Environmental Assessment

AFFECTED ENVIRONMENT & ENVIRONMENTAL CONSEQUENCES CHAPTER 3
term, simplify stand structures to the extent that they would not provide the characteristics of optimal
nesting habitat. Treatments on Pine Mountain are predicated on the premise that re-treatments would not
be required for at least 20 to 30 years. It is therefore reasonable to assume that canopy closure levels and
structural diversity would increase to the point of providing optimal nesting habitat at or near that time.
Thinning prescriptions and tree marking guidelines would target for removal disease trees, particularly
those with dwarf mistletoe, that provide nesting structure such as brooms or forked tops.
The application of prescribe fire would also result in reductions in stand densities but the effects would be
less. Burning would be limited to piling and burning or the burning of jackpot concentrations of fuels.
No burning would be applied in retention patches under either alternative.
Regardless of the treatment, resulting stands would provide good foraging habitat following treatment.
Small and medium tree thinning would create more open stand conditions which allow for greater
maneuverability as well as greater visibility and access to prey species. Mechanical shrub treatments and
the application of prescribe fire would promote greater plant diversity thereby providing habitat for a
wider variety of birds and small mammals.
Long-term, more than 30 years, habitat would become more stable and be of a higher quality with a lower
risk of damage or loss due to insect epidemic or uncharacteristic wildfire. The population of this species
would then become stable.
Additional potential nesting habitat would be provided by the retention patches proposed under these two
alternatives. Alternative 3, because it provides for 20 percent of the unit acreage to be retained in an
untreated condition, would provide more potential habitat than Alternative 2 which would retain only 10
percent of each unit in an untreated condition.
Alternative 3 treats more acres of existing or potential habitat than Alternative 2 and therefore results in
more short-term negative effects (loss of structural diversity, disturbance, reduction in canopy closure).
Treatment prescriptions proposed in Alternative 3 for the nest stand and the PFA were developed with
goshawk objectives in mind. This is not true for Alternative 2.
With the exception of vegetation and fuel reduction treatments proposed or implemented in adjacent
planning areas, none of the current, on-going, or reasonable and foreseeable actions would have any
cumulative or cumulatively significant effects on this species or its habitat. None of these actions would
damage or remove habitat.
The effect of Alternative 1 would be the potential population reduction of the species over this portion of
the landscape in the long-term. Maintaining existing and potential habitat with high tree densities
increases the risk of losing that habitat to insect epidemic and/or wildfire events. Adjacent areas,
including areas with recent, on-going, or proposed vegetation and fuel reduction projects that contain
potential or existing habitat are already part of occupied territories. Therefore, any birds displaced due to
habitat losses associated with insect or wildfire events would likely have to travel long distances to locate
unoccupied habitat and established new territories.
The cumulative effect of implementing Alternatives 2 and 3 would be the short-term reduction in the
quantity, quality, and distribution of nesting habitat associated with dense stands that are also at high risk
of loss due to bark beetle attack and/or wildfire events. Conversely, the quantity, quality, and distribution
of foraging habitat associated with more open stand conditions would increase as a result of vegetation
and fuel reduction treatments. Treatments have been or are nearly completed in the adjacent Fuzzy
planning area. This scheduling of planning and implementation would spread treatments out over an
extended period that could last 10 to 15 years or more resulting in habitat being developed relatively
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