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valleys and basins. Cottonwood and willow-dominated gallery forests (Populus sp. and Salix sp.} <br />are present along the San Miguel River. <br />The native vegetation in the study area has been extensively altered fhrough 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 rises <br />where irrigation is not possible. A complete description of the vegetation in the study area maybe <br />found in Section 2.04.10. <br />Existing Wildlife Habitat Descriptions <br />The majority ofthe native habitat in the New Horizon 2 study area has been converted to agricultural <br />production through an extensive irrigation networkwhich drawswaterfrom the San Miguel River. <br />The wildlife habitats designated herein, while comparable to the vegetation communities recognized <br />and mapped in Section 2.04.10 were further defined based on major structural differences of the <br />canopy. The selection and utilization of a habitat by a parficularspecies orspecies group is typically <br />based on the physiognomic characterization of that habitat (Ricklefs 1979). Therefore, the low <br />stature and dominance of herbaceous vegetationjustified combining the irrigated hayland/pasture, <br />irrigated pasture, and irrigated cropland into a single wildlife habitattype. The intensive utilization <br />and frequent flood irrigation of all three of these types limited their significant use by wildlife. Map <br />2.04.11-1 does, however, differentiate among irrigated 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 ofcertain <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 migratorywaterfowl. The vegetation studyboundarydidnotincludethisarea. Generally, <br />the mapped wildlife habitats are not resolved on as fine a scale as the vegetative communities <br />because of the fragmented nature ofthe native vegetation and the small areal extent of some ofthe <br />vegetal map unit components. The acreages of each vegetation/wildlife type from Map 2.04.11-1 <br />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 literally occur in <br />all the habitattypes in a matter of seconds, which tends to cloud determinations of habitat affinities. <br />(REVISED 6/27/01) 2.04.11-3 <br />