About 10 - 15 years ago, the Mountain Pine Bark beetle came through this area.
It killed a lot of the lodgepole and spruce in the area.
And so if you’re ever in the area you’ll see there is a ton of standing dead and dead
on the ground.
We’ve got new growth coming in.
On the North Slope lodgepole pine is not seroutinous which typically means you’ve gotta have
fire to open up the cones to spread the seeds over the area.
on the north slope we don’t have that , thus we’ve got unbelievable regeneration that
comes in naturally all the time.
So much so that we have to do thinning to space out some of those trees otherwise you
might get little dog hair stands - what we call dog hair because they grow so close together.
You may as an example get 180-190,000 stems per acre so that’s little bitty trees growing
right next to each other and you’ve got to thin them out so that they’ll release
so they grow at somewhat of a normal pace.
We’re reintroducing fire on the landscape.
For years we have suppressed fire, and fire is a natural thing in the area.
The area needs it - the aspen needs it, the wildlife need it - it’s a
key-player in the ecosystem.
So the prescribed fire is going to create mosaic areas, so basically we’re going to
punch some holes in all of this dead stuff.
This project will benefit wildlife in the area by increasing the understory diversity
- that’s the plants that grow on the ground that the mule deer elk and moose of the area
eat it will increase the production of those understory species as well so in a smaller
area we will get more bang for our buck in terms of wildlife food.
So there’s a variety of benefits from these types of projects: overall watershed health
to the forest, increasing and enhancing the habitat for all wildlife...and what we’re
doing is taking the dense forest - the unhealthy forest - and creating a lot of openness underneath
these stands.
And so it’s management, its treatment, and it’s of overall benefit for a variety of
different benefactors.
There's more feed for the wildlife and more openings for them.
These openings are really important so that they have a place to feed and they have a
place to feel safe - that they’re not running through the thick timber where other wildlife
could harm them.
The benefits to the watershed are that through increased forest health and the reduction
of the fuels, the Forest Service will be able to mitigate uncharacteristic fire events in
a safer and more efficient manner.
We’re trying to manage the land the best we know how.
We’re also partnering with the DWR (Division of Wildlife Resources)
and the Mule Deer Foundation.
These two groups are very involved in the benefit for wildlife, so as we work with these
two groups we’re trying to do the best practices for the land and for the wildlife.
We’re able to work with the Forest Service to really improve habitat.
The goal of both the Mule Deer Foundation and the National Forest is to improve wildlife
habitat across all national forests so these projects help us improve habitat for mule
deer, for elk, for all kinds of migratory birds and other animals that are in the forest.
So this partnership together allows us really to do more than what we could do as each individual
agency.
The Division of Wildlife understands that this project may cause a temporary inconvenience
for hunters while the actual work is going on, but the forest is going to respond with
an increased understory that provides more food for mule deer, elk, moose, bighorn sheep.
And that increased food source will draw more animals in the future so as long as we can
deal with this temporary inconvenience in the future and for many years to come, this
will be a draw to wildlife in the area.
This is a long term project to make it happen.
There's a lot of information we can provide, so if you call the Evanston/Mountain View
Ranger District office we can get you in touch with somebody that can give you more information
on it.