Ecolog:
Now I've heard everything! Models? Models? We don't need no stinkin' MODELS!
(Paraphrased from the great old movie, The Treasure of Sierra Madre, one of
the earliest attempts to illustrate environmental responsibility)
What we need is to get out on the "range" (a bogus concept for most of the
Great Basin [GB]), which is a romanticized Hollywood-cowboy notion anyway,
and LOOK at what's ACTUALLY happening and has been happening since the
arrival of the hoofed locusts in the 19th century. THEN, if need be, go back
to the air-conditioned offices and crunch some numbers.
The trees wouldn't BE encroaching if it weren't for livestock, and the
ecosystems would be at maximum potential productivity, including plenty of
healthful animal protein like pronghorns and elk and, in places, bison
instead of cattle and other livestock that did not evolve under GB
conditions.
It was huge herds of cattle that caused the mesquite "invasions" in Texas
and beyond, cattle that caused the "invasions" of juniper or "cedar"
elsewhere in the west, not to mention cheatgrass and other alien species
that have reduced GB and other ecosystems to far below their original
productivity. This "range management" is not ecology, not even "applied"
ecology, it is simply propping up a lousy idea that is so entrenched that we
will never get rid of it.
All over The West, huge amounts of our tax money has been squandered on
chaining, cutting, and poisoning trees (including pinyons) under the
unwarranted assumption that they were "stealing" water and nutrients from
the grasses. I thought the yahoos in the pockets of "ranchers" (I'm all for
small locally-owned ranches, but not for the non-resident-owned corporate
landlords who are interested only in money and to hell with the future) were
a thing of the past, and that now the government "management" agencies had
some ecologists and biologists in them that would not perpetuate this kind
of "Alice in Wonderland" myth that the GB is primarily for cows and that
indigenous species are "invading" and thus degrading the "range."
Balderdash!
I went to see the "experiment" in "controlling" the "invasion of junipers at
Steen's mountain in SE Oregon a few years ago. Their little propaganda
signs, while admitting the fact that great herds of livestock (sheep and
cattle primarily) had been brought in the last couple of centuries, but did
not admit that the proliferation of junipers had anything to do with said
the true invasion of cattle and sheep. They did some field trials, not
experiments, where they used different methods to "control" the juniper
"invasion." They cut down big junipers that were perhaps a couple of hundred
years old when the livestock first arrived, not just the little ones that
had actually invaded, which could have not been "invaders" themselves, thus
cutting down badly needed "stock shade," instead of thinning out some of the
"offending" seedlings that sprang up in response to the pulverizing of the
soil and much of the ecosystem, including the cryptobiotic soil crust
fraction of the ecosystem that was in equilibrium, including sage grouse,
before the devastating disturbance that favored the proliferation of
junipers, to wit, the cow-burning of the West. The Great Plains is another
story.
This has been a blatant opinion piece, and were it not for the inability of
the present-day newspapers to separate the sheep from the goats, the wheat
from the chaff, I would send it to one of them as I sometimes did in the
last century (and the early 21st), but they are so inundated with submittals
today that one has a snowballs chance in hell of getting published, much
less getting paid like it was in the "old days."
WT
PS: I have no way of knowing for sure, but I would like to know,
intentionally or unintentionally, whether or not the sage grouse program
might be a surrogate subterfuge for sucking up more dollars for "range
improvement" for corporate ranching. I presume that Jessa is
well-intentioned, but she could be a pawn for the corporate interests, which
can be very clever in manipulating the public, including
"environmentalists."
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jessa Davis" <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Thursday, March 21, 2013 2:58 PM
Subject: [ECOLOG-L] tree encroachment models
All,
I was wondering if anyone has done any serious modelling of tree
encroachment? Specifically pinyon-juniper in the Great Basin. I am testing
out models/tools for encroachment on rangelands in conjunction with sage
grouse habitat restoration. LandFIRE has been tossed out there, and
there's
been some toying with in house methods. The higher the resolution, the
better. If anyone has any suggestions, they would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks,
JD
--
Jessa Davis
Land Health Assessment Project Lead
Ely District
The Great Basin Institute
702.606.5483 (cell)
775.289.1968 (desk)
"Be the change you want to see in the world." - Gandhi
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