Habitats Helped in Wyoming: Updates from the Sage Capacity Team
Members of the Partnering to Conserve Sagebrush Rangelands’ Sage Capacity Team have been hard at work across the Intermountain West, making progress on habitat improvement projects within their local communities on behalf of the Bureau of Land Management and the Intermountain West Joint Venture. These latest updates take us to Wyoming, where project coordinators are defending core sagebrush habitat from invasive annual grasses, and a BLM team is coordinating members of the Wyoming Conservation Corps to defend Muddy Creek.
BLM Recognizes Nancy Webb and Partners for Wyoming Cheatgrass Defense
“Success with invasive annual grasses is a long-term proposition.”
Nancy Webb is the Invasive Annual Grass Coordinator for the BLM’s Wind River and Bighorn Basin Districts in Wyoming. Webb’s position brings together the BLM, University of Wyoming, the Intermountain West Joint Venture, and an array of local stakeholders to mitigate the threat of invasion by cheatgrass into critical sagebrush habitat. In her first year, Webb has helped coordinate treatments for invasive annual grass on 20,000 acres of land, and led the collection of a vast array of data for vegetation mapping. She has also established a number of demonstration plots to showcase the effects of cheatgrass treatments.
A member of the partnership sprays herbicide to reduce invasive cheatgrass.
Muddy Creek Restoration Featured in New Video
Austin Quynn, Muddy Creek Project Manager for the BLM and Trout Unlimited
As the Muddy Creek Project Manager for the BLM and Trout Unlimited, Austin Quynn has been hard at work coordinating teams to implement low-tech process-based restoration techniques along incised and deteriorated waterways within the Muddy Creek watershed. By placing simple, hand-built wooden structures within stream flows, the reformation of historic wet meadows are encouraged, creating better habitat for native fish species, wildlife, and communities.
A new video from Trout Unlimited, Lifeblood, explores the importance of Muddy Creek to communities throughout the Little Snake Basin, and is a beautiful tribute to what wet meadow and riparian restoration practices can accomplish.
