Final Environmental Impact Statement Rio de los Pinos Vegetation ...

Final Environmental Impact Statement Rio de los Pinos Vegetation Management Project
that are not killed by operations would be expected to experience a release (more rapid growth as
a result of increased light, water, and nutrient availability). For a summary of regeneration
currently present in each of the units, according to recent timber data collection, see Table 3.5-2
in the Forest Management section.
Areas not meeting Forest Plan regeneration standards (150 trees per acre) following harvest,
would be replanted with Engelmann spruce. This would result in a variety of age classes of
regeneration throughout the area, providing lynx winter foraging habitat (snowshoe hare habitat)
both now and into the future. Replanted areas would be expected to regenerate more quickly
than areas not meeting regeneration standards that are allowed to regenerate completely
naturally. While lynx winter foraging habitat could be immediately degraded by the harvest
activities, it would be expected to improve thereafter. There is suitable, more isolated habitat
surrounding this analysis area that would not be harvested, providing sufficient denning and
alternate winter foraging habitat adjacent to the analysis area. Harvest of the analysis area would
contribute to a habitat mosaic across the landscape resulting from harvested areas interspersed
with other areas where natural processes are the primary influence. This would be expected to
have overall long-term beneficial effects to Canada lynx.
Alternative 3 – Reduced Salvage Harvest
The potential impacts of this alternative upon lynx and lynx habitat are similar (yet less than)
impacts of Alternative 2 (see above). Under this alternative, the present closed road density
would not increase at all, versus the 0.2 mile in Alternative 2. In addition, only 42 acres of small
(1/4 to 5 acre) patch cuts are proposed which would alter these small areas of lynx habitat,
making them unsuitable in the short term and lynx winter foraging habitat in the long term.
Unit 1 and portions of Units 2 & 5 would not be harvested under this alternative, for watershed
protection purposes. This unit would eventually have an abundance of coarse woody debris with
interspersed regeneration, similar to land adjacent to the analysis area that is under a backcountry
or wilderness management prescription having no harvest. Under this alternative, the potential
effect of lynx disturbance, displacement and/or mortality as a result of logging operations in the
unharvested areas would not exist. This could benefit lynx in the short-term since these areas
(with their fairly dense network of streams and riparian vegetation) would not be disturbed.
Understory and regeneration currently present in the area should remain mostly intact and
eventually be released as the trees die and fall to the ground. These areas currently contain
sufficient understory vegetation to provide lynx winter foraging habitat. Under this alternative,
release of the understory in these areas would be gradual instead of immediate as it would be
with large tree removal from logging operations, however, mortality of regeneration from timber
harvest would not be a factor.
Implementation of this alternative would meet Objectives, Standards, and Guidelines in the
Southern Rockies Lynx Amendment (see further details under Alternative 2 above).
DETERMINATION for ALTERNATIVES 1, 2 and 3: The alternatives would all
result in a given amount of habitat conversion, whether from natural or human-induced
processes. For this determination, the amount of acre conversion between alternatives is not so
Chapter 3 – Affected Environment & Environmental Consequences Page 3-43