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INTERAGENCY CONSERVATION STRATEGY FOR RARE NATIVE PRAIRIE SPECIES IN WEST EUGENE Introduction The west Eugene area comprises the Amazon Creek drainage (including its tributary Willow Creek), lands around Fem Ridge Reservoir, and downstream on the Long Tom River from the reservoir. This area supports the greatest known concentration of native prairie remnants and associated rare species in the Willamette Valley. The rare species include five rare plants and one rare invertebrate. The plants are Lomatium bradshawii (Bradshaw's lomatium); Erigeron decumbens ssp. decumbens (Willamette daisy); Aster curtus (white -top aster); Horkelia congesta ssp. congesta (shaggy horkelia), and Lupinus sulphureus ssp. kincaidii (Kincaid's lupine). The invertebrate is the Fender's blue butterfly (Icaricia icarioides fenden). Lomatium bradshawii is a federally listed species; all the others are candidates for federal listing or species of concern. In 1993 a recovery plan was prepared for Lomatium bradshawii (Parenti et al., 1993). While the recovery plan for L. bradshawii provides guidance for conservation of this one species, most of the sites where it occurs also support other rare native prairie species with similar habitat requirements and management needs. It makes sense to plan management and recovery efforts for these sites with an ecosystem perspective that will ensure the future survival of all the species of native prairie habitats. The goal of this conservation strategy is to provide, within a regional landscape context, that ecosystem perspective with the emphasis on the recovery of multiple rare species. In addition, since currently protected sites for these species occur under a number of ownerships, this strategy provides the opportunity to prioritize recovery efforts across ownerships, to ensure that resources are directed toward the sites that demonstrate the greatest need or opportunity. Scope of Project The area covered by this conservation strategy is essentially the west Eugene population area for Lomatium bradshawii as shown in Figure 2 in the Lomatium bradshawii recovery plan (Parenti et al., 1993). Included are lands within the West Eugene Wetlands Plan (WEWP) area, west to the Fern Ridge Reservoir, and north along the Long Tom River to the BLM Long Tom Area of Critical Environmental Concern (ACEC). Within this area are numerous rare species populations on lands managed by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), The Nature Conservancy (TNC), City of Eugene, and the Corps of Engineers. Excluded from the conservation strategy area are sites in the Spencer Creek drainage, which are within the west Eugene population area in the Lomatium bradshawii recovery plan but are nearly all on privately owned lands. Existing Efforts 1