Copyright 2001 National Geographic News
June 28, 2001

GRASS CREEK, Wyoming—Here in the thirsty Absaroka Range of the Rockies, the foothills are toasted brown, except where last summers raging wildfires scorched nearly 14,000 acres to charcoal. Those mountainsides are now green with grass, but it is sparse and stunted from one of the worst droughts in a century.

The two-year drought, which intensified last winter when snow packs dropped to 40 percent to 60 percent of normal, has left creeks dry and forced ranchers to sell large numbers of their breeding herds. Yet the fires generated regrowth of native grasses, which land managers and biologists believe will be sufficient to sustain the wildlife.

Raging Wildfire

Recent research and physical evidence has shown that allowing naturally occurring wildfires to burn is one way that nature takes care of housecleaning. Forest resource management now uses a technique called prescribed burns where they perform controlled burning to help that process along.

West of Wyoming, in the Great Basin that lies between the Rockies and the Cascades-Sierra Nevada Mountains, the outlook is far grimmer. In the five states of that region, cheatgrass is turning vast parts of the Great Basin into wasteland.

One third of the 75 million acres in the Great Basin are dominated by invasive weeds, according to Don Smurthwaite, a spokesman for the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho. The worst invader is cheatgrass, a botanical immigrant from the Russian steppes that slipped into America in the 1890s with wheat seed and livestock.

Six months ago, the Western Governors Association reported that the invasion of weeds already has caused U.S. $138 billion in economic damages, Smurthwaite said. "On average, 4,000 acres a day are being overtaken by weeds," he said. "That's a staggering figure."

Double Damage

Cheatgrass packs a double whammy. It grows rapidly after a wildfire, choking out native plants. In addition, it dries out early and turns into a highly flammable mat that covers the rangeland, setting the stage for more wildfires.

Last year, the cost of fire suppression totaled U.S. $1.8 billion, according to Jack Sept, also with the National Interagency Fire Center.

In this year of extreme drought, he noted, the cheatgrass dried before spring ended, and wildfires have already been burning with an intensity usually not seen until the height of summer.

Wildfires are a natural part of the ecosystem in the inter-mountain west. Usually set by lightening, the fires burn off excessive brush and trees, opening grassy meadows for wildlife, birds, and livestock. Because controlled fires can be very helpful to the environment, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) conducts a controlled burning program.

But once cheatgrass takes over an area, the usually long natural fire cycle shrinks to recurrent episodes every three to five years, which allows the native vegetation no time to fully recover.

The spread of cheatgrass also threatens wildlife. Fires in areas with native vegetation burn in patches, leaving some areas of wildlife habitat. But cheatgrass fires spread farther and burn hotter. In the end, only cheatgrass thrives.

The repeat wildfires in the Great Basin are especially hard on species that are dependent on sagebrush. It's a hardy plant, but it doesn't grow quickly—sagebrush seeds become fully mature only after 20 years."We've lost 30 to 40 percent of the sage grouse habitat in southern Idaho in the last five years due to range fires," said Signe Sather-Blair, a wildlife biologist for the BLM in Idaho. As a result, the white-ruffed sage grouse, twice as large as its forest-dwelling cousins, is on the threatened list.

The destruction also affects other sagebrush-dependent wildlife such as mule deer, which graze shrubs rather than grass and use sagebrush to shelter their fawns.

Southern Idahos largest contiguous sagebrush habitat spreads across 700,000 acres, according to Mike Pellant, a rangeland ecologist with the Idaho BLM. Of that total area, about 500,000 acres burned in the past three years; half of the acres that burned had already been affected by previous fires.

In the past two winters, the BLM planted sagebrush on the devastated countryside as part of a federally funded restoration program, which costs about $100 an acre to implement. Last summer most of the seedlings died from lack of snow and rain, so the BLM reseeded.

But, "this year is drier than last," said Pellant, who co-chairs a joint project called the Great Basin Restoration Initiative. "You have to accept that nature deals the cards."

"If we dont get the sage back, that area is never going to fully recover, he added."

Reduced Herds

Besides being highly flammable, cheatgrass is a scourge because its seeds have sharp points that injure livestock and wildlife that attempt to eat the grass, Pellant said.

Sather-Blair noted that in the early 1990s, many mule deer in the Great Basin died from starvation and poor diet. Livestock are also likely to be affected by the present austere conditions, which have prompted many ranchers to scale down operations. "A lot of the ranchers are reducing their numbers of [of livestock] this year because the forage base isnt there," she said. "But we cant do that with wildlife."

"Going into next winter will be critical," she added. "It often happens in drought. Theres not enough food left for winter."

Steve Huffaker, head of Idahos Fish and Game department, agrees. Although last years fires had a "devastating effect on low elevation wildlife," the mild winter carried them through, he said.

Elk and other grazing animals in the high-elevation country are feasting on regrowth of native grasses that followed last year's fires. But if a hard winter follows this years drought in the Great Basin, "thats when we'll see large losses, Huffaker said. "Deer, elk, and antelope carry most of their winter feed on their backs in October. If theyre skinny in October, theyre going to have a hard winter."

Meanwhile Pellant warns that farmers and ranchers in northern mountain states like Wyoming and Montana should beware of further encroachment by invasive weeds. "Cheatgrass adapts," he said. Over the past 100 years, cheatgrass has spread from the rangelands of the Great Basin southward into the desert and northward into lush ponderosa pine forests.

In northern Wyoming and Montana, the climate is colder and soils are different than those in the Great Basin and in the southern Rockies. As a result, native vegetation may be able to keep cheatgrass at bay—if the ecosystem isn't irreparably disturbed as a result of the repeated fires.Said Pellant: This isnt just ecological stability. Its economic stability." Error: Unable to read footer file.