Figure 1 . - -A portion of the 

 Neal Canyon prescribed 

 fire area, July 1963. 



F. and —46° F. 1 Forested sites usually are confined to north- and east-facing slopes, while 

 the drier south slopes and valley bottoms are mostly sagebrush and grasslands. Soils in Neal 

 Canyon are of limestone origin, rocky, poorly developed, and highly stable. Mechanical analy- 

 ses of representative samples show at least 50-percent gravel and a shift from sandy loams on 

 the surface to a sandy clay loam below 14 inches. Heavy overgrazing On a sheep driveway in 

 Eagle Creek has caused plant community changes but very little surface erosion. 



Wildlife use of Neal Canyon has not been studied in detail, but 50 elk were planted at 

 Ketchum in 1934 to 1936 and the management unit for the Big Wood River herd currently sup- 

 ports about 600 animals. 2 In severe winters the range available to this herd and to the deer of 

 the area is Limited to about 30 square miles. Because of deep snow, Neal Canyon is probably 

 not accessible during the critical winter period but it could be used throughout the rest of the 

 year. In 1965, however, the observed use by big game was light. 



METHODS 



VEGETATION SAMPLING 



In order to sample all components of the plant community, we divided the vegetation into 

 five life-form groups. All herbaceous vegetation and woody plants under 18 inches in height 

 were sampled with a series of twenty -five 2- by 2-foot quadrats. Plants were Listed by species 

 in each plot, and ground cover was estimated to the nearest quarterplot. For woody plants more 

 than 18 inches high we used a modification of the quarter methods described by Cottam and 

 Curtis 3 and Morisita. 4 From each of 20 points spaced at approximately 50-foot intervals we 

 measured the distance in each quadrant to the nearest tree (over 4 . 5 feet tall), the nearest 



1 U.S. Dep. Commerce, Weather Bureau. Climatography of the U.S. No. 86-8, 66 pp. 

 Wash., D.C.: Government Printing Office. 1964. 



2 Tanner, Dale. The Big Wood River elk herd. Idaho Wildlife Rev. 18(3): 3-6. 1965. 

 Cottam, Grant, and J. T. Curtis. The use of distance measures in phytosociological 



sampling. Ecology 37(3): 451 -460. 1956. 



4 Morisita, Masaaki. A new method for the estimation of density by the spacing method 

 applicable to non-randomly distributed populations. Physiol, and Ecol. 7: 134-144 (in Japanese), 

 1957. U.S. Dep. Agr. Transl. (mimeo.) 1960. 



2 



