July 1, 2000: Arid land species homeless after fire

Arid land species homeless after fire

July 1, 2000

By John Stang
Herald staff writer

Gone underground. Gone away. Or just gone.

The world where birds, bugs, plants and other critters once lived on the 120-square-mile Fitzner-Eberhardt Arid Lands Ecology Reserve - dominated by Rattlesnake Ridge -disappeared during this week's massive fire that charred the pristine shrub-steppe into black ashes.

This natural world thrilled biologists, who marveled at the rare species found there, and the public, which enjoyed the thought of having so much untouched land.

Now the sagebrush, grass and other plants are gone. Most of the surviving creatures have been chased away. The ripple effects of this newly dead world and its eventual recovery have just started.

"The ecological balance will be out of whack for a while," said Ted Poston, surface and environmental surveillance project manager for the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.

The ALE's most visible and watched residents are 700 to 800 elk. They are too many for the ALE, and their sheer numbers have trampled the shrub-steppe habitat too much. And the elk often roam off this safe, hunter-free site to munch on crops - irritating local farmers.

In fact, wildlife experts rounded up about 150 of the elk last February to ship them farther east. And more annual round-ups are being planned.

This week's fire scattered the herd.

To the west into eastern Hanford. To the north across the Columbia River. To the west to crowd in with the Yakima Firing Center's elk. And to the south and southwest to eat more crops.

"Exactly where they've gone is anyone's guess," Poston said.

Larry Cadwell, a PNNL staff scientist, said: "I'm sure people will start seeing elk in places where they've never been seen before."

The elk are likely to return to the ALE. The question of how soon depends on how fast the grass grows back.

Cheat grass probably is the fastest growing vegetation to re-enter a burnt-out area. And elk love cheat grass - plus other grasses that will follow. However, cheat grass is a non-native plant and tends to crowd out other natural and rarer vegetation that makes the ALE an ecological treasure. Shrub-steppe purists hate cheat grass.

As the fire raged through, some rodents and snakes likely managed to burrow underground in time to save themselves, Poston said. The problem is when they surface again, there will be nothing to eat.

Also, any surviving insects will miss the lost plants they ate or laid eggs on. Many insects need specific, tailor-made vegetation to survive, and that vegetation is no longer on the ALE, Poston said.

Many of the ALE's animals, rodents and birds are fast enough to escape. But some coyotes and other critters did not make it out. At least one coyote died when the blaze caught it next to the highway that runs through Hanford.

The loss of the ALE's sagebrush will have a longer-term effect.

Sagebrush is a slow-growing plant, usually taking many decades to move back into a burned-out area. Poston noted sagebrush has not returned yet to the old Hanford townsite, where shrub-steppe became farm land, before people and their crops permanently left during World War II. Some Hanford sagebrush that burned in a huge 1984 fire also has not yet returned.

The loss of sagebrush means rare animals that require sagebrush are unlikely to return.

That includes sage grouse, an endangered species that returned to the ALE in 1999 after not being seen there for at least 10 years. Sage burrows and loggerhead shrikes also are unlikely to return until the sagebrush does.

But Poston sees some optimism in the shadow of a bigger Washington natural disaster - the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens. That area has recovered faster than expected, he noted.

"There's a certain amount of resilience in nature," he said. "It will come back."