Nebraskaland

AUGUST-SEPTEMBER 2015 • NEBRASKAland 41 acquire and manage land in Nebraska for the American burying beetle. The developers of the 400-megawatt Grande Prairie wind farm agreed to do the same. The project, owned by BHE Renewables, a subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway Energy, and set to begin this fall near O'Neill, will be the largest wind farm in the state. Hoback said similar conservation measures are regularly part of projects that cross beetle habitat in Oklahoma. "It's kind of like creating a park system for the beetle," he said. Harms said the American burying beetle has played a role in planning for the R-project, NPPD's power line. He said the utility recognized it would cross through American burying beetle range and rightly coordinated with the Service and the Commission in anticipation of applying for a permit to allow for the incidental take of beetles during construction and project maintenance. While the disturbance won't be as great as it would for a pipeline, tower footings and roads will affect the insect. Harms couldn't say whether or not the Service would approve the permit once NPPD applies for it, but that they would first work with the utility to develop a habitat conservation plan that specifies avoidance, minimization, and habitat compensation measures for the beetle. A final environmental impact statement for the project, the Service's evaluation of how a project might affect the environment, is expected to be complete by late next year, Harms said. Construction is tentatively set to begin in 2017. Loess Canyons Within the Loess Canyons region, the American burying beetle population appears to be stable and may even be growing. If habitat work there continues, it could continue to grow. T.J. Walker, head of the Commission's Habitat Partners section in the agency's North Platte office, has been conducting annual surveys for the insect in the Loess Canyons area in southwestern Nebraska each August since 2007, the longest running survey in the state. He and other Commission staff set 28 traps about five miles apart along county road and highway right-of-ways throughout the region. Walker said the survey data isn't perfect. Beetles aren't active and easily trapped when it's hot and dry, conditions that are common that time of year. "When conditions are good it probably gives us a fairly good idea of the population," he said. But trapping has shown that there tend to be more American burying beetles where there are fewer eastern red cedar trees. Walker said they catch the most beetles in two traps set in a 14,000-acre area that burned in a wildfire south of Gothenburg in 2002, wiping out nearly all of the cedars in the process. "It's still somewhat speculative, but we think the main reason is an increase in cedars decreases wildlife diversity. So it reduces the potential available food items that beetles can feed upon," Walker said. The 338,000-acre Loess Canyons region is one of 40 areas deemed a Biologically Unique Landscape by the Commission through its Natural Legacy Program, part of a nationwide effort to address the needs of declining wildlife. Cedars exploded in the area in recent decades, spreading from the deep canyons into prairies and reducing the amount of forage available for cattle and the amount of habitat available for wildlife at the rate of 2 percent per year. "In the northern parts of the canyons, it's really not uncommon to see 50 to 60 percent of these properties or more infested with cedar trees," Walker said. "If people don't take care of them, the next thing you know you're losing ridgetops and valleys." When that happens, the cost of grazing livestock escalates to the point where it leaves landowners "struggling to justify owning their property." People are taking care of them. In 2002, a group that included ranchers, the Commission, the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service, Pheasants Forever, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and other conservation interests formed the Loess Canyons Rangeland Alliance. The group has since worked to stem cedar encroachment, acquiring a considerable amount of equipment its members have used to conduct prescribed burns on more than 20,000 acres in the region, including cooperative efforts that have neighbors working together on burns that cross property lines. Often this work follows mechanical removal of the trees. The group's success has led to the formation of the Central Platte Prescribed Burn Association in the eastern portion of the Loess Canyons. Additionally, one of six coordinating wildlife biologists in the state is dedicated to the region. These staff University of Nebraska-Kearney graduate student Adrienne Conley of Ocono Falls, Wisconsin, peels away layers of soil from a tube to determine the depths at which the American burying beetle and similar carrion beetles spent the winter as Elizabeth Jorde of Tracy, Minnesota, pulls another tube from the ground. T.J. WALKER

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