Harvesting Practices and Mountain Goat Habitat in the Babine Watershed

A Background Review

Prepared for: By:

Megan D’Arcy, R.P.Bio.

Introduction Goal to maintain mountain goats Two objectives:

Maintain goat habitat Maintain goat populations

Preliminary risk curve analyses identified knowledge gaps for the Kispiox (now West Babine)

Objective of background review ~ to determine if new data are available to update the monitoring framework

Since then… Both the West Babine SRMP area and the

Bulkley now have management areas identified for goats

An effectiveness monitoring protocol has been developed and tested for mountain goat ungulate winter range Pilot project study areas in Okanagan-

Shuswap & Sunshine Coast Forest Districts

Habitat Management UWR polygons have been identified under FRPA for

the Kispiox/Cranberry TSA These polygons were delineated based on work completed

by Ardea Biological Consulting (2005) Pacific Inland Resources has completed their Forest

Stewardship Plan Mapped Habitat and an associated management strategies

have been identified for mountain goats FSP incorporates Bulkley LRMP: Objectives Set by

Government (2006)

Goat management areas in the Babine Watershed

Shenismike

Gail Creek

Table 2. Mountain goat habitat management for the BWMT area as set out in the FSP for PIR and the UWR Order for the Kispiox/Cranberry TSA.

West Babine Bulkley

Forest Harvesting Activities

Within UWR/ Mapped Habitat

-Retention of all forest cover & vegetation within UWR polygon-Felling of trees is permitted when required for worker safety

-Provide thermal and snow interception cover and forage-Provide security by limiting disturbance-Provide forested cover adjacent to escape terrain

Buffers -500 m horizontal distance-Within 500 m, should not “result in material or adverse disturbance to goats”

-Harvesting within 200 m of Mapped Habitat will be done with non-clearcutting system or with cutblocks < 5 ha

-2000 meters line of site for helicopter logging

Timing of Harvesting Activities

-June 15 to October 31 window

-No harvesting within 200 m of Mapped Habitat from April 15 to July 15

Roads -Deactivated if within 500 m of UWR polygon

-All roads within one kilometre of Mapped Habitat will be deactivated and access control points used to limit motorized access

Effectiveness Monitoring No additional effectiveness monitoring work

has been done within the Babine Watershed A three-tiered evaluation structure has been

designed by FREP (intended to be used as a standard for effectiveness evaluations)

Adapted and tested by Steve Wilson, EcoLogic Research, for mountain goats

Indicators for Maintaining Goat Habitat in Current Monitoring Framework

Type and patch-size distribution of harvest within 200 m of identified goat habitat

Presence of forested connectors between mountain ranges in Kotsine Pass

Both are more applicable to the Bulkley TSA.

Current Indicators for Maintaining Goat Populations

Density of accessible roads within one kilometre of identified habitat

Amount of harvesting within 200 m of habitat during natal time (May to early June)

Natal period is not only time when goats are vulnerable – most habitat management targets winter survival

Other Potential Indicators (Wilson 2005)

Proportion of established UWR relative to available suitable UWR - once

Forest Cover Characteristics – every 5 yrs Forage Availability – every 5 yrs Snow Depth & Consolidation – weather dependent Evidence of Sustained Winter Use by Goats – 3 yrs

Could be monitored by recreation user reports Evidence of Movement Among Winter Ranges

Incorporation into Existing Framework Estimated risk for West Babine (Kispiox) can

be updated based on data collected by Ardea (2005) Percentage of area currently harvested, Potential level of harvest (%)

Could incorporate additional indicators developed by Wilson (2006)

Recommendations Review and update mapping data for entire

Babine Watershed Add an ‘indices of use’ indicator to the

current monitoring framework Use mapping and field surveys to document

and collect use data for important trails and mineral licks

Potential Project for 2008Create goat habitat database

and analyse existing data Collect different data layers Clean and compile data Define parameters (see

spreadsheet) Analyse data and use to

generate new risk curves Write report

Project Initialization $ 640

Mapping (GeoBorealis) & Analysis (K. Price)

$ 4,500

Report Writing $ 1,600

GST $ 337

Total Cost $ 7, 077

Ministry of Environment has expressed interest in potentially partnering with BWMT

Road proximity analysis (proposed - FIA)

Advantages The result of this project (spatial database)

could potentially be used for other BWMT initiatives

Partnering with MOE would facilitate: Access to the mapping layers Cost sharing

Other Considerations Without the indices of use data, the mapping

results only tell one side of the story BWMT allocate some money for proposal writing

($ 1, 600) Building on the idea of partnering with MOE as

part of the proposal process Collect ad hoc data from flights in and out of

Silver Hilton ($ ??)

In a Perfect World… Conduct a combination of aerial and ground surveys

to determine relative use Expensive – potential FIA project? More of a priority in

the West Babine During relative use surveys, collect

Forage availability data Snow depth and consolidation data

Infer “material and adverse disturbance to goats” (UWR Order) from indices of use data & forest harvesting/road analysis