Laserfiche WebLink
• valleys and basins. Cottonwood and willow-dominated gallery forests (Pobulus sp. and Salix sp.) <br />are present along the San Miguel River. <br />The native vegetation in the study area has been extensively altered through irrigation. Only <br />remnants of the pinyon-juniper woodland and sagebrush shrubland remain in the complex of <br />irrigated pastures, hay fields, and croplands. These remnant native sites are situated on small <br />rises where irrigation is not possible. A complete description of the vegetation in the study area <br />may be found in Section 2.04.10. <br />Existing Wildlife Habitat Descriptions <br />The majority of the native habitat in the New Horizon 2 study area has been converted to <br />agricultural production through an extensive irrigation network which draws water from the San <br />Miguel River. The wildlife habitats designated herein, while comparable to the vegetation <br />communities recognized and mapped in Section 2.04.10 were further defined based on major <br />structural differences of the canopy. The selection and utilization of a habitat by a particular <br />species or species group is typically based on the physiognomic characterization of that habitat <br />(Ricktefs 1979). Therefore, the low stature and dominance of herbaceous vegetation justified <br />• combining the irrigated hayland/pasture, irrigated pasture, and irrigated cropland into a single <br />wildlife habitat type. The intensive utilization and frequent flood irrigation of all three of these types <br />limited their significant use by wildlife. Map 2,04.1 i-1 does, however, differentiate among irrigated <br />pasture, irrigated hay and cropland. <br />The wildlife habitat acreages as presented in this section vary from those presented in the <br />Vegetation and Land Use sections (Sections 2.04.10 and 2.04.3). This is accounted for by the <br />manner in which the habitats were stratified and the slightly differing mapped boundaries of certain <br />habitats, particularly in the eastern portion of the study and proposed permit area. In addition, the <br />wildlife study area encompassed the Nucla sewage lagoons because of the importance of these <br />facilities to migratory waterfowl. The vegetation study boundary did not include this area. <br />Generally, the mapped wildlife habitats are not resolved on as fine a scale as the vegetative <br />communities because of the fragmented nature of the native vegetation and the small areal extent <br />of some of the vegetal map unit components. The acreages of each vegetation/wildlife type from <br />Map 2.04.11-1 are presented in Table 2.04.11-1A and B. <br />The fragmented and interdigitated nature of the designated habitats, as well as their limited extent <br />(the entire study area is 628.2 acres), made the location of areas sufficiently large for wildlife <br />sampling purposes difficult. Furthermore, many species (particularly birds) could literatly occur in <br />• all the habitat types in a matter of seconds, which tends to cloud determinations of habitat affinities. <br />(Revised March 2006) 2.04.11-6 <br />