Re: Deer in the Headlights
Reply #86 –
The fuel reduction debate is complex, but again the main problem is people, not animals be they domesticated or indigenous types.
I read an article proposing drones for fuel reduction, solar powered no doubt. I know perfect fuel reduction drones, they are called cows or kangaroos and you can feed them to the starving when they are "retired" from service!
In some areas the bureaucracy have given large swaths of land over to forestry, then put restrictions on how much of it can be processed each year. So the commercial interests do what commercial interests do and minimize costs in areas they can't make profitable, so they stop maintaining those areas and the fuel load grows. But they want to reap the eventual harvest, so they ask government to ban forest dwellers from collecting fallen timber before the company can get to it! So the bureaucracy bans people entering the area, including farmers and their herds. Can someone explain to me what native vegetation or critters are being destroyed by cattle browsing under kilometers of soon to be felled hardwood or pine plantation?
In the meantime, animal rights activists lobby to stop shooters shooting deer in the same area, so the government bans that as well, do you get the irony of this fuel load issue?
The smart money was always to target strategic burning of areas to slow or reduce risk to certain communities, but it seems none of the money spent so far was very smart!
I heard another interesting point made today, I haven't found the article yet to back this up but it seems to make sense. The carbon emissions released from this catastrophic event in just two weeks are equal to the last 30 years of fuel reduction burning. Several endangered species that almost certainly would have survived localised cold weather fuel reduction burns are now most likely extinct from wildfire.
Yet we can't reduce the fuel by burning or livestock grazing because it's bad for the environment, have I missed something?