THE BURNED AREAS OF THE RIM FIRE ARE ALIVE Excerpts: Ecologists agree that the post-fire habitat created by patches of high-intensity fire, known as snag forest habitat, is one of the most ecologically important of all forest habitat types, and it supports levels of native biodiversity and wildlife abundance equal to or greater than unburned old-growth forest. Moreover, snag forest habitat is even rarer than old-growth forest, and is more threatened by commercial logging than any other forest type. Will the land look the same as it did before the fire? Of course not. But post-fire snag forest habitat is important to the rejuvenation of the areas ecology, which will begin next spring. Standing dead trees, or snags, provide habitat for the larvae of native wood-boring beetles, upon which woodpeckers depend for food. The woodpeckers dig out nest cavities in the dead trees — a new one each year — creating homes for many other cavity-nesting species, like the mountain bluebird, that cannot create their own nest holes. The native flowering shrubs that germinate after high-intensity fire attract an abundance of flying insects, including bees, butterflies, moths and dragonflies, and this provides food for many bat and bird species, especially flycatchers. Raptors such as goshawks and spotted owls actively hunt in snag forest habitat because of the high density of small mammal prey in the native shrubs and downed logs. Deer happily browse on the natural post-fire conifer regeneration and shrubs, and bears feed on the rich crop of berries in snag forest habitat. The black-backed woodpecker, in particular, depends on large patches high-intensity fire occurring in areas of dense, mature conifer forest — generally requiring at least 200 to 300 acres per pair. Because of a dramatic loss of snag forest habitat from decades of fire suppression, post-fire clear-cutting and intensive forest thinning operations, in April the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service issued a determination that the subspecies of the black-backed woodpecker that lives in the Sierra Nevada and eastern Oregon Cascades may need to be listed under the Endangered Species Act to prevent extinction. This species is a management indicator species, or bellwether, for a much larger group of wildlife species that depends upon snag forest habitat — a canary in the coal mine, so to speak. latimes/opinion/commentary/la-oe-hanson-yosemite-fire-logging-20131003,0,75875.story#axzz2ieQDceoq ~ P
Posted on: Sat, 26 Oct 2013 03:24:22 +0000
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