Habitat

Habitat Projects 2016:

I thought for the end of the year I would do a glimpse back on all the accomplishments that MWA and the biologist position had done in the Minnesota Valley Wetland Management District.

Early in the year is when a lot of office work is done. One very useful tool that I have been using for refining wetland and prairie restorations is spatially rectifying PDF aerial photography from years all the way back to 1937. By giving the PDF a spatial signature I can toggle between the years and even show them all at once at different transparencies. The old aerial photos have a lot to say. I can make observations as to where drain tile is, what the historic vegetation and land-uses where, where were the wetlands and how did they get drained.

This tool helps in making preliminary delineations for available tracts of land. It also helps when making wetland restoration designs. A lot of the seed mixes I design for WMA’s or WPA’s are specific to what that area used to have historically. The old aerial images help in investigating what vegetation used to be. Myself and the partners for fish and wildlife biologist at Mn Valley WMD/NWR completed prairie and wetland concept designs for 4 newly acquired tracts: One in Carver Co, Two in Blue Earth Co, and One in Sibley Co. We also were able to draft a wetland restoration design for a newly acquired refuge land.

Also, this tool helped in designing the wetland restoration plans at Tiger Marsh WMA north and also the seed mixes for Tiger Marsh WMA north. I figured out amount of sediment to scrape out of wetland basins by taking soil samples and figuring out the soil texture, colors, and effervescence.

This year also had some grant projects. Two projects are partnered with pheasants forever, MN DNR, and USFWS. This grant is the EPL (enhance public lands) Phase II and the two projects are: Tree Removal around the wetlands at Hahn Lake WPA (Sibley Co) and Diversity Seeding at Carver Highlands WMA (Carver Co). Another grant was the Metro CPL (Conservation Partner Legacy) partnered with Mn Valley Trust, USFWS, and MWA. This tract will have its wetlands restored this winter/spring. The last grant that I had going on this year was the ECP (Expedited Conservation Project) with partners Izzak Walton League of Owatonna and Mn Pheasants Inc. Steele County. This grant was for Straight Creek WPA in Steele County and restoring its uplands to native grasses and forbs. This project will need release mows next year and then the project will be closed out.

Throughout the year there were various tree removal projects on WPAs and Refuge lands. Large scale tree removal was done on Preuss WPA (Le Sueur Co); Cedar trees were removed from Rice Lake WPA (Le Sueur Co); Cedar trees were removed from Hurley WPA (Rice Co); Cottonwoods were removed from Cobb River WPA (Blue Earth Co); all trees near the Rapids Lake Shop (Carver Co) and on the bluff hillside were removed; Locust and trees along the wetland edge at Perbix WPA (Carver Co) were removed; Some wetland basins at Straight Creek WPA (Steele Co) had willow and cottonwoods removed; Wetland fringe at Hartung WPA (Sibley Co) were removed.

A big tree removal project was removing all the woody species in the understory of the oak savanna at Watonwan WPA (Blue Earth Co). Woody species were removed by a Fecon attachment for a Bobcat, Chainsaw, and Brush saws. Depending on the slope various methods were used. By creating a bed of chaff and limbs will help fire carry through the savanna.

My self and the Wetland Management District at Mn Valley WMD/NWR hosted two events for the Regional Office (Region 3) and the Regional Director. The first event was a presentation on efforts to provide pollinator and monarch habitat on private lands through the Partners for Fish and Wildlife Program. The second was a seed harvest and collection of forbs and grasses utilized by monarchs and pollinators. That seed was used to seed a patch in front of the USFWS Mn Valley NWR Rapids Lake Unit sign.

Two CPL projects with MWA and USFWS were completed this summer; one was for removing cedars and removing brome and Kentucky bluegrass to establish a native prairie, and the second project is to establish native prairie and restore wetlands.

This year I have also met with a few private landowners to explore options to do prairie or wetland restoration on their properties.

The last couple weeks of this month I have been at the MWA headquarters. Here I have been building the MWA Historical Project database. Years from 2015 through 1979 have been recorded. The vision is to publish this data as a Google Earth platform on the MWA website. Stay tuned for details.

