GeomorphIS Team to Conduct Raptor Nesting Survey for BLM Idaho

The US Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has tasked GeomorphIS and partner Bloom Biological, Inc. to conduct a raptor nesting survey in the Bruneau-Owyhee Sage-grouse Habitat (BOSH) Project area in southwest idaho, during the 2020 season. The BOSH is a juniper treatment project designed to maintain and improve greater sage-grouse habitat across a 1.7 million-acre area in Owyhee County, Idaho. Approximately 600,000 acres have been identified that meet treatment criteria, i.e. where juniper has or is encroaching sagebrush communities, and have been proposed as the focal treatment area on BLM lands in the Bruneau and Owyhee Field Offices. The focal treatment area is a mosaic of big and low sagebrush communities primarily in the early- to mid-stages of juniper encroachment (phase I and early phase II, or 1-10% and 10-20% juniper cover). It is anticipated that treatments in phase II, or 10-20% juniper cover, may result in large quantities of cut material. Where scattering is not practical, jackpot burning would take place once the juniper biomass has dried sufficiently, live fuel moisture is high, i.e. low fire behavior, and soils are moist, frozen, or covered by snow. The GeomorphIS-BBI team will conduct an inventory of raptor nests across 5,875 acres in and around 13 units where juniper jackpot burning is likely to occur.