[APWG] FIRE 11 Vegetation as fuel and ecosystem dysfunction Re:NEWS: In fire country, land managers struggle to fight cheatgrass

[Ty Harrison]

I couldn't agree more with Wayne Tyson's assessment that grazing in the arid 
West is the "elephant in the room".  As Walter P. Cottam, Utah's early 
ecologist observed in his now famous 1947publication:  "Is Utah Sahara 
Bound?" (4 copies are available at Abebooks.com), the west's past, 
uncontrolled, over-grazing history is clearly the source of all Cheatgrass 
and other weedy evils.  Let's call a spade a spade.  The challenge is to 
develop site-specific protocols for arid grassland restorations which can 
exclude weeds.  I don't know if grazing can ever be compatible in these 
fragile, low precipitation environments.   Dr. Ty Harrison, Emeritus 
Professor of Biology, Westminster College, Salt Lake City, Utah
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Wayne Tyson" <landrest at cox.net>
To: <apwg at lists.plantconservation.org>
Sent: Thursday, February 03, 2011 8:08 PM
Subject: [APWG] FIRE 11 Vegetation as fuel and ecosystem dysfunction 
Re:NEWS: In fire country, land managers struggle to fight cheatgrass


> While all that stuff is true, it is nothing new, but the elephant in the
> room is embodied in the term "range." Like motherhood, the romantic ideal 
> of
> cowboys and cattle is a subject to be avoided. That's where the problem 
> came
> from, and that's core variable that ensures that it will persist. 
> Cheatgrass
> will never be gone, but until the cattle are gone, it will remain a major
> component of what's left of the ecosystem that evolved under a different
> kind of grazing/browsing pressure than cattle provide. The simple
> inconvenient truth is that ecosystems are a product of everything that is
> going on, and cattle are the primary cultivators of cheatgrass and the 
> other
> components of the altered ecosystem that is the Intermountain West.
>
> WT
>
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Olivia Kwong" <plant at plantconservation.org>
> To: <apwg at lists.plantconservation.org>
> Sent: Thursday, February 03, 2011 6:36 AM
> Subject: [APWG] NEWS: In fire country,land managers struggle to fight
> cheatgrass
>
>
>> http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/02/03/2048524/in-fire-country-land-managers.html
>>
>> In fire country, land managers struggle to fight cheatgrass
>> By PATRICK ORR
>> McClatchy Newspapers
>>
>> BOISE, Idaho -- Cheatgrass can be a dirty word for land managers in the
>> West.
>>
>> Sure, they marvel at the invasive species' toughness and respect its
>> stubborn ability to muscle out native bunch grasses of the desert of
>> southwest Idaho and other areas of the West. But cheatgrass is also the
>> main reason why much of the arid lands of the West are so susceptible to
>> unnaturally devastating range fires.
>>
>> See the link above for the full article text.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
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>> opinion of the individual posting the message.
>
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