Sign in to your account

Sign in with your username (email address) and password

Email Address

Password

Register as a LandScope user

Creating your LandScope profile is fast, free, and simple. As a registered user, you can customize maps, save them, and share them with your friends. We'll be adding other personal features soon.

This project will increase plant species diversity in treatment areas by restoring open woodlands and savannas, expanding the availability of native grasses, forbs, and shrub type habitats on private lands within the focus area. This will be achieved by providing cost share money to private landowners to implement a variety of practices conducive to creating grass/shrub habitats including: woody cover control (WCC or removal of advanced woody invasion of open woodland and savanna habitats), prescribed burning, timber stand improvement (TSI or the removal of smaller noncommercial trees within woodland habitats), and fescue conversion. Emphasis will be placed upon assisting landowners interested in implementing WCC and TSI because these practices are the most valuable in restoring open woodlands and savannas. The minimum acreage supported by this project would be about 130 acres of restored savanna and open woodland habitat. It is estimated that approximately 20 landowners will be impacted by the program and the best form of outreach is landowners selling the benefits of their management to their neighbors. This project will be limited to working directly with private landowners. Primary reporting and monitoring responsibilities will be working with the Missouri Department of Conservation private Lands Conservationists to coordinate implementation planning and cost share reimbursement. A final report will be prepared by the Regional Biologist (John Burk), to document practices implemented, acres affected, and names and locations of landowners utilizing the program. The Regional Biologist will also prepare periodic progress reports throughout the project execution and keep track of implementation and post-treatment results photographically. The project area includes portions of Adair, Putnam, Schuyler, and Sullivan Counties and also contains the Mystic Plains, Thousand Hills and Union Ridge Conservation Opportunity Areas. Oak savanna, which was once prevalent in the Midwest, has been reduced to just 0.02% of its original acreage once estimated to be around 32 million acres prior to European settlement. Savannas are significant to a broad range of wildlife that are important to federal, state, and conservation orgainizations. Finding ways to collaborate in a broad sense across political boundaries will help address habitat restoration needs, build upon existing partnerships, and leverage additional funding to assist landowners who voluntarily wish to restore savanna habitat. This project specifically addresses the primary goal of the Partners In Flight conservation initiative, which is "to provide for the long-term health of the avifauna of this continent". It also addresses the vision of the North American Bird Conservation Initiative which is to see populations and habitats of North America's birds protected, restored, and enhanced through coordinated efforts at international, national, regional, state, and local levels, guided by sound science and effective management. The specific project area falls within Bird Conservation Region (BCR) 22 (The Eastern Tallgrass Prairie) and is within the dissected till palin physiographic region of the BCR. Oak savanna and open woodlands management are also primary objectives identified within both the Thousand Hills and Union Ridge Conservation Opportunity Areas. The focal bird species identified as being most benefited by oak savanna and open woodlands management within the BCR by Partners in Flight are Eastern kingbird, Brown thrasher, Field sparrow, Redheaded woodpecker, Baltimore oriole, and Bobwhite quail. According to Partners in Flight, these previously mentioned bird species occur at their highest densities in oak savannas and open woodland habitats. In addition, this project will help increase the compatibility between certain bird species that need diverse early-successional habitat. This is one of the objectives of the Northern Bobwhite Conservation Initiative, which hopes to facilitate seamless integration of bobwhite habitat restoration efforts with those for migratory songbirds, and other wildlife.

This project will increase plant species diversity in treatment areas by restoring open woodlands and savannas, expanding the availability of native grasses, forbs, and shrub type habitats on private lands within the focus area. This will be achieved by providing cost share money to private landowners to implement a variety of practices conducive to creating grass/shrub habitats including: woody cover control (WCC or removal of advanced woody invasion of open woodland and savanna habitats), prescribed burning, timber stand improvement (TSI or the removal of smaller noncommercial trees with...