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allowed in the North Fork portion of the small game unit. <br />• Suitable food plants and roost trees are probably the <br />limiting factors for this population. <br />Turkeys normally prefer forest-edge situations where clear- <br />ings and thick cover occur together. They are dependent <br />on grass shoots and succulent fortis in the spring and <br />early summer when fruits and seeds are not available. <br />Some method of opening up the thick oak brush stands in <br />the planning unit would improve turkey habitat, but a <br />turkey population increase would not be guaranteed. <br />Potential areas for this treatment are very limited. <br /> Waterfowl <br /> The planning unit contributes a very small amount of <br /> waterfowl production to the Pacific Flyway. Several <br /> broods were observed on the reservoirs in the Needle Rock <br /> area and a small amount of production is assumed on the <br /> North Fork of the Gunnison River. The area attains its <br />• highest waterfowl populations during the late fall and <br /> winter when migrating birds stop over or winter in the <br /> area. Wintering birds are limited to the North Fork of <br /> the Gunnison River and the Gunnison River below Delta, <br /> about the only open water at that time of year. Hunting <br /> pressure and harvest is not known, but it is substantially <br /> less than the Delta area down river where more hunters are <br /> present. <br />Small ponds and reservoirs on national resource lands are <br />not good habitat for waterfowl. They are overgrown with <br />aquatic and emergent vegetation and supply little open <br />water. Paonia Reservoir is hopeless, as far as waterfowl <br />habitat is concerned. The water is too turbid and water <br />level fluctuations are too drastic to allow any aquatic or <br />emergent vegetation growth. <br />• 20 <br />NR-WL-IIII 4/76 RWM <br />