2) Do not harvest timber within 1 00 m of sphagnum or other fen/bog moss mats or associated 



riparian areas which could provide corridors for inter-patch movements. 



3) Minimize domestic livestock grazing in drainages with unsurveyed moss mats present. Range 



conditions in riparian areas with moss mats should be maintained in good to excellent 

 categories. Stocking rates should be reduced to a point where rapid recovery occurs if 

 either 1) current range condition is fair or poor; or 2) livestock are impacting moss mats. 



4) No management activities which could destroy moss mats should be undertaken. Examples 



could include (but are not limited to): 1) road building in, or in some cases upslope from, 

 bogs/fens; 2) pothole blasting in bogs/fens; 3) trail construction across or adjacent to 

 bogs/fens; 4) dam construction upstream from bogs/fens, or downstream if flooding of 

 bogs/fens would occur; and 5) snowmobile use in bogs/fens which could compact 

 vegetation or collapse lemming runways or nests. 



Very little information is available on the northern bog lemming. Even the distribution in the 

 U.S. is poorly understood; most populations have been found within the past 15 years. Habitat 

 use by northern bog lemmings has never been determined in any systematic way. Descriptions of 

 habitat consist of anecdotal accounts of where each specimen has been captured; only about 35 

 individuals had been collected in the Pacific Northwest prior to 1990. Reichel and Beckstrom 

 (1993, 1994) contain detailed vegetative descriptions for six lemming sites in Montana. Food 

 habits and reproductive infomiation in the literature is also are limited to a very few anecdotal 

 accounts. Analysis of food from stomachs of bog lemmings captured at six sites in western 

 Montana show mosses composed 29-92% of the diet (by volume) with Sphagnum moss 

 averaging <1%; sedges (1-64%) and grasses (0-8%) composed most of the rest of the diet 

 (Reichel, unpubl. data). No information is available on such subjects as movements, population 

 densities, longevity, or home range. Much additional research is required to make intelligent 

 land management decisions where northern bog lemmings are present. We recommend the 

 following as the highest priority needs: 



i) Conduct additional surveys to better understand macro- and micro- distribution in Montana; on 

 a state-wide basis this should include surveys on the Dillon Resource Area, Headwaters 

 Resource Area, Helena National Forest, Deerlodge National Forest, Gallatin National 

 Forest, Custer National Forest, Lewis and Clark National Forest (Jefferson Division), and 

 sites on the Beaverhead National Forest south and east of Maybee Meadows. 



2) Analyze all stomachs of bog lemmings collected to provide additional food habits information; 



this should give some indication of potential habitat use. 



3) Conduct plant community surveys at all known bog lemming locations. This should include 



identification of dominant mosses present. 



4) Gather information on the autecological requirements of the mosses found at bog lemming 



sites. 



5) Carry out research on northern bog lemming habitat use. Given the extreme difficulty in 



capturing the northern bog lemming, radio-telemetry is probably the only viable means to 

 obtain satisfactory answers as to how bog lemmings use habitat within their home ranges. 



6) Carry out research on northern bog lemming movements to gather information on home ranges 



and possibly dispersal. This information needs to be integrated with simultaneously 



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