The South Warner project area contains approximately 69,000 acres of mixed ownership and is located about fifteen miles east of Lakeview, Oregon. Within the project area, BLM-administered lands account for 79% (54,202 acres) of the project area with the remaining 21% of the lands (14,813 acres) in private ownership (see map at right). Click the image to view larger.

The general purpose of the project is to remove existing post-settlement western juniper (Juniperus occidentalis) to improve habitats for special status and publicly important wildlife species such as Greater Sage-Grouse, mule deer, bighorn sheep and pronghorn antelope and maintain or restore sagebrush steppe habitats to proper functioning condition.

The selected alternative, which was the preferred Alternative in the Environmental Assessment, would remove post-settlement juniper from up to 45% (24,670 acres) of the BLM-administered lands within the Project Area for a period of up to 10 years. Prescribed burning and mechanical treatment operations would concentrate on Phase I (3,870 acres) and Phase II (19,433 acres) juniper stands; only 1,367 acres of Phase III stands would be treated.

Actual treatment methods would involve different combinations of cutting, prescribed burning, and slash removal as shown in the table at right. Cutting would be by hand and/or machinery, particularly around sensitive sites such as aspen or ponderosa pine stands. Hand cutting that would require no further slash removal with the use of prescribed fire would occur on over 25% of the acres. On some acres, firewood sales would be used as a form of slash removal, subject to normal BLM seasonal restrictions on firewood cutting for wet soil conditions and off-road travel.

Areas that were to be broadcast or pile burned would be rested from livestock grazing for a minimum of two growing seasons or longer until an interdisciplinary team determined that resource objectives have been met. The selected alternative was designed to leave some juniper stands untreated. These would be stands made up predominantly of pre-settlement trees and some young stands that that would develop into future old-growth.

 

Prescription	Acres
Hand cut & leave	5,160
Hand cut & broadcast burn	1,250
Hand cut & lop	1,503
Hand cut & single tree burn	11,547
Hand cut & firewood & single tree burn	3,475
Hand cut & single tree burn with seeding	362
Hand or machine cut, pile & burn	1,373
Total	24,670

Although some treatments began as early as 2007, before implementation of the preferred alternative, most activities were implemented between 2012 and 2014. Through 2014, a total of 16,032 ac (6,488 ha) of juniper trees were cut and 5,627 ac (2,277 ha) burned; about 20% of the project area (Severson et al. 2016, Figure 1). Click the image to view larger.

Short descriptions of each treatment technique are as follows (Severson et al. 2016):

• Cut & leave involved cutting trees without additional slash treatment and generally occurred in areas with trees of low size and density.


• Cut & lop consisted of felling trees and removing tall branches from tree boles to reduce vertical structure and avian predator perches.


• Cut & burn occurred with larger, denser trees to expose the understory and encourage growth. Generally, cut trees were left to dry for about one year and then burned individually. Effort was made to burn only individual trees to reduce shrub mortality and burn scars.


• Cut, pile, & burn involved felling trees, cutting into manageable pieces, and stacking in small piles for burning when soils were frozen. This technique was used less often due to cost but was deemed necessary in some areas of high tree density to reduce the area impacted by slash burning.

Before and after photos of two treated areas in the South Warner project area are shown in these figures from Holmes et al. (2016), Figure 1.

Listen to this video to hear a Fuels Management Specialist’s considerations and lessons learned from the South Warner Juniper Removal Project. Please note, this video shows the South Warners landscape, post-treatment (2016).

Listen to this video to hear some of the lessons learned from the South Warner juniper removal project. Please note, this video shows the South Warners landscape, post-treatment (2016).

Sage-grouse and sagebrush-dependent songbirds have responded quickly and positively to the conifer removal treatments conducted as part of the South Warner juniper removal project.

Female sage-grouse were captured in the project area and in an adjacent, non-treated control area, and fitted with radio-transmitters to track their movements and find their nests (Severson et al. 2016). The researchers found increased nesting in and near juniper removal treatment areas through time, beginning within two to four years after conifer removal (Severson et al. 2016, Figure 2A).

At the landscape scale, the area of nesting habitat and propensity to nest in mountain big sagebrush (MBS) habitats also increased through time in the treatment area relative to the control area
(Severson et al. 2016,
Figures 3B and 3D).

Although detailed mapping data on shrub cover was not available in this study, the data strongly suggest that sage-grouse shifted their nests into higher-elevation sagebrush habitats (mountain big sagebrush and mountain shrub) where conifer encroachment was greatest and most removal occurred. In fact, 29% of nesting females in the project area relative to the control increased their use of mountain big sagebrush habitats in and around treated areas.

Results of this work also indicated the large extent of the effect of conifer removal, shown by a strong monotonically decreasing trend in selection with distance to treatments out to 5000 meters (3.1 miles) (Severson et al. 2016, Figure 2B).

This suggests that the benefits of conifer removal to sage-grouse extend far beyond the immediate boundary of the treatment unit. However, more research on this distance effect is required and Severson et al. (2016) suggest that treatments should be made within 1000 meters (0.62 miles) of occupied habitat to increase nesting probability over the short term.