Restoring Native Vegetation on Ungulate Winter Range in and near Yellowstone National Park, U.S.A.

1
Restoring Native Vegetation on Ungulate Winter
Range in and near Yellowstone National Park,
U.S.A.
Stepwise Approach

• Characterize site
• Identify obstacles to success (driving forces)
• Set sustainable goals and success criteria
• Prepare site
• Stabilize site from erosion (soil repair)
• Mechanical
• Cover Crop
• Select species and species source
• Identify and implement seeding techniques
• Manage site to enhance success
• Temporary wildlife exclusion
• Weed control
• Monitor success
• Refine strategies to achieve goals

Hektner, M.M.1, A.L. Burton2, M.L. Pokorny3, R.A.
Renkin1, and P.J. White1 1 National Park Service,
2 USDA Forest Service, 3 Montana State University
Case Study Restoration Strategy for Yellowstone
National Parks North Entrance area
Introduction
Workshop Recommendations
The area immediately north of Yellowstone
National Park, known as the Gardiner Basin, was
deemed essential for elk and pronghorn winter
range and acquired for the park in the 1920s and
1930s. The U.S. Forest Service (Gallatin National
Forest) similarly acquired adjacent lands in the
Gardiner Basin during the 1990s. Due to previous
agricultural land use, semi-arid conditions,
altered hydrologic regimes and soil conditions,
and increased exotic weeds, these acquired lands
support relatively low amounts and quality of
forage for wildlife. Recent unsuccessful
attempts at restoration demonstrated that
additional expertise from diverse disciplines was
needed to effectively restore the degraded
ecosystem to native vegetation and provide higher
quality habitat for wintering ungulates. The
National Park Service, Gallatin National Forest,
and the Center for Invasive Plant Management at
Montana State University convened a facilitated
workshop in April 2005 with state, federal,
academic, and practicing restoration and
reclamation specialists to develop feasible,
ecologically-based restoration and management
strategies for these former agricultural lands.
During the workshop, invited restorationists
were oriented to the sites, identified driving
forces to address during the restoration process,
listed and described values to be achieved
through restoration and the desired vegetation
condition necessary to realize those values,
created restoration strategies, and assessed the
feasibility, cost and timing necessary to
implement the strategies.

• The group identified guiding principles to
  oversee the restoration project
• Begin each restoration project by developing a
  site characterization including soil analysis and
  a conceptual model. This should include soil
  chemistry analysis, characterization of soil
  physical structure, and soil water infiltration.
  All of these will help determine if soil chemical
  and physical properties need to be repaired
  during the implementation phase.
• 2. Develop clear, specific goals with clearly
  defined objectives. They should identify desired
  abiotic and primary process functions such as the
  ability for water and nutrients to be captured
  and incorporated into the soil. They should also
  specify the desired native plant association,
  including composition and structure, spatial
  patterns of vegetation where appropriate, and
  function of the site including use as wildlife
  habitat, scenic values, aesthetic values,
  watershed values, and other important functions.
  Restoration objectives should be realistic in
  spatial and temporal scales. Performance
  goals/success criteria will help measure the
  success of restoration effects and/or guide
  adaptive management.
• 3. Use the best science and technology to tackle
  these restoration projects.
• Use ecological principles to guide the
  restoration strategies. By addressing the ecology
  of the system and the causes of degradation,
  restoration techniques may develop sustainable,
  functional ecosystems that fit and blend into the
  landscape over a period of time. Use techniques,
  equipment and materials to address the basic
  causes of degradation.
• 4. Use a stepwise approach to move sites through
  stages of restoration. Basic ecological processes
  (nutrient, water, energy cycles, succession) have
  been disrupted. Successful restoration will
  depend on repairing these functions so the sites
  can become self-sustaining. A succession
  staircase of several steps (see upper right) may
  be necessary to achieve the restoration goals,
  rather than a one-step approach from the present
  highly degraded condition to a fully functioning
  native plant association.

(if necessary)

• Driving Forces
• Sodium flocculated surface soil and possible
  salt accumulation due to past land uses
  (irrigated agricultural fields, now dominated by
  annual and perennial exotic weeds)
• Semi-arid climate (less than 254 mm
  precipitation/year)
• Soil (wind) erosion
• Heavy winter ungulate use
• Site Restoration Goal Restore functioning water,
  soil, and energy cycles soil properties and a
  sustainable native shrub-grassland plant
  association similar to the site potential.
• Restoration Strategy
• 1. Characterize soils conduct soil analysis to
  assess the type, amount and fine-scale location
  of soil amendments needed
• Determine where to sample transects by
  gradient, changes in soil surface vegetation,
  include reference sites
• Sample at soil depths of 0-6, 6-12, 12-24 inches
• Analyze soils for pH, ESP, organic matter,
  presence/depth of clay pan, particle size
  separation, Na, salt accumulation
• 2. Repair soil properties. If soils are sodic,
  apply gypsum to reduce ESP to lt10
• 3. Rip soil to 1ft depth, at 1ft spacing. Rip
  soils in two perpendicular passes to avoid row
  visual effects. Ripping will incorporate gypsum,
  reduce soil compaction, and decrease water and
  nutrient movement off-site.
• 4. Apply polyacrylamide if necessary to control
  erosion.

• Identify alternatives at every step
• Quantify the
• Feasibility
• Compliance needs
• Cost/benefit
• Timelines

Acknowledgements
Funding for the workshop was provided by the
Yellowstone Park Foundation and Canon U.S.A., the
Rocky Mountains-Cooperative Ecosystem Studies
Unit and the Greater Yellowstone Coordinating
Committee.
Workshop Participants
Workshop Objectives
Mr. Jerry Benson, BFI Native Seeds Dr. Gregory
Eckert, USDI National Park Service Mr. Reginald
Hoff, Big Sky Coal Company Mr. Larry Holzworth,
USDA Natural Resource Conservation Service Dr.
James Jacobs, Montana State University Mr. Dennis
Neuman, Montana State University Dr. Roger
Rosentreter, USDI Bureau of Land Management Dr.
Jerry Schuman, USDA Agricultural Research
Station Dr. Steven Whisenant, Texas AM
University Dr. Cathy Zabinski, Montana State
University

• Workshop objectives were to
• Formulate a directional, coordinated plan for
  the restoration and long- term management of
  approximately 500 hectares of former agricultural
  fields with Yellowstone National Park and
  Gallatin National Forest.
• Develop an action plan to implement
  ecologically-based and sustainable practices for
  restoration of disturbed lands in a multi-use,
  semi-desert ecosystem with high levels of use by
  native ungulates.
• Provide information on the feasibility,
  methodologies, timeframes and costs of
  alternative restoration strategies.

1930s farming operation in the North Entrance
area.
Uncultivated shrub-dominated natural community.
Degraded conditions and soil erosion near
Yellowstone Parks North Entrance.