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moderate sized songbirds that readily move to exploit food resources in trees or on the <br /> ground. Species include: blackbirds, starlings, meadowlarks, magpies, and robins. <br /> 4.4 Grassland <br /> Approximately 57 acres of annual grassland will be converted to golf course fairways and <br /> greens. Another approximate 60 acres will be lost due to construction of houses and <br /> roadways. This represents a total loss of 117 acres of grasslands. and woodland habitat, <br /> and fragmentation of the landscape due to placement of fairways and other human use areas <br /> in an otherwise natural habitat. Some species of wildlife will be more negatively impacted <br /> than others due to particular wildlife species' needs and ability to adapt to human presence. <br /> In general, large predators will be impacted most as increased human activity generally <br /> makes hunting conditions less desirable. Some of the comments to the Draft <br /> Environmental Impact Report argued for a more concentrated development of the golf <br /> course and housing development in the northwestern corner of the property. The project <br /> proponents desire a golf course design that spreads out the fairways and golf area over a <br /> larger portion of the site. <br /> r <br /> The question of impacts to habitat and wildlife values depends upon the species in <br /> question. While an argument can be made for clustering the fairways in a smaller portion <br /> of the property, it can also be pointed out that the inter-fairway distance is sufficiently large <br /> enough to encourage wildlife use in these areas. Certain wildlife species do need large, <br /> uninterrupted landscapes for foraging and/or nesting. Some resident raptors,especially <br /> those that feed in large grassland areas, may suffer from the development of the golf course <br /> and surrounding homes more so than other bird groups. For grassland savanna species, <br /> this would include some of the larger raptors, such as Swainson's and red-tailed hawks. <br /> Fragmentation of these habitats will require raptors to travel farther in order to locate <br /> Buckeye Ranch Resource Plan (November, 1993) <br /> 100 <br />