There is a good reason why there are fewer whitetail deer in the National Forests west of the Blue Ridge. Fire, or the lack thereof. It’s the same reason California endures horrendous wildfires each year – it’s due to the lack of controlled burning.
According to the biologists of Virginia Division of. Wildlife Resources, we’ve been conditioned to think of fire as solely a destructive force, but for wildlife, forests, and meadows, fire can also be restorative and a force for good. Prescribed fire is #GoodFire.
They go on to say that it seems like an oxymoron that fire in an area can improve habitat for wildlife, but that’s precisely what prescribed fire does when applied to specific habitat types with planning and forethought. Just after the application of #GoodFire to a site, the landscape is charred and bare, but new grass, wildflowers and tree growth begin again immediately, with green shoots poking up through the blackened earth.
DWR’s Big Woods Wildlife Management Area is a stellar example of how prescribed fire can dramatically improve habitat for wildlife, including the endangered red-cockaded woodpecker.
There’s a long history of wildfire as part of the ecology in Virginia from the Appalachian Mountains to the pine forests of the coastal plain. There’s also ample evidence that Native Americans and colonial settlers alike conducted controlled burns of certain areas for many reasons—from attracting wildlife to an area to clearing land for crops or establishment of home sites.
The controlled fires are not undertaken by amateurs. DWR’s prescribed fire program is made up of agency employees with a variety of expertise, from lands and access staff to fisheries biologists and from boating access maintenance technicians to Conservation Police Officers.
I had the opportunity to witness and participate in controlled burning at the Hardware River Wildlife Management Area where a prescribed burn was used to rid the area of unwanted fescue and Johnson grasses and return warm season grasses to the area to improve quail habitat.
For years, controlled burns have been used as management tools at the James River and other Wildlife Management Areas.
Burns in the National Forest would stimulate undergrowth, and the deer would return. And if the Tree Huggers in California didn’t stand in the way, professionals could burn selectively and keep wildfires under control. In California, they burn businesses down, but not old strips of fire lanes in old and decaying forests. Some people never learn.