Northern goshawk and its prey in the Black Hills: Habitat assessment

Abstract

The northern goshawk is classified as a Sensitive Species in all USDA Forest Service regions, including on the Black Hills National Forest in western South Dakota and northeastern Wyoming. An assessment was conducted of the quality of northern goshawk nesting and foraging habitat, along with the habitat quality of 22 of the goshawk's prey species. A Delphi (expert panel) evaluation of goshawk and prey habitat in 3,414 watersheds averaging 449 acres (182 ha) in size was completed by wildlife biologists from the Black Hills National Forest. The quality of goshawk nesting and foraging habitat and of prey group habitats was reported individually, then combined for each watershed. The optimum goshawk and prey habitat, totaling 67 watersheds or 34,427 acres (13,932 ha), was distributed throughout the nearly 1.5 million-acre (about 607,000-ha) Black Hills National Forest. Panel members found that the Bear Lodge Mountains, located in northeastern Wyoming, proportionally had the most optimum, high-, and medium-rated habitat. Wildfire, bark beetles, urban encroachment, and timber harvest can negatively affect northern goshawks and their prey's habitat. However, increasing the amount and presence of quaking aspen forests within the Black Hills will most likely improve the habitat of the goshawk by improving the habitat for many of its prey. Using previously articulated conditions as a template in the Forest Vegetation Simulator, we designed an example 100-year silvicultural system to create and maintain forest conditions for the northern goshawk and its prey on the Black Hills Experimental Forest.Keywords: northern goshawk, Accipiter gentilis atricapillus, silviculture, forest structure, bark beetles, ponderosa pine, forest management. AuthorsRussell T. Graham is a research forester (silviculturist) with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station, in Moscow, Idaho. His research activities include the role that coarse woody debris plays in forests, large-scale ecosystem assessment and planning, describing northern goshawk habitat, and developing forest management strategies (silvicultural systems) for a wide array of management objectives. Shelley Bayard deVolo is an environmental coordination specialist for the Larimer County Engineering Department in Fort Collins, Colorado. She studied wildlife for several decades in California, Arizona, Colorado, and South Dakota. During her 15-year tenure with the Rocky Mountain Research Station in Fort Collins, Colorado, she assisted in studying demographic and habitat relationships for northern goshawks on the Kaibab Plateau, Arizona. She also determined genetic diversity for Kaibab goshawks and investigated genetic relationships for goshawk populations across North America.Richard T. Reynolds is a research wildlife biologist with the Rocky Mountain Research Station in Fort Collins, Colorado. He has investigated the relationship between the composition and structure of habitats as well as the demographic performance of apex avian predat...

Mountain pine beetles: A century of knowledge, control attempts, and impacts central to the Black Hills

“…Using the desired conditions for a MPB-resistant stand, a silvicultural system was developed to produce and maintain such conditions while providing habitat for the northern goshawk, a Forest Service sensitive species (Graham et al 2015;Reynolds et al 1992) (fig. 152).…”

“…Using this beginning, an irregular selection system 7 that maintained high forest cover, important for northern goshawks, while incorporating the desired conditions for MPB resistance, was simulated for 100 years (table 5, fig. 155) (Graham et al 2015;Reynolds et al 1992).…”

Differing ponderosa pine forest structures, their growth and yield, and mountain pine beetle impacts: Growing stock levels in the Black Hills

“…As a result, the study that Myers and Boldt precisely started and the thousands of person-days over decades that were used to maintain and monitor the plots were lost to MPBs. Even with this result, forest densities ranging from 40 to 80 square feet per acre of BA still appear to be a reasonable target for offering some resilience and resistance of ponderosa pine forests from epidemic MPBs and unwanted wildfires (Graham et al 2015(Graham et al , 2016.…”

Climate change vulnerability assessment of aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems in the U.S. Forest Service Rocky Mountain Region

“…They drift freely in stream currents and settle onto the substrate at fairly short distances downstream. When stream insects become adults, however, they can travel upstream to deposit eggs (Graham et al 2015). In this manner, they are not depopulated in the upper reaches of streams.…”

“…Logging of ponderosa pine along the Front Range of Colorado was widespread from the mid-1800s to the early 1900s (Veblen and Lorenz 1991). Before the establishment of the USFS in 1897, forests in the Black Hills were extensively clearcut (Boldt and VanDeusen 1974;Graham et al 2015). Forests in southwestern Colorado were also harvested and were affected by domestic grazing in the early 19 th century (Fulé et al 2009).…”