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Published On: Sep 16, 2005 07:13 AM
Total entries in this category:
Published On: Sep 16, 2005 07:13 AM
Wildfires Take Toll on Desert Tortoise
The RJ had another good article about the recent wildfires and their
effect on the desert tortoise. This Spring I had never seen such an abundance of
brome and other weeds and by summer the desert looked like a dry tinderbox ready
to go up. Sure enough, there have been many acres burned in Southern Nevada and
all over the southwest. Unfortunately, the weeds have evolved with fire and the
native desert plants generally have not. Some communities like blackbrush may
never recover from fire. Other ecosystems weeds will come back more prolific
than ever with the first rain. Most tortoises should survive the fires because
they spend most of their time in underground burrows. However, their forage will
be destroyed by the fire and the first plants to come back and the most prolific
plants after a fire are the weeds which are a very poor food source.
The lone juvenile tortoise I found in Tule Desert was sheltering under logs and debris on a roadside and very likely would have been killed in the fires in that area unless it moved into a soil burrow in the heat of the summer. I think the tortoise was hanging out on the roadside because it was too small to move through the thick red brome that dominated the area. Poor guy didn't have much of a chance.
The lone juvenile tortoise I found in Tule Desert was sheltering under logs and debris on a roadside and very likely would have been killed in the fires in that area unless it moved into a soil burrow in the heat of the summer. I think the tortoise was hanging out on the roadside because it was too small to move through the thick red brome that dominated the area. Poor guy didn't have much of a chance.
Posted: Sun - July 24, 2005 at 12:12 AM