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

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Tehama chaparral snails (Trilobopsis tehemana) Environmental Baseline Habitat for the Tehama chaparral snails includes shaded talus and rock piles (Burke et al 1999). When environmental conditions are favorable, individuals may range from their refugia and can be found under leaf litter and other debris in adjacent forested habitat (Ibid). Random grid surveys conducted on the KNF detected one location for Tehama chaparral snails along Horse Creek in the center of the project area. Other known locations on the KNF occur along the Shasta River on the Scott River Ranger District and in Schutts Gulch just west of the project area, found during pre-project surveys for the Thom Seider Project, (K. West, personal communication 2009). Units in the Johnny O’Neil area on which ground-based yarding is proposed were surveyed for talus habitat in 2009; 56 patches of potentially suitable habitat were located and mapped in 28 units. Talus patch sizes ranged from .06 acre to 3.8 acres, with the mean of about 0.5 acre (project file). Direct and Indirect Effects Alternative 1 – No Action There will be no direct effects to the Tehama chaparral snails from this alternative. In the absence of large-scale natural disturbance it is unlikely that the amount of Tehama chaparral snail habitat will significantly change in the near future. However, in the event of a wildfire, it is expected that portions of the project area would burn at high intensity and affect habitat, potentially removing the protective influence of the overstory. The effects of such wildfires on the Tehama chaparral snails are unclear as the snails have historically evolved with mixed severity fires. Where talus areas are shallow, the lack of an overstory may cause heating and drying of the talus leading to the loss of the snails at those sites; however, in areas with deep talus, the snails would be expected to survive high severity fires and the loss of individuals would be minimized. Action Alternatives Suitable habitat, plus one tree height buffer within ground-based treatment units, will by flagged and avoided; this will minimize direct effects on the Tehama chaparral snails. Additional pre-project surveys for those ground-based units not yet surveyed and all skyline units will be conducted prior to operations will minimize direct and indirect impacts. Individuals that may be above the surface or just below the surface could be killed by harvest equipment or from construction of temporary road spurs. In addition, road spurs may fragment suitable habitat; however, talus habitat will be avoided thereby minimizing potential impacts to snails. Prescribed fire could affect individual snails or small groups may be impacted but, due to the mosaic effects of underburning, the effects are not likely to be significant to populations 32
that could occur in the Horse Creek 6 th field watershed. Due to the low intensity of the burning, combined with the distribution of the project in space and time, it is unlikely these effects would be significant to the Tehama chaparral snails. The combination of thinning and other fuels reduction treatments is expected to have a long-term beneficial indirect effect by substantially reducing the chances and extent of high intensity wildfires; these wildfires can remove vegetation and lead to increased temperatures and desiccation. Largediameter shade trees and coarse woody debris (CWD) would be maintained over the short and long term as a result of the action alternatives. In summary, future surveys and project design features will minimize direct and indirect impacts but may not completely avoid them. Due to project design features, and the temporal and spatial distribution of both mechanical thinning and prescribed fire treatments, potential impacts will be limited or short in duration. The combination of proposed thinning and other fuels treatments is expected to provide long term benefits by modifying fire behavior over time, resulting in fires of less intensity and reducing the proportion of high intensity fire that would occur across this landscape. Cumulative Effects Proposed activities in the reasonably foreseeable future that could affect suitable habitat include the Checkerboard Hazard project, which may result in ground disturbing activities on or adjacent to suitable habitat that could kill or injure individuals, but it is likely this represents a small proportion of suitable potential tail dropper habitat in this landscape. Given the scope of this analysis and the availability of habitat occurring in this landscape, overall, cumulative effects from the Checkerboard or other actions are not expected to be measurable. There are no other known ongoing or proposed non-federal actions that would combine with the action alternatives to cause cumulative effects to Tehama chaparral snails or their habitat, beyond the project’s direct and indirect effects. Determination – With the factors described above, the Johnny O’Neil project may affect individual Tehama chaparral snails but is not expected to result in a trend toward federal listing or loss of viability. 33
Page 1 and 2: Johnny O’Neil Late Successional R
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Page 5 and 6: Direct and Indirect Effects Alterna
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Page 17 and 18: Determination - Due to the factors
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Page 21 and 22: Cumulative Effects Reasonable fores
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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
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Page 35 and 36: Corkran, C. and C. Thoms. 1996. Amp
Page 37: Strickland, M.A., and C. W. Douglas

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