Habitat partnership set for action

The Platte Valley Habitat Partnership is alive and well and showed its strength during a meeting Friday at the Platte Valley Community Center.

The group got through what facilitator Jessica Clement called the “groan zone of the process,” as it hammered out goals and objectives for PVHP’s first habitat plan.

“The takeaways from Friday’s meeting is there are still a lot of people attending even though we were talking about goals and objectives and word-smithing,” Daryl Lutz, wildlife management coordinator for the Lander region said.

“If people are creating a house where we can have lots of mule deer habitat, you’ve got to have a foundation,” Clement said. “In my impression, we’ve got a good foundation and we got a lot of consensus points.”

Heather Halbritter, habitat biologist for the Game and Fish, said around 40 people attended the meeting, including members of the Forest Service, the BLM, and Game and Fish.

Participation by private landowners and members of the public is viewed as crucial by the group. Without those parties at the table, the land available for habitat initiatives becomes more limited to public lands and the spirit of collaboration and trust, carefully nurtured by the group over the past year, withers.

“We have enough landowners to make a really decent start,” Clement said.

The group maintained its schedule, in spite of a two- month gap in September and October for hunting, and managed to overcome the difficulties of finding time to assemble the many stakeholders under one roof for meetings.

“I’m really impressed with amount of energy everyone has put into this,” Lutz said.

The group gained traction at the end of Friday’s meeting when Will Schultz, wildlife biologist with the Game and Fish, presented a series of maps identifying areas in the Valley that provide winter, transitional, and summer range for mule deer.

That started to focus the group’s attention geographically, Lutz said.

The group has been anxious to put into play some actual habitat improvement ideas and it will get the chance to start that process early next year.

Before the next meeting, individuals from the Game and Fish, the BLM, and the U.S. Forest Service will get together to look at the history of treatments on public lands and examine proposed projects to see if any may be beneficial to mule deer.

“Private landowners that are willing to have some projects will bring their ideas in as well,” Halbritter said.

“The next meetings will be adding muscle to a skeletal plan,” Lutz said. “We will be looking at where the most bang for the buck is. The meetings will be more fun, interesting and result oriented.”

The Platte Valley Habitat Partnership’s only focus is improving mule deer habitat in the valley, but it is only a part of the larger Platte Valley Mule Deer Initiative.

“Don’t think because of the (habitat partnership) that all other facets of mule deer management, including predation, are taking a back seat,” Lutz said. “The two efforts are parallel and equally important.”

The next PVHP meeting will start at 1 p.m., Jan. 24 at the Platte Valley Community Center.