See response to 199505700. Ideally, this proposal should be rewritten emphasizing project and site specific conditions, plans, actions, and results. In its current form the biological objectives are too vague to meet the standard established for the Fish and Wildlife Program. Quoting program documents and other general material provides an insufficient basis for the ISRP to evaluate the scientific merit of this project. Most of this response is excerpts from previous documents, rather than any interpretation of project efforts to date. No adaptive management is reflected, no innovations or changes are proposed, and yet there is no monitoring evidence that current management is successful in achieving even the broad, vague project goals. This proposal process and response loop have provided the sponsors an opportunity to evaluate the project and build upon past experiences, but the sponsors have not taken this opportunity or the advice from the ISRP intended to assist in strengthening the scientific foundation of the project and assisting in its success

In the technical and scientific justification, quoting program documents and the subbasin plan does not justify specific actions to be taken on these specific properties. For example, what is the science behind passive management? What does your monitoring tell you about the success of this strategy to date on these parcels?

Project history refers to the specific project, not the general program.

Project relationships: who are the other government and NGO partners and what is the nature of the collaboration? Cost sharing, collaborative planning, in-kind, grants?

Objectives are meant to be site-specific, not programmatic. Quoting the Fish and Wildlife Program is not sufficient, but describing the detailed actions you plan to contribute to fulfilling those objectives through your management of specific properties would be helpful. "For each BPA-funded wildlife mitigation project, site-specific management objectives will be identified and incorporated in the project's M&E plan." Invasive species management results should be monitored and reported within the context of an Integrated Pest Management plan. The issue of an acquisition strategy is only obliquely addressed.

Earlier management plans and reports suggest a monitoring plan will be developed in the future. The current proposal budgets $1000 for this, which suggests that minimal action is contemplated. If the sponsors have no intention to monitor, then they should make that explicit and explain why. There could be some acceptable reason for this decision, although even "passive management" can have unexpected results and justify some degree of monitoring. The Rice Management Plan and both subsequent annual reports refer to monitoring and report bird data, but present no actual weed or vegetation data. Each document suggests this will be done, but when? Will there be a more comprehensive M&E plan? Have any project reports been produced for the Krueger parcel? Has this plan ever been updated since 2001? The Boise River Plan is new and very specific regarding management targets to be evaluated by monitoring, but the plan specifies no procedures. Assuming the sponsor uses Unnasch et al., how will this be accomplished with a $4000/yr budget for all parcels?

With a few changes, this is the same proposal as 199505700 with all the same responses needed. The exception is that this proposal does not include any information on how acquisition priorities, if they exist, were formulated. This should be added. Not enough information is provided on the properties. Details of the acquisition, site features, connections to adjacent properties, and expected actions and goals must be included in the response. The sponsors need to address M&E with a plan and summary of past work.

The sponsors were asked to respond concerning this parcel's role in the landscape, goals in terms of measurable biological outcomes, more detailed work elements, and monitoring and evaluation activities. Specific questions were raised about weed control strategies.

The response clarified many issues, particularly weed control and the landscape context for management of this parcel. The scope of the project, 166 acres of winter mule deer habitat, justifies limited monitoring and evaluation. The revised project proposes to increase the budget to develop a monitoring plan beyond HEP. HEP is not recommended unless they need to do it for some compliance reason. Not particular to this proposal, but illustrated within is the intent to repeat HEP analysis as monitoring, an ongoing concern for ISRP and ISAB. For this project, monitoring could be limited to presence of necessary habitat elements for expected season of use, presence of target species during anticipated season of use, and status of weed populations.