Johnny O'Neil Late Successional Reserve Habitat Restoration and ...

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produce heat, smoke, visual, and noise disturbance that could disturb fisher in the project area. Disturbance related to project activities that could affect foraging or denning would be short-lived and last for one season in any given location. Project activities would be limited in space at any one time and, with the fishers’ ability to move away from disturbance combined with the availability of habitat on the landscape, these activities will have inconsequential direct effects on individuals and will have insignificant effects to the population as a whole. Cumulative Effects Reasonable foreseeable future actions that might affect suitable habitat include the Checkerboard Hazard project which proposes to remove snags, dying trees, or small trees limiting drivers’ visibility along the road system in the project area. This may affect individual habitat elements along the roadsides for the fisher and prey species or may result in disturbance to individuals; however, existing roadsides do not provide high quality habitat for the fisher. Overall, cumulative effects from the Checkerboard or other actions are not expected to be measurable. Given the availability of habitat throughout the remainder of the project area, and that no known non-federal actions are proposed at this time, no significant additive effects to the fisher are expected to occur. Past timber harvest on adjacent private lands has resulted in a reduction in the amount of suitable fisher habitat within the analysis area, from clear cut harvests, intensive selection harvest or salvage. Although the overall distribution of late-successional forest habitat is similar to historic patterns, it has been estimated that the overall amount of habitat has been reduced within the Horse Creek 6th field watershed through wildfire, timber harvest, fire salvage and road building on both public and private lands since the 1930s (USDA Forest Service 2002). Stands that have been burned or harvested, for the most part, are in early or mid-successional forest stages and are capable of becoming late-successional forest habitat in the future; some of these could be currently utilized by fisher. Availability of large hardwoods associated with fisher denning and resting in the Klamath Province have been significantly reduced on industrial timberland. Effects of private land timber harvest have been accounted for in the baseline amount of habitat as discussed above. There are private residences and ranches, which include private access roads and grazing, in the lower portions of the Horse Creek 6 th field watershed but none are within the project area; activities in and around these properties have negligible effects or no effect to fisher habitat. For a discussion of the amount of late-successional habitat and fragmentation in the Horse Creek 6th field watershed, refer to the Horse Creek Ecosystem Analysis (USDA 2002). 16
Determination – Due to the factors described above, the Johnny O’Neil project may affect individual fishers but is not expected to result in a trend toward federal listing or loss of viability. American marten (Martes americana) Environmental Baseline This species uses mature and old growth forest habitats, typically distributed at a higher elevation than the fisher. Generally, mature and over-mature true fir/hemlock/pine habitat occurring above 5000 feet in elevation with a dense canopy (>40%) and adequate large, coarse woody debris is considered marten habitat (Jameson and Peeters 1988; CDFG 1990 In most studies of habitat use, martens were found to prefer late-successional stands of mesic coniferous forest, especially those with complex physical structure near the ground (Buskirk and Powell 1994). Xeric forest types and those with a lack of structure near the ground are used little or not at all. The preference and apparent need for structure near the ground, especially in winter, appears universal (Ruggiero et al. 1994). The marten is predisposed by several attributes to impacts from human activities, including: its habitat specialization for mesic, structurally complex forests; its low population densities; and its low reproductive rate for a mammal of its size (Ruggiero et al. 1994). Extensive logging and forest fires reduce the value of areas to martens, sometimes for many years (Strickland and Douglas, 1987). The distribution of marten on the west side of the KNF is not well known due to the lack of marten-specific survey data. Surveys for forest carnivores have been described above (see fisher); marten have not been detected at any of the survey stations to date. Incidental sightings of marten have been recorded on four ranger districts of the KNF (excluding Oak Knoll), but cannot be confirmed. Positive detections at camera survey stations on the Goosenest Ranger District of the KNF have found marten using true fir habitats near 7000 feet in elevation. Martens are considered as an uncommon to common permanent resident of California’s North Coast regions and Sierra Nevada, Klamath, and Cascades Mountains. Optimal habitats are various mixed evergreen forests with >40% crown closure, large trees and snags. Important habitats include red fir, lodgepole pine, subalpine conifer, mixed conifer, Jeffrey pine, and eastside pine (Grinnell et al. 1937, Schempf and White 1977, Clark et al. 1987, as cited in Zeiner 1990). On the KNF, marten have been observed in higher elevations, typically within true fir, lodgepole pine, and subalpine conifer stands. For the purposes of this analysis, NSO habitat above 4,500 feet is considered as suitable habitat for martens. Standards and Guidelines for both species require retaining canopy cover and retaining large down logs and snags; 144,466 acres of marten habitat is estimated to occur on the KNF. There are only a few areas proposed for treatment occurring above 4,500 feet (Section 20 on the NE side of the project area and Section 23 of the NW side of the project area). Section 20 contains about 115 acres of low quality marten habitat. This area lacks structural components 17
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Page 3 and 4: Northern goshawk (Accipiter gentili
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Page 7 and 8: Roads and landings- Construction of
Page 9 and 10: Since the nearest incidental locati
Page 11 and 12: (Zeiner et al. 1990). For the purpo
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Page 15: or retention of large tree/denning/
Page 19 and 20: existing roadsides do not provide h
Page 21 and 22: Cumulative Effects Reasonable fores
Page 23 and 24: Creek. This potential habitat will
Page 25 and 26: In 2005, genetic studies revealed t
Page 27 and 28: adjacent to the Klamath River below
Page 29 and 30: Direct and Indirect Effects Alterna
Page 31 and 32: lue-gray tail dropper on the KNF is
Page 33 and 34: that could occur in the Horse Creek
Page 35 and 36: Corkran, C. and C. Thoms. 1996. Amp
Page 37: Strickland, M.A., and C. W. Douglas

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