Assessing prioritization measures for a private land conservation program in the U.S. Prairie Pothole Region

Private land conservation has become an important tool for protecting biodiversity and habitat, but methods for prioritizing and scheduling conservation on private land are still being developed. While return on investment methods have been suggested as a potential path forward, the different processes linking private landscapes to the socioeconomic systems in which they are embedded create unique challenges for scheduling conservation with this approach. We investigated a range of scheduling approaches within a return on investment framework for breeding waterfowl and broods in the Prairie Pothole Region of North Dakota, South Dakota, and Montana. Current conservation targeting for waterfowl in the region focuses mostly on the distribution and abundance of breeding waterfowl. We tested whether MaxGain approaches for waterfowl conservation differed from MinLoss approaches in terms of return on investment and which approach performed best in avoiding loss of waterfowl and broods separately. We also examined variation in results based upon the temporal scale of the abundance layers used for input and compared the region's current scheduling approach with results from our simulations. Our results suggested that MinLoss was the most efficient scheduling approach for both breeding waterfowl and broods and that using just breeding waterfowl to target areas for conservation programs might cause organizations to overlook important areas for broods, particularly over shorter timespans. The higher efficiency of MinLoss approaches in our simulations also indicated that incorporating probability of wetland drainage into decision-making improved the overall return on investment. We recommend that future conservation scheduling for easements in the region and for private land conservation in general include some form of return on investment or cost-effective analysis to make conservation more transparent

A SUMMARY OF THE WILDLIFE LINKAGE AND HIGHWAY SAFETY ASSESSMENT: A PRIORITIZATION AND PLANNING TOOL FOR WESTERN MONTANA

Protecting habitat connectivity for wildlife is a management imperative facing agencies and wildlife organizations across the United States. To maintain connectivity and improve highway safety across transportation routes in western Montana, American Wildlands conducted a rapid wildlife linkage and highway safety assessment. This analysis had two primary objectives: 1) to provide a planning tool to direct American Wildlands’ conservation efforts for protection of habitat connectivity across transportation routes; and 2) to provide data and information useful to agencies and other conservation partners. This assessment used four criteria to identify priority areas: i) road kill concentration areas, ii) important wildlife linkage areas, iii) planned transportation projects, and iv) land ownership as an indicator of the likelihood of conservation success. To complete the analysis, kernel density estimation and percent volume contours were used to identify high concentration areas where there is a dual concern for wildlife and human safety based on elevated numbers of road kill. Additional GIS data sets were used to further prioritize the potential priority areas. This process resulted in improved understanding of the road kill concentration areas in western Montana as well as a planning document which can be used by both public and private sector entities to improve local and regional planning and coordination. Critical to the success of this project was an engaged advisory group and a focus on delivery of the analysis results and products to the agencies and other partners. To ensure that advisory group members, representing their respective organizations, endorse and utilize the analysis results in their planning processes we actively encouraged and incorporated member input into the analysis process and data products. Delivery mechanisms (hard copy reports, GIS data, and web access) were agreed upon by the advisory group and are available with the final report. Continued collaborative efforts between public and private entities will be essential to ensure the appropriate level of conservation dollars and effort to meet protection needs in the identified priority areas. Since the western Montana study can be considered a pilot for a possible statewide initiative, the lessons learned may be used to create an improved product at the statewide level. Additionally, we propose this model be considered for application to other western states in need of a wildlife linkage and highway safety planning tool