Chapters: If you would like to have a map made for your chapter banquet, please give me at least two weeks’ notice prior to your banquet or request delivery date. Also I can print out a poster size map for you or I can email you a PDF or JPEG for you to take to Kinkos (etc.). My Contact is matthew_stasica@fws.gov.

Have a great rest of the year and new year,

For the Ducks,

Matt

Since the last Biologist Blog back in July, the two summer interns that helped this season have returned back to school hopefully in pursuit of a wildlife or natural resource degree to better help conserve and protect our waterfowl and habitat. In the meantime, water levels in most of all the MN Valley Wetland Management District’s counties have been really high. It is one of those years where you can see the drained wetlands in the agricultural fields. It has been a challenge to keep water levels at prime dabbler and diver depths; in addition, tough to keep wetlands dry for a fall prescribed burn.

The rain has been tough for active tree removal activities, too. With on-and-off rain it is tough to effectively chemical treat trees in prairie uplands. Luckily there have been a couple windows for active tree removal. Hopefully some of the prairie tracts with tree invasion problems can get burned this fall for effective tree kill.

Lately I have been involved with my duties as the Minnesota Wildlife Society’s Secretary. The other week we had a workshop on wetland management across a continuum. Attendance included: State, Federal agencies, SWCD’s, private consultants, and non-government and nonprofit organizations.

There are a couple grants (CPL - Conservation Partners Legacy) that I am involved in and are waiting for approval. The first is for the restoration of 160 acres to prairie and grassland in Blue Earth County. The other is the restoration and enhancement of lands around the Hennepin County Works Facility in Medina, MN. Active grant projects right now include: Pollinator Enhancement on a 80 acre Wildlife Management Area in Carver county (Pheasants Forever EPL Grant II), Sibley County Waterfowl Production Area tree removal around wetland margins (Pheasants Forever EPL Grant II), Steele County upland restoration 20 acres (ECP - Expedited Conservation Project - Izzak Walton League of Owatonna and Minnesota Pheasants Steele County) and Klehr wetland restoration - Scott County (Metro CPL - MN Valley Trust Inc.).

I hope everyone got out to enjoy the Waterfowl Opener and enjoyed the great waterfowling opportunities we have in Minnesota. Opener was a beautiful morning and hopefully everyone as a great of time as I did. Until then….

Many of the projects I am working this early summer include managing water control structures on some of the Wetland Management District’s wetlands and also prairie and wetland restoration. The large bursts of rain have been great in providing pooling water habitat on many of the District’s wetlands. I have been checking on control structures to see that they don’t get clogged with debris and get plugged.

Over the last month, I have seeded some areas that used to be agricultural land to prairie. The seed mixes are custom to the soils, landscape, slope, and aspect of the project area. The mixes are also designed to provide nesting habitat for waterfowl and migratory birds, and also provide nectar sources for bees and other pollinator species.

Early June, myself along with two seasonal interns and a bio-tech assisted in installing a school yard habitat project. This was a collaborative effort amongst MN Valley WMD, the State Partners Program, and the Twin Cities Field Office. The habitat project was seeding and planting over 250+ plugs of native grasses and forbs at Orchard Lake Elementary school. K – 5th grade students helped planting plugs and heeling in seed.

I have also completed two project sites that were funded by a CPL grant (Conservation Partners Legacy Grant Program) that Minnesota Waterfowl Association provided match on. The first site was a permanently protected easement of smooth brome field that had numerous cedar trees. The project goals for this site were to remove the cedars and convert the smooth brome field to a native prairie.

The other site was a previously farmed agricultural field with drained wetland basins. The project goals for the site were to plant a native prairie that would provide hay to Angus cows and restore drained wetland basins.

I also have been supervising a couple of seasonal summer interns. Hunter Glassrud is a student at Stevens Point working towards a Bachelors in Wildlife Ecology. He is an avid deer hunter and bass fisherman. He enjoys this internship because he gets a variety of jobs every day. The other seasonal intern is Nicole Moldstad, a student at Bethany Lutheran College in Mankato working towards a Bachelors in Biology. She likes sports, especially soccer, and fishing up at the cabin. She enjoys this internship because she gets to work outside and handle a variety of jobs.