West Eugene Wetlands habitat sampling at Fir Butte, Oxbow West, and Vinci

This document summarizes habitat monitoring in the West Eugene Wetlands on land managed by the BLM Eugene District. In 2013, we monitored Fir Butte, Oxbow West, and Vinci to assess whether they were within the habitat targets for Threatened and Endangered species.

• Monitoring in 2013 occurred in May, which was earlier than in previous years at the sites. All sites had greater cover overall than they did previously, which could be due to timing of monitoring, but also seems to be associated with an increase in introduced species cover at most sites.
• Oxbow West and Vinci 2 were native dominated while Fir Butte and Vinci 1 had greater cover of introduced species.
• The northeast portion of Fir Butte continued to have extremely high percentages of introduced species when compared to natives.
• Cover of invasive species and litter exceeded the thresholds for management (maximum 50% cover for invasive species and 20% cover for litter) in habitat for Lupinus oreganus and Erigeron decumbens.

• Thresholds for woody vegetation were not exceeded at any of the sites.