“They are gas to the fire; we now have to deal with invasive annual grasses or we’re going to lose the sagebrush ecosystem,” says U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Sagebrush Ecosystem Team Invasive Species Coordinator Lindy Garner.
The authors attribute 42 % of the lower in soil moisture to human-triggered local weather change. “As the ambiance becomes warmer, it turns into hungrier for moisture and attracts extra water out of soil and plants,” explains Jason Smerdon, a climate scientist with Columbia University’s Lamont–Doherty Earth Observatory.
In 2020, Utah’s estimated statewide population was 314,850 mule deer, about fifty four,000 fewer than in 2018, largely because of extreme drought. The decline prompted the Utah Wildlife Board to decrease the number of permits available to hunters final year. Another menace to sagebrush wildlife in a hotter, drier world is the rapid spread of invasive annual grasses. Because they’re better tailored to milder winters and extra-arid summers than many natives, these weeds are steadily infiltrating higher-elevation habitats. Yet even small invasions of nonnatives such as cheatgrass double the chance of wildfire. In parts of Idaho’s Snake River Plain that are dominated by highly flammable cheatgrass, fires now occur each three to five years versus … Read More