Sandra L. Doumas
Wildfires make the headlines when they burn
out of control, destroy homes, and rack up impressive totals of burned
acreage. Images of burned snags, denuded
landscapes, and smoldering house skeletons elicit strong emotions towards
wildfire as natural disaster. But these
so-called "natural disasters" are largely of our own making. Historically, ponderosa pine-dominated forests of the southwestern US burned
frequently at low intensities. Wildlife
adapted to these fires and the open-structured forests that were maintained by
them. But forests altered by humans burn
differently and often more severely, and human alteration of forests is one
factor contributing to large, catastrophic wildfires.
To return the forests to their historical conditions, forest managers
now allow some wildfires to burn and intentionally set prescription burns. Wildlife should benefit from a return to the
conditions to which they are adapted, but may not fare well at intermediate
stages of this long-term and large-scale process. Threatened and endangered wildlife,
especially, needs to be monitored.
Additionally, the status and behavior of wildlife can serve as a measure
of progress towards historical forest conditions.
Little is known of the long-term impacts of fires of varying severity
on wildlife and whether nearby patches of intact forest can mitigate the
harmful effects of severe fires. To
this end, I study the effects of intensity and pattern of burn on Mexican fox
squirrels in the Chiricahua Mountains of SE Arizona. I am using field techniques as well as GIS
and remote sensing to study these effects at different scales and levels of
organization. My ultimate goal is to
apply empirical research on animal behavior to conservation and management
efforts.
