Controlled burning on the Lower Buffalo

[Canoe_Codger]

But the habitat there is not in it's natural state and has not been since at least the 1870's. It was totally wrecked and denuded during the mining days. What wasn't sawn into lumber for shacks and mine shoring was burned or floated down the White to the rail head. It's current composition is the result of prior denuding followed by nearly a century of neglect and then half a century of mismanagement resulting in a near total loss of the original habitat. If citizens want to effect change in the planned direction of management, they need to give input during the revision period of the management plan. This one has, IIRC, been in effect for a number of years. Land management plans, if done right, are long term efforts to achieve stated goals.

[Inactive]

As a volunteer firefighter here in NE Oklahoma, I have a little insight on at least one reason to use controlled burns to help the ecosystem that I have not seen mentioned. Red Cedar. Red Cedar is taking over here and we are doing several controlled burns on the gov. owned lands here to try to stop the tree from taking over. The natural fauna and wildlife is being affected by the spread of this plant. All just the way I've had it explained to me by a few of the guys with the gov agencies that have been on a few of such burns I've been involved with recently.

[Cadron Boy]

Thank-you. So glad to have some informed naturalists bring some balance to this discussion for you are absolutely right -- vast tracts of the Ozarks are anything but natural. And it is because of many years of mismanagement -- often with good intentions -- that so many of our endemic species have literally been exterminated. I was looking at some of those reasons that the Ozark Society opposes this project and find myself questioning the ecological ethics at play here. First, I certainly appreciate the concept of "wilderness" but the lower Buffalo is simply not a wilderness -- not anymore and most likely will never be again. Moreover to say that prescribed burning is costly totally ignores the fact that uncontrolled, non-prescriptive fires are even more costly -- and deadly. If a few prescribed burns will allow even one endemic species on the verge of extinction the opportunity to recover -- then the benefits certainly outweigh the costs. In attempting to play both sides of the same coin the OWS claims they are all for "natural fires" it is just those pesky prescribed burns that they oppose. Duh! A natural wildfire can be an awesomely destructive event that under the right conditions can scorch the earth and leave immense waste in its path and open the door wide open to invasive species. In contrast prescribed burns are under "controlled conditions" to achieve specific management objectives -- nearly all of which include the suppression or elimination of invasive organisms. If I could choose what type of fire is going to cross the landscape, I'll take a prescribed burn any day.

This is typically not a forum that is open to environmentalists, hydrologists and land managers who actually work in the field and who can offer an informed opinion so it has been a pleasure to see a few folks stand up and take a position that doesn't conform with the organization as a whole. As John Gorka would say "I'll move along when the crowd is right. Stand alone when the crowd is wrong."

And as the song continues... "I always had the lone wolf ways distilled the instinct to get to gone". And with that I be gone.

[Half Ton]

Oh, c'mon Cadron Bo. Things are WAY more fun around here when you are involved!

Butch, I found your posted link vastly entertaining. This is a toughy and one that has a lot of different perspectives. I like to hear them all and learn more about each.

[kru1]

Agreed Halfton, now it is getting fun.

@ Butch, it was an interesting article (that I didn't read verbatim), the whole nominal data thing turned me off.

@Codger, I worked at Rush for 6 months mapping all the structures and conducted historic archeaology (hmm that map looks familiar). They didn't send any wood down the river, save what they used for structures it was all burned in the smelting process. Rush wasn't the galena camp in the area, Morning Star on the south side of the river was another big one and there were many small ones. Basically the entire forest in that region was clear cut for the smelting process. Once WWI was over Rush was abandoned as there was no longer the same demand for galena. So it has been natural (save prescribed burns) for damn near 100 years.

@Inactive Eastern Red Cedar will never be a climax species. If given enough time the hardwoods would choke the sunlight out, save the areas where the soils are so thin and dessicated that nothing else will survive. If the forest service would stop replacing the hardwoods with pine we wouldn't have that problem. That is another thread though.

@Cadron given enough time, any ecosystem will work itself out. I guess we just can't wait that long so we have to start burning stuff. I invite you to my presentation this Sunday. I will explain the importance of the understory and the overstory. Actually there won't be much science involved as this one is intended for the general public. If you are still interested though let me know.

@Halfton who the hell hunts turtles and amphibians, burn em.

As the great Ryan Center once said, "if this state ain't natural enough, we'll make it that way"

kru

[SteveGabbard]

I miss the team stupid trip reports.

[Canoe_Codger]

I refer you to the writings of Danial Boone Lackey regarding the harvesting of most of the mature cedar trees along the Little and Big Buffalo Rivers.

http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/4 ... 1785375821" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

And also Kenneth L. Smith's Buffalo River Handbook, page 97.

http://books.google.com/books?id=0zdyAD ... ls&f=false" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Fred Dirst knew these stories by heart and, IIRC, that is where I first heard them. About cutting and rafting timber down the Buffalo to the White.

[Butch Crain]

spent almost 30 years oblivious to anything below the canopy before getting schooled during a short stint w/ the Nature Conservancy in the gulf coastal plain

forest diversity is greatest in the herbaceous layer which is the habitat most tortises & reptiles depend on

no fire = overdeveloped midstory = poor to no herbaceous layer & associated fauna

[prophet]

i have been impressed by how good cutting every hardwood down and letting them rot, leaving all pines and briar patches sounds on paper.

[Butch Crain]

i have been impressed by how good cutting every hardwood down and letting them rot, leaving all pines and briar patches sounds on paper.

spend a couple decades getting flayed in those briar patches & you'll really be impressed

used to come home in the summer looking & smelling like Reek

[kru1]

spent almost 30 years oblivious to anything below the canopy before getting schooled during a short stint w/ the Nature Conservancy in the gulf coastal plain

forest diversity is greatest in the herbaceous layer which is the habitat most tortises & reptiles depend on

no fire = overdeveloped midstory = poor to no herbaceous layer & associated fauna

How could they ever have survived the last 320 million years without prescribed burns. Thank goodness we have the game and fish.

kru

[Butch Crain]

same way they survived without the wisdom of self taught "master naturalists", NIMBYs, Smoky the Bear & those who only believe a forest's natural state is what they've seen & experienced

[kru1]

I guess a Master's degree = self taught? Maybe I should buckle down and get a Doctorate

kru

[SteveGabbard]

I like ice cream!

[Butch Crain]

well a life sciences masters is certainly different from being self taught

but if you have a masters in life sciences and don't understand fire ecology you're a little like those scientists that deny climate change - they exist but they're hardly representative