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The wildlife habitat acreages as presented in this Tab vary from those presented in the <br /> Vegetation and Land Use tabs (Tabs 10 and 4, respectively). This is accounted for by the <br /> manner in which the habitats were stratified and the slightly differing mapped boundaries <br /> of certain habitats, particularly in the eastern portion of the study and proposed permit <br /> area. In addition, the wildlife study area encompassed the Nucla sewage lagoons because <br /> of the importance of these facilities to migratory waterfowl. The vegetation study <br /> boundary did not include this area. Generally, the mapped wildlife habitats are not <br /> resolved on as fine a scale as the vegetative communities because of the fragmented nature <br /> of the native vegetation and the small areal extent of some of the vegetal map unit <br /> components. A wildlife habitat map is presented in Exhibit 11-3. <br /> The acreages of each type are presented in Table 1. <br /> The fragmented and interdigitated nature of the designated habitats, as well as their <br /> limited extent (the entire study area is 628.2 acres), made the location of areas <br /> sufficiently large for wildlife sampling purposes difficult. Furthermore, many species <br /> (particularly birds) could literally occur in all the habitat types in a matter of <br /> seconds, which tends to cloud determinations of habitat affinities. Consequently, <br /> sampling efforts were concentrated in the largest, most representative habitat blocks that <br /> could be found in the study area. A brief description of each habitat found in the Nucla <br /> East study area follows. <br /> Farmsteads and Orchards. The farmstead and orchard habitat is characterized by trees and <br /> large ornamental shrubs. This habitat occurs in association with farmsteads and support <br /> buildings or exists as small acreages or clusters of trees that are not associated with <br /> any residential structures. The trees comprising this habitat consist of several native <br /> and exotic species (see Tab 10, Appendix 10-1) none of which probably occurred in the <br /> study area prior to the introduction of the irrigation network. Cottonwoods and other <br /> large shade trees are present near homes or along irrigation ditches where sufficient <br /> water is available. Orchards, in various states of abandonment, contain apple, pear, and <br /> apricot and are usually situated adjacent to abandoned or occupied homesites. <br /> Approximately 5.9 percent of the study area and 2.9 percent of the proposed permit area is <br /> comprised of this habitat type (Table 1). <br /> Swales. The swale habitat is distributed along small drainageways and in other low-lying <br /> spots where irrigation tail water collects. The vegetation of such areas is comprised of <br /> sedges (Carex spp. and Scirpus spp.), rushes (Juncus spp.) cattail (Typha latifolia), and <br /> willows (Salix exigua). A given area is typically dominated by only one of the above <br /> 11-2-3 Revised 04/11/88 <br />