Access digital copies of guides and regulations publications from the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission.
Issue link: http://digital.outdoornebraska.gov/i/1449393
20 B3) NGPC TECHNICAL AND PARTNERSHIP ASSISTANCE AFFECTING NGO CONSERVATION PROGRAMS Strategies • Use the best available information about pheasant-habitat relations, landscape effects on pheasant population potential, and social science on landowner attitudes to provide technical assistance to NGO programs on pheasant friendly practices in priority areas • Create and maintain more and higher quality habitat in pheasant priority areas by working collaboratively with NGOs to produce feasible, attractive incentives for private landowners • Pursue additional funding sources to increase the scale and array of incentives • Create and maintain partnerships to build capacity to provide pheasant-friendly technical assistance Tactics CONTINUE partnering with Pheasants Forever, Northern Prairies Land Trust, Bird Conservancy of the Rockies, Rainwater Basin Joint Venture/U�S� Fish and Wildlife Service, National Wild Turkey Federation, City of Lincoln/Lower Platte South NRD, and others to employ wildlife biologists in key locations throughout the state to deliver technical assistance to private landowners CONTINUE to seek opportunities to partner with NGOs to create and improve pheasant habitat (e�g�, Small Grain Initiative with Lewis and Clark NRD) and/or increase public access (e�g�, OFW matching funds provided by Lower Loup NRD) B4) HABITAT MANAGEMENT ACTIVITIES ON NGPC WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT AREAS Strategies • Use the best available information about pheasant-habitat relations and landscape effects on pheasant population potential to identify WMAs to manage intensively for pheasants • Use all available means to provide ideal pheasant habitat (i�e�, "make every acre count") on high-priority WMAs • Emphasize habitat improvements on private lands surrounding high-priority WMAs to maximize pheasant population responses to habitat management on WMAs Tactics CONTINUE the Early Successional Habitat Initiative on WMAs, with the goal of resetting plant succession (through herbicide treatment, disking, or other forms of disturbance) on 25% of the tillable acres available on high-priority WMAs each year (more than 57,000 acres were treated in 2020) CONTINUE to conduct intensive management of pheasant habitat (e�g�, early successional habitat management, invasive tree removal, suppression of exotic cool-season grasses, etc�) on high-priority WMAs within the priority areas CONTINUE the Habitat Share program in cooperation with Pheasants Forever and other conservation partners to increase management capacity on public lands (more than 37,000 acres on 130 WMAs have been positively impacted through Habitat Share since 2010), and grow the program to its financial and logistical limits CONTINUE to develop agreements with non-NGPC entities owning WMA lands to manage more efficiently those lands for pheasants and other grassland wildlife CONTINUE to identify additional NGPC-owned lands (state parks, state recreation areas, and trails) where pheasant habitat could be created or improved CONTINUE to secure federal aid grants and other external funding (e�g�, Nebraska Environmental Trust) to support habitat work on high-priority WMAs within the priority areas