Intact Pathway Successfully Buffers Sage Grouse Migration

Landscape conservation is the mechanism for conserving migratory wildlife in sagebrush ecosystems. We studied a greater sage grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus; hereafter ‘sage-grouse’) population with the longest-known annual migration, ? 240 km round-trip, between summer and winter ranges in Saskatchewan, Canada, and northcentral Montana. We asked: Do birds fly quickly through a corridor, or do they use stopovers within a larger pathway? GPS-tracking revealed that migrating grouse frequent stopovers along multiple routes that coalesce to form an integrated pathway. Month-long fall migration in November contrasted with punctuated spring migration lasting ~2 weeks in late March/early April. Individual birds typically spent ~1 day at 9 different stopovers, migrating 71-91 km in 11-15 days. Migrating grouse used native sagebrush rangeland in proportion to its availability and avoided cropland and badlands. Birds responded to record-breaking snowfall in winter 2011 (>274 cm) by migrating another ? 50 km south onto windswept ridge tops where sagebrush remained above snow. Grouse selected habitat on Charles M. Russell National Wildlife Refuge most similar to typical winter habitat. Doing so was without consequence to winter survival; such was not the case for a nearby resident population. Newly identified winter range suggests that high site fidelity is tempered by an ability to adapt quickly when resources become scarce. We recommend public land policy that provides grazing opportunities while precluding large-scale energy development or whole scale removal of sagebrush. Management actions that maintain sagebrush as an emergency food source in newly identified sage grouse wintering grounds will help conserve this migratory population

Win-Win for Wind and Wildlife: A Vision to Facilitate Sustainable Development

Wind energy offers the potential to reduce carbon emissions while increasing energy independence and bolstering economic development. However, wind energy has a larger land footprint per Gigawatt (GW) than most other forms of energy production, making appropriate siting and mitigation particularly important. Species that require large unfragmented habitats and those known to avoid vertical structures are particularly at risk from wind development. Developing energy on disturbed lands rather than placing new developments within large and intact habitats would reduce cumulative impacts to wildlife. The U.S. Department of Energy estimates that it will take 241 GW of terrestrial based wind development on approximately 5 million hectares to reach 20% electricity production for the U.S. by 2030. We estimate there are ∼7,700 GW of potential wind energy available across the U.S., with ∼3,500 GW on disturbed lands. In addition, a disturbance-focused development strategy would avert the development of ∼2.3 million hectares of undisturbed lands while generating the same amount of energy as development based solely on maximizing wind potential. Wind subsidies targeted at favoring low-impact developments and creating avoidance and mitigation requirements that raise the costs for projects impacting sensitive lands could improve public value for both wind energy and biodiversity conservation

Minimum number of square kilometers needed to meet DOE projections for disturbance restricted (blue) or unconstrained (red) scenarios.

<p>For simplicity we have only included states where disturbance focused development would result in an increased area needed to meet the DOE projections. For all other states there is either not an increase in land needed or the state is unable to meet DOE projections on disturbed lands.</p

Map of continental U.S. with states where DOE targets can (blue) and cannot (red) be met on disturbed lands.

<p>We focused on the 31 states that comprise the majority of the DOE vision, excluding states (grey) with less than 1 GW of projected development <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0017566#pone.0017566-Department1" target="_blank">[1]</a>. Inset table with 31 focal states, their DOE projections (in GW), Total available wind energy (in GW), wind energy available on disturbed lands (in GW), percent of DOE vision that can be met on disturbed land and amount of undisturbed lands that a disturbance focused development scenario would avert (in square kilometers).</p

Available wind-generated Giga-watts (GW) in each state as a function of the DOE goal and percentage of the DOE goal that can be met on disturbed land.

<p>Bubbles indicate where DOE goals can (blue) and cannot (red) be met on disturbed lands. Bubble area indicates total GW of wind potential available in the state (Range 0.37 GW in TN to 902 GW in MT). Inset graph shows potential GW wind production for the entire U.S. and potential on disturbed lands relative to the DOE 20% projection.</p

Technical/Regulatory Guidelines: Permeable Reactive Barriers: Lessons Learned/New Directions

Available on the web under http://www.itrcweb.org/Documents/PRB-4.pdfPeer reviewed: NoNRC publication: Ye