spring meeting of the prairie dog working group

[prairie dog group]

Hello everyone…. Hope you are enjoying the winter weather and are
feeling rested and restored in this new year.

I thought it best to check in about a spring prairie dog working group
meeting before I found myself asking where the time went in March.
The most important discussion topic I see at this time is the future
of prairie dog surveys in Montana. Those of you who attended the 2010
March meeting may remember the presentations by Bryce, Ryan, and
Sterling relative to different methodologies currently being used
throughout the range of prairie dogs. Rauscher et al.’s paper on the
2008 survey has recently been submitted and ground-truthing for the
2005 NAIP imagery mapping has been completed. Digitizing of the 2009
data is near completion. Bryce and I will not be ready for a full
discussion of the pros and cons of the NAIP method until late spring
or early summer.

I suggest an early summer meeting of the Montana Prairie Dog Working
Group in Miles City (location agreed to at our Great Falls meeting).
By May a number of projects will be at a better discussion point than
right now and we shouldn’t have to worry about poor weather and/or
poor driving conditions. We can discuss and debate future monitoring
efforts for Montana and cover other topics as necessary. Hopefully we
will have word of the USFWS determination on mountain plovers by then
as well.

Please check in with me at TWS or via email as other topics arise.
Beyond those, I’ll prepare an agenda centered around monitoring. More
info on date and location forthcoming. If you know of any meetings or
workshops that would pull a number of players away during May please
let me know so I can avoid even proposing those dates. I am leaning
toward the week of May 9th right now.

Please do not respond to this message telling me of the many field
projects that start in May….I’m well aware of that and will do what I
can to accommodate schedules. An earlier meeting simply will not be
as productive as we will not have many of the products and decisions
we need to guide discussions, sorry.

If anyone from the eastern side of the state is willing to help me
find a meeting location, suggest overnight accommodations, plan meals,
etc. I would greatly appreciate the help.

Hope to see you all at TWS!


Lauri Hanauska-Brown
Montana Nongame / T & E Section Manager
PO Box 200701
Helena, MT 59620
Phone: 406-444-5209
Fax: 406-444-4952