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Regal Meadows WMA

Purpose of the project: To harvest local genotype prairie grass seed so that it is compatible with remnant native prairie in the area. The Nature Conservancy has Preserve property immediately adjacent to the NE side of the Regal Meadows WMA that is also open to public hunting. There is also some remnant native prairie on the north end of the WMA as well as native prairie on the private land north and northwest of the existing WMA which extends into the Stearns Prairie Heritage WMA to the northwest. The harvested native prairie seed will be used to seed down 16 acres of cropland on the Regal Meadows WMA so that it will provide quality wildlife habitat for a wide variety of grassland species. The New London DNR Wildlife office is working with an organic farmer on and adjacent to the WMA so the plans are to mow the site at least twice the first year following the seeding and 1-2 times the second year to aid in the establishment of the prairie plants.

Volunteer Tree and Brush removal on Kandiyohi County WMA's
Purpose of the project: The four listed sites are suffering from heavy encroachment of trees and brush in the existing grassland to the extent that they provide extremely poor habitat for grassland wildlife species and are affecting the use of adjacent wetlands by waterfowl and other wetland wildlife species. The project on these four sites will include contracting to have as many of the small trees and brush cut and removed from the proposed sites as possible on these WMA's to start opening up the grassland areas. Current plans are to consider the use of the Bio-baler for the small tree and brush removal. This will be followed by contracting to have the larger trees cut down and piled up for burning. The stumps will be treated with Pathfinder or a similar chemical when necessary to further open up the grassland areas. At the same time it will be necessary to contract for hand treatment and/or mechanical chemical treatment of the smaller trees and brush that were cut and removed from the site to prevent them from quickly growing back and taking over the area. Following these treatments over the next two years, the existing grasses are expected to recover sufficiently to allow for controlled burns to stimulate the grasses and potentially prepare some of the sites for future seeding to prairie grasses and forbs. The Burbank WMA site does contain some remant native prairie and this site will require hand treatment with chemicals of the cut stumps in order to minimize any impact to native prairie plants. The end result of the removal of the volunteer trees and brush is to improve the quality of the grasslands in order to once again make them attractive to nesting ducks, pheasants and a variety of non-game species as well as to provide loafing, brood rearing and escape cover for many grassland wildlife species.

MWA Shetek Prairie Lake Maria Management Area Wetland Restoration
The recently acquired Lake Maria Wildlife Management Area has hydric Type II wetland Soils interspersed throughout the tract and include existing 7 acre basin, restorable wetlands of 25 acres, 8 acres 7 smaller wetlands of 3 acres or less and a portion of 2 restorable wetlands on the property boundary. This project is a 20-30 acre basin that has a drainage area of approximately 380 acres. This will restore an existing wetland and continue to enhance the Lake Maria WMA as a key component in water quality and clarity to the multitude of lakes and wetlands surrounding it. The benefit will be in restoring a Basin back to it original purpose, both migratory and song bird will benefit as well a multitude of other species.

Helliksen Prairie WPA Acquisition
Helliksen Prairie WPA is a 1700 acre Waterfowl Production Area in Becker County. It is frequently cited on FWS websites as one of the jewels of western Minnesota's Waterfowl Production Area program. Most of the site is native prairie and is the most diverse prairie so far censused in Becker County with almost 90 species of upland forbs. This summer several populations of state threatened plants were found on the site. The WPA has several prairie chicken leks on or immediately adjacent to its border. In 2009 one sandhill crane nest was found on the WPA. The WPA produces numerous broods of waterfowl.

This grant will purchase a 156 acre tract adjacent to the WPA. This land is currently in tax forfeit and scheduled to be auctioned by the county. The Detroit Lakes Wetland Management District and Minnesota Waterfowl Association have formally requested that the land be removed from auction and held for a conservation buyer. The county has agreed to do this. The wetlands on these acres are permanently protected as wetland mitigation acres. However, the surrounding uplands are not protected. If purchased for agricultural production the uplands can be disced and planted to rowcrops. If not purchased quickly, the county will be forced to place the land back into public auction and it would undoubtedly purchased for rowcrop production.

