October 6, 2021 |
You’re invited to participate in a shrub planting party on the Mullen burn scar this Saturday.
Wildlife Biologist Steve Loose with the U.S. Forest Service in Saratoga is organizing the effort. Loose was spending time Tuesday on logistics and delivery of around 5,000 mountain mahogany and antelope bitterbrush seedlings to the Six Mile area of Forest on the west side of the Snowy Range.
Loose said the seedlings were grown from local native seed collected adjacent to the burn area in the Snowy Range last fall.
Pictured above: Power line in Mullen Fire burn area. Photo courtesy Carbon Power & Light/Facebook.
The collected seeds were shipped to a Forest Service nursery in Boise, Idaho, where the seedlings were given a three-year head start on life. One year of growth at the nursery is equal to three years in the wild.
Loose said the seedlings are about the size of small tomato plants right now. Mountain mahogany and bitterbrush are both nutritious for mule deer, elk, moose, bighorn sheep and pronghorn. They were among the types of vegetation that the Mullen Fire burned last fall, leaving a black scar from the Platte Valley near the North Platte River up and into the Snowy Range.
Former Wyoming Game and Fish Biologist Katie Cheesbrough, who now serves as the executive director of the Wyoming Wild Sheep Foundation said Saturday’s volunteer planting is focused on critical winter range for a variety of big game species, including the Douglas Creek bighorn sheep herd that are easily viewable at the state line.
The area to be replanted is large. Loose said about 4,000 acres are being target for the initial planting. The hope is that over the next decade, the seedlings will grow to provide forage for the short-term, and then become source of more seeds into the future throughout the burn area.
Loose said volunteers are welcome to come out Saturday to help with the planting. It won’t be strenuous. Some walking will be required and the labor will be of a light to medium level.
Volunteers should meet near the Six Mile Campground sign kiosk at 10 a.m. Saturday morning. You’re encouraged to wear hunter orange since deer rifle season will be open. Bring along water, lunch and comfortable walking shoes.
