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- Fire is an incredibly important part
of the web of life in Southern Arizona
and natural biological cycles.
And it definitely has a role
and we need to let it get back to playing that role.
But when fires happen these days, they happen in a context
of forests that have already been seriously damaged
by human impacts over the years.
And a lot of different types of impacts
but probably the biggest one is fire suppression.
So for decades, for actually a century now
we have not let fires play
their normal role on the mountain
and therefore when they happen today,
they happen differently.
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- Rarely is wildlife overrun by wildfire,
they'll flee to foot enough to get out of the way,
or in cases of smaller creatures, burrow underground.
And these animals for generations
are adapted to these fires.
Yes, maybe they're not where we would expect them to be.
You know, you never know, 'cause this is wildlife
and they do what they wanna do.
Sometimes reentering burned areas
when it's still smoldering,
A Gould's turkey we observed doing that very thing.
And it's 155,000 acre mountain range.
There's still plenty of territory out there for them
and they're gonna use it.
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- The Catalinas are a typical Sky Island mountain range.
They rise up very steeply from the desert floor
and the arid grasslands that are around the base.
And up to the top, you go all the way
to spruce-fir conifer forest.
And that means that every step of the way
you have different set of plants and animals
that call it home.
The biodiversity of our scale and mountain ranges
in Southern Arizona is globally recognized
and they have been recommended
as a huge priority for protection
from a global biodiversity perspective.
- The initial burning took place
in the Bighorn Sheep management area.
And most of that Bighorn Sheep management area burnt.
We're cautiously optimistic
the Bighorns will make better use of that area
and perhaps expand their territory,
it will be cleared of dense vegetation.
There'll be new growth coming up
and it will be perfect for that.
Sprouting prickly pear for example, is a favorite.
It's like a Bighorn sheep salad bar after a fire,
the way they defend themselves
is through their Keen eyesight,
which if a predator is concealed by a bush,
they can't really use
and then their ability to climb rapidly over rough terrain.
For sure it's gonna help them deal with mountain lions
and other and other ungulates I should add.
A white tail deer at higher elevations
and mule deer at lower elevations
will also reap the benefit of that cleared up habitat
and that new growth.
- The Sonoran desert is renowned
for its diversity of bees and other insects.
And we also have many mammals coati and ringtail and foxes
and coyotes and black bears
and bobcat's and other predators.
And we also have a lot of reptiles,
lizards and snakes, and gila monsters
and some species that aren't found anywhere else,
and I think we should be proud of that.
It's something that we should care for and protect.
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When you Look at the interaction of fire
with endangered species,
you really have to look through a different lens.
And Mexican spotted owl is one of them.
And so we have what are called protected activity centers,
where those owls are known to do their business,
either to nest or hunt.
So they rely on a certain combination of vegetation,
plant species and water availability,
and a certain topography or forest structure.
We need to be nimble to respond to these threats
and give these species the best chance
that we can to survive.
- We also take a look at desert tortoise habitat.
We don't worry about desert tortoises being overrun by fire,
they burrow underground,
but what are they gonna eat
when they come out of that burrow?
Everything around them is gonna be burned
and they're gonna have to travel a long way to get there.
We had a case a few years ago with a Monument fire
for Chiricahua leopard frogs,
which are a threatened species.
They were in a pond and we could look above them
and see a major burned area,
we got in there, we pulled all the frogs out,
sent them up to Glendale Community College for a while.
The very next day a slide came in
and silted in the entire pond that they had been inhabiting.
Would've killed them all.
That's why we took almost 900 endangered Gila Chub
out of the West branch of Sabino Creek
and farm them out to the U of A
International Wildlife Museum
and the Desert Museum for safekeeping.
When the monsoon passes,
when all that silting action is over
we'll put them back in.
- We hardly had any monsoon at all.
So there wasn't really a big problem with a lot of erosion
and a lot of soil being lost as a result.
Now that could still happen at any time.
I mean, it only takes one really big storm
to have that kind of impact.
So in one way, maybe that was a good thing,
but in another way,
it just makes it that much more difficult
for the habitat to recover for those seeds to germinate
and for the vegetation to come back.
Water is more scarce, food is more scarce
for the time being,
and that is a challenge to many species.
Now that said the Bighorn fire in particular
burnt pretty well for the most part,
there were a couple of really bad days with high winds,
but for the most part, it burned in mosaic
it did not burn really severely.
And I think you'll see the mountain
bouncing back pretty well.
- It's not gonna look like it used to look tomorrow,
but a year or two, it's gonna be good.
In most cases,
wildfire is a natural process
that improves the overall health
of the mountain range over time.
Lightning started this fire
as it did long before man inhabited Tucson.
There were fires in the Catalinas
and these other mountain ranges.
And these animals for generations they've survived.
(cool music)
- The general consensus is by the end of this century,
half the species on this planet could be gone.
And to me that's very alarming,
even from a perspective of self-interest.
I am a species on this planet, homo sapiens.
I still rely on that mountain for clean water and clean air
just like all the animals do.
We gotta get serious about protecting these places
and the web of life that supports all of us,
including homo sapiens.
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