San Juan National Forest

USDA Forest Service
San Juan National Forest
15 Burnett Court
Durango, CO 81301
970-247-4874

Telephone for the
Hearing Impaired
970-385-1257

Rangelands are valuable and extensive ecosystems within the San Juan National Forest and BLM Field Office, comprising about 50% of the public land in our area. They provide clean water, forage for grazing and browsing animals, cover for many wildlife species, and a variety of recreational opportunities for our visitors. Rangelands are of vital economic importance to our local communities.

These photos were taken from the same point, of the same area, over a span of time. This is a simple and useful monitoring tool to document broad changes, such as vegetation height or dominance, stream width, or erosion.

The 1912 picture was taken to show the sheep on the stock driveway; in 1930 the photo was retaken since it was in an easy-to-identify location. The location became an official photo point in 1932, and a brass cap was set to mark the location. On the back of the 1912 photo, it states that 25,000 sheep used the area, and by 1941 the use had dropped to 10,000 head. The last band of sheep went on the stock driveway in 1993, and the area is still being used by cattle.

Photos compiled by Ann Shepherdson, San Juan NF

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A Landowner's Guide to Wildlife Friendly Fences [PDF, 44 pages, 3.11 MB]

Rangeland Management

Targeted Grazing Handbook 2006

Monitoring

Monitoring is defined as "The orderly and quantitative collection, analysis and interpretation of resource data to evaluate progress toward meeting management objectives. The process must be conducted over time in order to determine whether or not management objectives are being met." (Society for Range Management, 1999.)

• Interpreting Indicators of Rangeland Health (Technical Reference 1734-6, Version 4) 2005
  
  
• USDA-ARS Monitoring Manual for Grassland, Shrubland, and Savanna Ecosystems
  • Volume I [PDF, 42 pages, 578 KB]
  • Volume II [PDF, 206 pages, 1,861 KB]
    
    
• Region 2 Range Analysis Handbook [PDF, 11 pages, 420 KB]