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Northern goshawk: One northern goshawk was observed taking a snowshoe hare in the Lick <br />Creek drainage. Goshawks have been observed in the Deep Creek area during spring-summer <br />surveys conducted in 2004, 2005 and 2007. The presence of the goshawk indicates these birds <br />potentially winter in the general area. However, it is probably a limited amount of use and <br />proposed activities associated with the mining operations would have little affect on one or more <br />of these birds that may winter in the general area. The fact that much of the area where mining <br />operations are planned is in gamble oak/mountain shrub habitat where the birds do not nest <br />reduces the chances of a nesting bird being affected. They undoubtedly forage in the area, but <br />the small areas of human activity associated with the operations would have little effect on their <br />foraging activities. <br />MANAGEMENT INDICATOR SPECIES <br />The USDA Forest Service, Region 2, lists four species of terrestrial vertebrates which winter in <br />this portion of the Gunnison National Forest as Management Indicator Species (Table 6). The <br />purpose of this section of the report is to address only those species that are known to or possibly <br />winter in the area and determine if the proposed activities are likely to affect any of these species <br />or their winter habitat within the project area. <br />Table 6 <br />MANAGEMENT INDICATOR SPECIES <br />Species Habitat Present Species Present <br />Terrestrial vertebrates: <br />Elk Yes Yes <br />American marten Yes Yes <br />Northern goshawk Yes Yes <br />erriam's Wild Turkey Yes No (1) <br />1. Turkeys are present in the project area, but.typically not during the winter. <br />Elk: Observation data provided by Brandon Diamond (CDOW, per. comm, 2008) of counts <br />made in January of 2007 and 2008 showed a different amount of winter use in the project area by <br />elk between the two years. During January 2007 there were approximately 100 elk observed in <br />the general area from Deep Creek to Minnesota Creek. This includes the area where the E-Seam <br />project is located. In January 2008 he observed no elk up the Dry Fork and side drainages above <br />Minnesota Creek Reservoir. This is the area where most activities associated with the proposed <br />operations would occur. Brandon indicated that numbers of elk observed during winter aerial <br />20