The wetland and upland restoration on this site was done in cooperation with the USFWS in the late 1960s. The seed planted in the uplands was harvested from the adjacent native prairie on Helliksen WPA. Thus, the conservation community has already invested significantly in these acres. Losing these to agricultural production would waste all these past efforts. Maintaining these acres would increase the amount of contiguous, ecologically diverse grasslands to approximately 1900 acres. This would make the area one of the largest blocks of grassland nesting habitat in Becker County and in the larger Red River Valley Beach Ridge landscape. There are several other WPAs and WMAs in the general area and this WPA is part of the FWS's Four Square Mile surveys.
Once purchased these acres will be combined with the existing WPA. The MWA initiated this grant during conversations with staff and volunteers at the DLWMD offices. The MWA and DLWMD will work cooperatively through the entire process of working with the county until signs are posted on the borders of the new. As a WPA the public would have full access for all types of regularly permitted outdoor recreation. For grassland nesting birds, science tells us that bigger is better. Any time we can add patches of habitat to existing habitat to create larger blocks we will increase both the diversity and adundance of grassland nesting birds as well as plants, mammals, and herps.

WCW WPA Wetland Restorations
The Detroit Lakes Wetland Management District (WMD) covers five counties and 160 Waterfowl Production Areas. There are currently 18 WPAs that have been restored to native grasses and forbs but wetland reconstruction on the sites still need to be completed. There are approximately 390 wetlands basins to restore across the district and this grant proposal is part of an overall strategy to restore all wetlands in the next 3-4 years. Each state dollar used in these projects can be matched to Federal dollars through the North American Wetlands Conservation Act (NAWCA) to double the amount of habitat restored on Minnesota's landscape. These activities are part of the overall strategy by the DNR, USFWS, Ducks Unlimited, Minnesota Waterfowl Association and others to restore wetlands and hydrology to western Minnesota's prairie region. While some wetland restorations are being conducted through the Habitat Corridors Partnership, the partnership does not cover these two counties.

Several recently published climate models show that the 'duck factory' of central North Dakota may disappear under most climate change scenarios and those weather patterns will shift to western Minnesota (see most recent edition of MN Conservation Volunteer). If large numbers of wetlands are not quickly restored in western Minnesota, the effects on continental waterfowl populations could be catastrophic.

This project will most immediately benefit breeding waterfowl in the WMD. However, numerous other species of wetland/grassland dependent wildlife, many of which are listed as state species in greatest conservation need (SGCN), can also benefit from these restored acres. These include the American and least bittern, swamp and Nelson's sharp-tailed sparrow, marsh and sedge wren, and yellow, King, and Virginia rails. Wetland acres in the Red River Valley provide additional indirect social benefits by reducing storm water run-off, erosion, and downsteam flooding. Wetlands also help purify water and recharge aquifers.

In each restoration silt will be removed from each basin, increasing its water holding capacity, removing weed seeds, and hopefully exposing pre-fill wetland seed banks. Silt/Fill will be used to fill the entire length of the ditch and dirt will be feathered into adjacent uplands. The areas will then be seeded to locally collected wetland seed mixes to supplement existing seed banks. This represents the Best Management Practice (BMP) for wetland restoration at this time.

Most of the WPAs in this proposal are close or adjacent to WPAs, WMAs, or wetland conservation easements and thus are parts of larger landscape level habitat complexes. Most of the seed needed for these projects need to be hand-collected. Local ecotype seed will be collected by USFWS summer interns as well as MCC crews employed at nearby refuges from native prairie sites on existing WPAs in the same county as the restoration activity. (Seed collecting generally is not a full-time project. We can work with nearby refuges to use their crews for 1-2 days at a time when a particular species is ready to collect.)