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About The nugget. (Sisters, Or.) 1994-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 6, 2017)
18 Wednesday, September 6, 2017 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon Tales from a Sisters Naturalist by Jim Anderson The impact of wildfire on wildlife The Milli Fire that’s been so hard on the breathing and vision for people living in Sisters Country has impacted the wildlife as well. While no one in the Crossroads subdivision lost their homes to the fire, wild- life in the Milli Fire area have lost everything they need to make a living, with some exceptions. The large animals have fled, of course; deer, elk, bear, coyote, cougar, bobcat and such are equipped to flee when fire destroys their homes. But for some species the conflagration is catastrophic. The summer feeding grounds for some of the big game animals is gone, and for a long time it will stay gone until green plants begin to thrive. This will have a pro- found impact on local mule deer, especially, who will spend the cold months in their winter range and begin their normal trek back to the summer range around Black Crater Butte area. However, they will run into a carbon- iferous forest and burned out understory with little to noth- ing for them to eat. This will inevitably dis- burse them to search for food in other areas, includ- ing perhaps, local backyards. (Please, don’t feel sorry and put out food for them, or put up with their plundering. It will not benefit the deer, and in fact spread more disease to go with their unfortunate hun- ger. Send ’em packin’, for the good of all.) Wildfire also impacts the food of raptors; for instance the great gray owl—the larg- est owl in North America. They will have a tough time of it, as they’re known to nest and forage for prey in higher elevation forests with meadows in them. Although they’ve returned to the B&B Fire area where prey has become available again, the small mammals they foraged on for food in the Milli Fire are no longer available, and won’t be until the burned- over lands turn green again. There was a time when wildfire was a normal turn of events in summer, and in the long run, good for all. Ponderosa pine thrive in a fire environment, as well as native grasses, wildflowers and shrubs. The land is renewed when fire releases rich nutri- ents and converts soil to a healthy medium for plants and animals. In most cases, there are greater numbers of wildlife, and a greater variety of species in areas recovering from wildfire. Today, however, due to a number of factors, wild- fires are becoming increas- ingly larger, more intense and more difficult to manage and control. When a fire breaks out, wildlife who cannot flee dig down. The three-toad sala- mander for example — the only salamander on this side of the Cascades — digs down in the same way it searches for invertebrate food. Other species, such as gophers, shrews and ground squirrels, as well as many insects, also burrow into the soil to escape the heat. In years past, digging down worked. But with these current, hot, intense fires, ground-dwellers just can’t go deep enough to escape the overpowering heat, and they perish. If it’s a flash fire that burns fast and cools right down, even most of the insects pupating in the ground will make it, but these hot ones of today that are so big, like the Milli Fire that now is over 22,000 acres, kill smaller forest-dwellers in prodigious numbers. Animals such as the por- cupine can’t flee a fire fast enough. Tree voles, flying squirrels and other tree-top dwellers, as well as young in the nest will all perish, if not from the flames, then from predators capturing them on the fire’s perimeter. And then there’s the fire retardant used to quench and slow down a forest fire. There was an accidental aerial drop in Whychus Creek during the Milli Fire, but Forest Service fish biologists say it was of little consequence. No USFS or Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife officials questioned were aware of any adverse affects of fire retar- dant on wildlife. The only data that appears to be available is a study conducted in Australia using 5,400 pitfall traps for captur- ing invertebrates that moved in after a fire. Samples taken of 190 specimens concluded that despite the amounts of retardant applied, the retar- dant did not alter or impact the species themselves. There’s a phenomenon that follows a wildfire that is all on the plus side: the oppor- tunities for woodpeckers to expand their range, increase COME IN TODAY AND SAVE BIG! Quality Truck-mounted rts i h S - T , s t a H ia n o g a t a P & on Sale! 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As the smoke of a wildfire begins to permeate the coun- tryside around the fire area, wood- boring beetles rec- ognize an opportu- nity. They begin to move toward the cooling fire to lay eggs in the dead and dying trees while the wood under the burned PHOTO BY JIM ANDERSON bark still has the Wildfires mean food a-plenty for woodpeckers moisture and nutri- like this black-backed. ents beetle grubs need. Several spe- cies of woodpeckers — like also shelter in the hollows in the black-backed above — summer. These occupants are follow them and feast on the all an asset to protecting the new forest. invasion. After the Black Crater Fire As the beetles lay their eggs they become food for of 2006, some creeks turned woodpeckers, but the num- dark with carbonized mud. bers and species of beetles is The macroinvertebrates living overwhelming, and hundreds on the bottom of the creeks of millions of beetle and other suffered as the oxygen levels insect species eggs hatch and went down and the debris and burrow into the dead and carbon levels went up. The dying trees, creating more salmon that local conserva- tion organizations and agen- woodpecker food. In addition, woodpeckers cies have worked so hard to are also hammering out nest- establish in the creeks may ing cavities in trees, which also suffer from lack of food become a vital element for a and unhealthy water condi- healthy forest. They’re not tions after this current fire. 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