Pinyon pine and juniper bushes aren’t invasive species in jap Nevada. But they certain behave like ones. While this drought-adapted ecosystem is essential for an more and more dry American Southwest, the thick, stubby progress additionally crowds out massive swaths of sagebrush habitat, choking the understory that homes and protects sage grouse and supplies vital forage for pronghorn, mule deer, and elk.
So the Bureau of Land Management, with the assistance of the U.S. Forest Service, is working by means of the multi-year, 100,000-acre Ward Mountain Restoration Project to degree the enjoying floor for wildlife—actually. By clearing chunks of pinyon-juniper woodlands for a mixture of native grasses and forbs, and creating extra room for pre-established sagebrush to thrive within the course of, the businesses are making this habitat way more viable for wildlife. But to do that correctly, they need to make a fairly severe mess first.
In this video, two bulldozers tow the ends of an enormous rolling chain that mows down each pinyon pine and juniper tree it runs into. The dense sea of inexperienced falls like a discipline of bowling pins because the 170-foot-long, 12-ton ‘Ely Chain’ does its job. (It’s named for Ely, Nevada, the place it was invented by the BLM within the early Seventies.)
“It’s actually a battleship anchor chain that we get surplus from the Navy,” Cody Coombs, the hazardous fuels program supervisor for the BLM’s Ely District, says. “Each chainlink is about 90 pounds, and we weld railroad iron perpendicular onto the length of the chain, which helps grab onto the trees and actually pulls the roots out.”
Some environmental teams decry the Ely Chain and the BLM’s methods for enhancing habitat resilience. But Coombs explains {that a} pinyon-and-juniper-dominated panorama is a nightmare ready to occur for a number of causes.
“We needed to do some work on the area to reduce hazardous fuels for wildfire and improve habitat for sage-grouse, mule deer, and elk,” Coombs says. “Once you get really heavy, dense pinyon and juniper, it prevents shrubs and grasses from growing. They actually start dying out. So you have a have a monoculture of trees with no shrub or grass understory.”
What you don’t see within the video is how after the Ely Chain tears by means of a grove, a helicopter carrying a seed hopper will fly overhead, dispersing native grass and forb species throughout the layer of leftover pinyons and junipers. The Chain then passes again the opposite manner, flipping the seed-covered inexperienced matter over in order that the seeds make it into the bottom and the plant scraps anchor them on high.
“Most of the juniper will just lay there and continue to grow unless you drag the roots out completely. So we’ll go one way then chain it in the opposite direction to flip the juniper trees over and pull the roots out while covering the seed we applied,” Coombs explains. “We get fewer trees, and more grasses, shrubs, and forbs within a couple years.”
To the untrained eye, this mission may seem like a scorched-earth technique to eradicate each final nook of the pinyon-juniper forest. But the mission leaves behind tree “islands” to create spots of thick cowl that elk and mule deer love a lot. The improved understory additionally aids the watershed by stopping erosion. Shrubs and grasses maintain down the soil higher in excessive winds and flash floods.
“Establishing perennial and forb species helps buffer against erosion, especially on bare or exposed soil and slopes,” Coombs says. “Perennial species are also able to successfully compete with invasive annuals, for example cheatgrass.”
The Ward Mountain mission is a part of a a lot bigger regional effort to enhance watershed and habitat well being and scale back the probabilities of catastrophic fireplace round jap Nevada. The BLM’s Ely District is engaged on 4 initiatives masking over 230,000 acres and utilizing a wide range of strategies to open up area for sagebrush and understory progress, together with mastication and prescribed fireplace. All this work takes just a few years to repay, however Coombs says it’s effectively well worth the mess they make within the course of.
“After the first year or two [of habitat work], people don’t think it looks all that great,” Coombs remarks. “But after a few years, when you start getting all the species established, it looks really good as far as diversity of vegetation. And it gets a lot of use by wildlife.”