being reported. Wildlife use, both observed and as reported by landowners, appears to be high, with a significant number of the restored wetlands being used by ducks for breeding and brood-rearing.
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Acknowledgements
The implementation of this monitoring study would not have been possible without the support and cooperation of the many landowners that provided input to the survey and gave permission to visit their properties. In addition I would like to thank Greg Brown (FWS) and James Ruwaldt (FWS) for their technical and financial support, the many Service wildlife biologists that assisted me in the study, and Mary Mitchell (FWS) for her GIS technical support. |
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