CWHR Habitat Type - Hardwood, North Sierra Nevada Zones

These data were extracted from the CALVEG Existing Vegetation tiles, using the CWHR type, Hardwood (including Montane Hardwood Conifer, Montane Hardwood, Aspen) and clipped to the North Sierra Nevada Zone for the CA LCC.

These CALVEG Existing Vegetation tiles have been crosswalked to other classification systems, including the California Wildlife Habitat Relationship System (CWHR).

The CWHR habitat classification scheme has been developed to support the CWHR System, a wildlife information system and predictive model for California's regularly-occurring birds, mammals, reptiles and amphibians. When first published in 1988, the classification scheme had 53 habitats. These habitats — except the non-vegetated Barren habitat — are described in detail in the CWHR publication entitled:

A Guide to Wildlife Habitats of California, 1988
Edited by Kenneth E. Mayer and William F. Laudenslayer, Jr.
State of California, Resources Agency,
Department of Fish and Game
Sacramento, CA. 166 pp.

At present, there are 59 wildlife habitats in the CWHR System:

27 tree, 12 shrub, 6 herbaceous, 4 aquatic, 8 agricultural, 1 developed, and 1 non-vegetated. Please note: The 59 habitats described below were designed for use with a predictive model for terrestrial vertebrate wildlife species. They do not represent a comprehensive classification scheme for the conservation and mapping of California's terrestrial vegetation or its marine and estuarine habitats.

Stages are defined for virtually all habitats. A stage is a combination of size and cover class for tree-dominated habitats, age and cover class for shrub habitats, height and cover class for herb habitats, and depth and substrate for aquatic habitats. A field sampling protocol is well-established for determining stages in all vegetated habitats. Special habitat elements are also defined. They include live and decadent vegetation elements such as snags, physical elements such as banks and burrows, aquatic elements, vegetative and animal diet elements and human-made elements.

The predictive model for each species has expert-applied suitability ratings for three life-requisites – breeding, cover and feeding. For each species, each habitat stage is rated as high, medium, low or unsuitable for each of these life requirements. Each special habitat element is also assessed as essential, secondarily essential, preferred or not rated for the species.