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Kelly Kindscher

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Leaders within the Kansas Department of Wildlife, Parks and Tourism and the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission recognized the need for current vegetation datasets and maps to facilitate conservation planning and management. Prior to the initiation of this project, Ecological Mapping System (EMS) datasets had been completed by the Missouri Resource Assessment Partnership (MoRAP) for Texas and Oklahoma. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service facilitated meetings among states that highlighted the Texas and Oklahoma datasets. This led state leaders in Kansas and Nebraska to initiate the current project, with the aims of (1) producing the highest quality digital and map datasets possible, and (2) leveraging funds from each...
Final Report Executive Summary: The Nature Conservancy and a team of 14 academic partners (the project team) received funding from the Bureau of Reclamation’s WaterSMART program and the Desert Landscape Conservation Cooperative in 2012 to conduct this Gila River Flow Needs Assessment. The assessment describes the existing condition of the Gila River in the Cliff-Gila Valley and examines the potential impacts of CUFA diversion and climate change on the riparian and aquatic ecosystem. The project team was assisted by 35 academic, agency and consulting scientists who have expertise in some aspect of the Gila River’s hydrology and ecology. This larger team of scientists provided input on a review draft of this assessment...
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Defining Ecosystem Water Needs of the Upper Gila River and Assessing the Impacts of Climate Change
The substantially natural hydrography of the upper Gila River supports one of the highest levels of aquatic and riparian biodiversity in the region, including the largest complement of native fishes and some of the best remaining riparian habitat in the lower Colorado River Basin. Native vegetation dominates the broad and structurally diverse floodplain, creating habitat for hundreds of birds and other wildlife. Two of the Gila’s fish species, spikedace and loach minnow, and a neotropical migratory bird, the southwestern willow flycatcher, are federally listed as endangered. The yellow-billed cuckoo, a candidate species for listing, nests in the Cliff-Gila Valley. Changes to the river’s hydrology, including peak...
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The Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve (TAPR) Vegetation Mapping Project was organized and coordinated by the Kansas Biological Survey (KBS) at the University of Kansas, in cooperation with NatureServe, in accordance with the standards set forth by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) - National Park Service (NPS) Vegetation Mapping Program.The TAPR Vegetation Mapping Project was initiated because the preserve protects a nationally significant example of the once vast tallgrass prairie ecosystem. Of the 400,000 square miles of tallgrass prairie that once covered the North American continent, less than four percent remains, primarily in the Flint Hills. Although the Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve had been mapped...
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