The Western Governors’ Association (WGA) sponsored an assessment of crucial habitats which will be used for the evaluation of landscape-scale energy, land use, and transportation projects throughout the western United States. The main product of the WGA’s assessment is an easily accessible online system of maps displaying crucial habitats and corridors known as the Crucial Habitat Assessment Tool (CHAT; http://www.westgovchat.org/).
Crucial habitats were based on factors such as species of concern, species of economic and recreational importance, special ecological systems and habitat types, habitat corridors, native species richness, and ecological integrity (i.e., unfragmented habitats). All of these factors are relevant to both terrestrial and aquatic species, but initially, ecological integrity was addressed for terrestrial habitats only. Ecological integrity is an indicator of highly productive aquatic systems (Karr 1991, Mattson and Angermeier 2007), and therefore, should be a factor in an assessment of aquatic crucial habitats. WDFW recognized the need for a more comprehensive assessment of aquatic habitats. Consequently, the main focus of this LCC-funded project was incorporating ecological integrity into the WGA’s assessment of aquatic crucial habitats. One aim of this investigation was to develop a method that could be implemented by other western states participating in the WGA’s CHAT.
Furthermore, in recognition of the difficult circumstances facing fisheries managers in the Pacific Northwest, namely, the management of commercially valuable, federally-listed anadromous salmon, the states of Washington and Oregon collaborated on a special effort to address crucial habitat for aquatic species. In addition, a secondary purpose of the work funded through this LCC grant was to assist with other tasks associated with Washington’s aquatic crucial habitats assessment.