A SUMMARY OF THE WILDLIFE LINKAGE AND HIGHWAY SAFETY ASSESSMENT: A PRIORITIZATION AND PLANNING TOOL FOR WESTERN MONTANA

Protecting habitat connectivity for wildlife is a management imperative facing agencies and wildlife organizations across the United States. To maintain connectivity and improve highway safety across transportation routes in western Montana, American Wildlands conducted a rapid wildlife linkage and highway safety assessment. This analysis had two primary objectives: 1) to provide a planning tool to direct American Wildlands’ conservation efforts for protection of habitat connectivity across transportation routes; and 2) to provide data and information useful to agencies and other conservation partners. This assessment used four criteria to identify priority areas: i) road kill concentration areas, ii) important wildlife linkage areas, iii) planned transportation projects, and iv) land ownership as an indicator of the likelihood of conservation success. To complete the analysis, kernel density estimation and percent volume contours were used to identify high concentration areas where there is a dual concern for wildlife and human safety based on elevated numbers of road kill. Additional GIS data sets were used to further prioritize the potential priority areas. This process resulted in improved understanding of the road kill concentration areas in western Montana as well as a planning document which can be used by both public and private sector entities to improve local and regional planning and coordination. Critical to the success of this project was an engaged advisory group and a focus on delivery of the analysis results and products to the agencies and other partners. To ensure that advisory group members, representing their respective organizations, endorse and utilize the analysis results in their planning processes we actively encouraged and incorporated member input into the analysis process and data products. Delivery mechanisms (hard copy reports, GIS data, and web access) were agreed upon by the advisory group and are available with the final report. Continued collaborative efforts between public and private entities will be essential to ensure the appropriate level of conservation dollars and effort to meet protection needs in the identified priority areas. Since the western Montana study can be considered a pilot for a possible statewide initiative, the lessons learned may be used to create an improved product at the statewide level. Additionally, we propose this model be considered for application to other western states in need of a wildlife linkage and highway safety planning tool

Quantifying population-level conservation impacts for a perpetual conservation program on private land

Area-based targets, such as percentages of regions protected, are popular metrics of success in the protection of nature. While easily quantified, these targets can be uninformative about the effectiveness of conservation interventions and should be complemented by program impact evaluations. However, most impact evaluations have examined the effect of protected areas on deforestation. Studies that have extended these evaluations to more dynamic systems or different outcomes are less common, largely due to data availability. In these cases, simulations might prove to be a valuable tool for gaining an understanding of the potential range of program effect sizes. Here, we employ simulations of wetland drainage to estimate the impact of the United States Fish and Wildlife Service Small Wetlands Acquisition Program (SWAP) across a ten-year period in terms of wetland area, and breeding waterfowl and brood abundance in the Prairie Pothole Region of North Dakota, South Dakota, and Montana. Using our simulation results, we estimate a plausible range of program impact for the SWAP as an avoided loss of between 0.00% and 0.02% of the carrying capacity for broods and breeding waterfowl from 2008–2017. Despite the low programmatic impact that these results suggest, the perpetual nature of SWAP governance provides promising potential for a higher cumulative conservation impact in the long term if future wetland drainage occurs

Multi-scale habitat assessment of pronghorn migration routes.

We studied the habitat selection of pronghorn (Antilocapra americana) during seasonal migration; an important period in an animal's annual cycle associated with broad-scale movements. We further decompose our understanding of migration habitat itself as the product of both broad- and fine-scale behavioral decisions and take a multi-scale approach to assess pronghorn spring and fall migration across the transboundary Northern Sagebrush Steppe region. We used a hierarchical habitat selection framework to assess a suite of natural and anthropogenic features that have been shown to influence selection patterns of pronghorn at both broad (migratory neighborhood) and fine (migratory pathway) scales. We then combined single-scale predictions into a scale-integrated step selection function (ISSF) map to assess its effectiveness in predicting migration route habitat. During spring, pronghorn selected for native grasslands, areas of high forage productivity (NDVI), and avoided human activity (i.e., roads and oil and natural gas wells). During fall, pronghorn selected for native grasslands, larger streams and rivers, and avoided roads. We detected avoidance of paved roads, unpaved roads, and wells at broad spatial scales, but no response to these features at fine scales. In other words, migratory pronghorn responded more strongly to anthropogenic features when selecting a broad neighborhood through which to migrate than when selecting individual steps along their migratory pathway. Our results demonstrate that scales of migratory route selection are hierarchically nested within each other from broader (second-order) to finer scales (third-order). In addition, we found other variables during particular migratory periods (i.e., native grasslands in spring) were selected for across scales indicating their importance for pronghorn. The mapping of ungulate migration habitat is a topic of high conservation relevance. In some applications, corridors are mapped according to telemetry location data from a sample of animals, with the assumption that the sample adequately represents habitat for the entire population. Our use of multi-scale modelling to predict resource selection during migration shows promise and may offer another relevant alternative for use in future conservation planning and land management decisions where telemetry-based sampling is unavailable or incomplete