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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
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reproductive habi-
tat and grow in
numbers.
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.
Salmon conditions in the
only used by the woodpeckers
that created them, but over the affected creeks will recover
years these cavities in the fire- in the Milli Fire area, while
killed trees will become nests wildlife habitat recovery will
and shelter for other birds, happen more slowly, but in
such as flammulated owls. the long haul — if wildfire
“Flams,” as they are known does not flare up again —
to birders and biologists, are deer and elk will return with
moths and beetle-eaters and cougar following them into
help rid the forest of pests that what will be healthy and
can, and do, harm trees. Bats vibrant ecosystems.
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