ARIZONA TECHNICAL GUIDE - SECTION III
REFERENCE – WILDLIFE HABITAT EVALUATION GUIDES (WHEGs)
A series of wildlife habitat guides have been prepared to serve for both planning and documentation of habitat values of planning units. Specific wildlife species have been selected to represent animals which landowners commonly wish to manage and do habitat improvements for. Also available are Wheg’s for the major MLRA’s found in Arizona. This allows documenting habitat improvements that will generally benefit a majority of species in these Major Land Resource Areas in circumstances where the landowner/manager does not wish to manage for a specific species.
The following WHEG’s are available for planning use:
AZ WHEG 1 - MLRA 35- COLO River Plateau
AZ WHEG 2 - MLRA 41- SE Arizona Basin
AZ WHEG 3 - MLRA 30, 40- Mohave, Sonoran Desert
AZ WHEG 4 - MLRA 36, 39- AZ Mts, Plateaus, Mesa
AZ WHEG 5 - MLRA 38- AZ Chaparral
AZ WHEG 6 - Riparian
AZ WHEG 7 - Wetlands
AZ WHEG 8 - Coldwater Fish Streams
AZ WHEG 9 - Mule Deer
AZ WHEG 10 - Pronghorn Antelope
AZ WHEG 11 - Elk
AZ WHEG 12 - Javelina
AZ WHEG 13 - Bighorn Sheep
AZ WHEG 14 - Beaver
AZ WHEG 15 - Turkey
AZ WHEG 16 - Pheasant
AZ WHEG 17 - Scaled Quail
AZ WHEG 18 - Gambel’s Quail
AZ WHEG 19 - Mourning Dove
AZ WHEG 20 - White-winged Dove
AZ WHEG 21 - Southwest Willow Flycatcher
WHEG’s are based upon determining numeric rating for a series of habitat components, which are essential to wildlife. Ratings are assigned for both planned (weighted score before) and applied (weighted score after) situations. Using the scoring system, lands that are in the highest habitat potential will score close to 1.0. Similarly, a score of 0.5 indicates that the evaluated land is at 50% of habitat potential. Minimum WHEG scores for Quality Criteria for landuses are as follows:
Rangeland = 0.5
Cropland = 0.4
Woodland = 0.5
Wildlife lands = 0.7