Wasatch and Uinta montane forests

Wasatch and Uinta montane forests
Wasatch and Uinta montane forests
	Coniferous forest with Kings Peak in the background, Uinta Mountains
Ecology
Realm	Nearctic
Biome	Temperate coniferous forest
Borders	List Great Basin shrub steppe; South Central Rockies forests; Northern Basin and Range ecoregion;
Bird species	190
Conservation
Habitat loss	2.45%
Protected	68.9%

The Wasatch and Uinta montane forest is a temperate coniferous forest ecoregion in the Wasatch Range and Uinta Mountains of the western Rocky Mountains system, in the Western United States.

Setting

This ecoregion is located almost entirely within the

Sierra Nevada

to the west.

Flora

The dominant vegetation type of this ecoregion is

Picea engelmanni) and trembling aspen (Populus tremuloides), with limited populations of limber pine (Pinus flexilis). This ecoregion is unique from other Rocky Mountain ecoregions in that large areas are dominated by Gambel oak (Quercus gambelii) and Bigtooth maple (Acer grandidentatum

).

Fauna

Mammals include mule deer (Odocoileus hemonius), elk (Cervus canadensis), moose (Alces alces), bighorn sheep (Ovis canadensis), mountain goat (Oreamnos americanus), black bear (Ursus americanus) cougar (Puma concolor), and wolverine (Gulo gulo)

gray wolf, are also native to these forests, and much of the rest of Utah, but have been extirpated due to hunting, with brown bears having not been found in Utah since roughly 1922, when the last grizzly bear Old Ephraim was shot and killed.^[2] Gray wolves have begun to return to Utah, primarily in the far northeastern reaches of state, where it borders Wyoming and Idaho. Both bears and wolves have been under threat, due primarily to the livestock industry which is an obstacle currently preventing their return.^[3]

Threats and preservation

The majority of this ecoregion has been greatly affected by livestock grazing, logging, mining, and recreational uses such as downhill skiing, and as a result, its conservation status is "critical/endangered". Very few areas are protected, and the largest area that is protected, the

subalpine zones

being almost entirely unprotected. The main threats to this ecoregion's integrity are motorised recreation, widespread livestock grazing and downhill skiing. This region has also been severely effected by mountain pine beetle outbreaks in the last decades, killing large swathes of forest.