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Creating the Connection
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Project Lifeline
2009
- OBJECTIVE: Test different monitoring methods to find the “best fit” for our lands, members, and situations
- METHOD: Pilot project targeting members in the Southwest Savanna ecoregion
2010
- OBJECTIVE: Implement program on a membership wide scale.
- METHOD: Expand the project to include all other eco-regions in which we work, including the Western Coulee and Ridge, Southeast Glacial Plains, and Central Sand Hills.
2011 – on
- OBJECTIVE: Followup and improvements
- METHOD: Rare and threatened plant and habitat monitoring to be incorporated into member site visits
- METHOD: Every five years, landowners and ecologist repeat the monitoring to track changes in plant demographics and document management efforts.
Documentation
- Develop protocol and supporting documents for rare, threatened, and species of concern monitoring, also suitable for habitat monitoring.
- Develop protocol and supporting documents for monitoring Reed Canary Grass in wetland habitat.
In 2009, the Blue Mounds Area Project was awarded a grant by the Citizen-Based Monitoring Partnership Program of the Wisconsin DNR to engage private landowners in monitoring the population changes of rare plants on their own land.
The Collaboration
In 2009 and 2010, BMAP is contacting former and current members to re-visit properties on which rare or threatened plants and/or quality habitat was listed during site visits by program ecologists during 1995 – 2007. Why?
- To assist you, the landowner: As part of the monitoring, the landowner and ecologist sit down together to create a written record of the management tasks performed over the past year(s), past and current invasive species risks, and the overall health of the habitat. This information provides a picture of change either for the better, or worse, to guide management decisions into the future.
- To assist WI DNR: Baseline information on plant species or habitat, information that was not collected initially, is used by WI-DNR Endangered Resources to protect plants and habitat in peril.
- To assist BMAP: Our mission is to educate landowners in the ecology and management of prairie and savanna landscapes. Identifying the risks facing quality habitat and plant species on private lands guides our education and outreach efforts.
The Process
- Early Summer: Hands-on Training Workshop on Plant Monitoring for all interested landowners and volunteers. Fact sheets to aid in identification of the species on your property coupled with an intensive ˝ day course in Level 1 monitoring will be provided.
- Summer: Landowners and volunteers entrusted with collecting data. Ecologist available for assistance.
- Fall: Data provided back to BMAP Ecologist for synthesis.
- Future: in five years, we’ll meet back up and do it again …
Results
Definitions
- Endangered: any species whose continued existence as a viable component of the state’s wild animals and plants is determined by the DNR to be in jeopardy on the basis of scientific evidence.
- Threatened: any species which appears likely on the basis of scientific evidence to become endangered within the foreseeable future.
- Species of Concern: species about which some problem of abundance or distribution is suspected but not yet proved.
More about rare species in Wisconsin
This project is supported by a grant from the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources Citizen-Based Monitoring Partnership Program