2009-017-00

TNC Willamette Wildlife Acquisitions

The proposed acquisitions are located in the Amazon Basin (West Eugene), Basket Butte, Coast Fork - Middle Fork of the Willamette, Coburg Ridge, Corvallis Area, Yamhill Oaks ecoregional sites / conservation opportunity areas. The properties total approximately 1200 acres of oak woodlands and prairie habitats, approximately 667 acres of Douglas fir forest and 774 acres of floodplain and riparian forest. Intermittent streams, seeps and rock outcrops add diversity to the habitats at several sites. The overall goal of the project is to mitigate habitat loss and degradation through protection, restoration, and maintenance of key Willamette Valley priority habitats. Once acquired, we will manage the land to benefit the subbasin plan’s terrestrial and aquatic focal species and to meet the plan’s habitat objectives using ecosystem and adaptive management principals. The project is expected to benefit at least 26 terrestrial focal species identified in the Willamette Subbasin Plan including habitat for a minimum of two listed terrestrial species (Table 1). Aquatic targets include Oregon chub and multiple ESUs of salmonids specifically including the Upper Willamette ESU of Spring Chinook.

The proposed acquisitions support all 4 of the largest populations of Fender’s blue butterfly and Kincaid's lupine (Hammond 1994, Schultz 1995), in Lane, Benton, Polk Counties and also provide a opportunity to create viable populations in Yamhill County. Both species were federally listed under the Endangered Species Act as Endangered and Threatened respectively in 2000 (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service 2000). Sites were also selected specifically to support objectives of the draft recovery plan for protected functional populations in each of 6 recovery zones. These acquisition efforts would help create functional populations in all three of the recovery zones in the Willamette Valley, with population targets, specifically Eugene, Corvallis and Salem. Each site also represents potentially safe reintroduction sites for listed species not currently present.

All of these sites are identified as important opportunity areas in recent regional assessments, most identified as an important area to conserve in all three recent assessment and guidance documents (Hulse et al. 2002; Floeburg et al. 2004; NWPCC Oct. 2005). Acquisition of these properties will contribute to conservation goals identified in the Statewide Comprehensive Wildlife Strategy (Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife 2005); federal critical habitat designation (Federal Register, Nov. 2 2005, Vol. 70. No. 21, p. 66512); Oregon Biodiversity Project (Oregon Biodiversity Project 1998); Willamette Valley-Puget Trough-Georgia Basin Ecoregional Conservation Assessment (Floeburg et al. 2004); Oregon Joint Venture Plan for the Willamette (Roth and Taylor 2002); and the McKenzie River Watershed Assessment which identified protection of Oak habitat as a priority.

In addition to supporting implementation of the conservation plans identified above, acquiring these parcels will contribute to priorities identified in several additional regional and state programs and support regional projects to benefit the mainstem Willamette River and tributary floodplains below Army Corps of Engineers, Bonneville Power dams.

Christine Read

2009

2015

Dorothy Welch

Closed - Project Status Report

Province	Subbasin	%
Lower Columbia	Willamette	100.00%

Habitat

Restoration/Protection

Chinook - Lower Columbia River ESU
Chinook - Upper Willamette River ESU
Chub, Oregon
Coho - Lower Columbia River ESU
Cutthroat Trout, Coastal - Upper Willamette River ESU
Steelhead - Upper Willamette River DPS
Wildlife

Anadromous: 0.0%   Resident: 0.0%   Wildlife: 100.0%

Wildlife Categorical Review (Public Tags)
Wildlife Categorical Review-Willamette (Public Tags)

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