Pinyon-Juniper Forests: BLM?s False Claims to Virtue

In my opinion, look where the trees have been growing and what else is growing underneath them. Not much grows. Just like what grows on the ground under any pines. I know if you look at an area after chaining grasses as well as sagebrush and other plants do really well. Chaining those areas improve habitat for all wildlife.
 
I don't know if their claims are true or not but if they're serious, they should find an animal (could even be a bug) that depends on old growth Pinyon-Juniper forest. Claim it is a "canary in the coal mine" species and sue to get it placed on Endangered Species list. That usually stops everything.
 
>In my opinion, look where the
>trees have been growing and
>what else is growing underneath
>them. Not much grows.
> Just like what grows
>on the ground under any
>pines. I know if
>you look at an area
>after chaining grasses as well
>as sagebrush and other plants
>do really well. Chaining
>those areas improve habitat for
>all wildlife.

Better Check again on that!

They Claim now that all the Money they Wasted years ago Chaining areas FAILED BIG TIME!

Don't know about your neck of the woods,but How much Chaining you been seeing done in recent years?








"I'm Living & Dieing with the Choices
I've made!"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=N8i5NLyXZdc
 
I don't know how much it benefits anyone except cattle grazers when they chain p&j? I do know in an area I hunt, they chained the sage a few years ago and the deer flock to it like kids chasing down saltwater taffy at a parade. Why is this? Do they like the new growth? Same stuff growing back in that was there before.
 
RE: Pinyon-Juniper Forests: BLM?s False Claims to Virtues

I was just thinking about this today, and here's an article about it. One of my favorite areas to hunt was the Pink Cliffs in AZ. Growing up I always enjoyed the push downs. We called the areas they chained push downs. You would always find sheds there. Most of them were like the article mentioned, from the 60s and 70s. 20 years later, the Pink Cliffs has a wind turbine network and tons of roads and other electrical infrastructure. They also munched up half of the junipers that were left. Pisses me off. I found other favorite areas after that. Another area near by has also been munched up. The sage didn't take over, it's a sand dune now. It's a sight to see from the air. My opinion, is that we had a good 40+ year run at it and it's time to stop.
 
What a biased article that is. Where were the BLM opinions? They have about 100 range managers and foresters in Nev-A-duh in the various places mentioned, but no actual interviews with BLM? Kind of dumb to write an article and not actually interview the people behind what is going on. Where were the university professors opinions who published studies that favored Pinyon and Juniper thinning? Bruce Roundy at ByU is world renowned as an expert in Pinyon and Juniper research and management, yet I didn't read any quotes from him in there.

This stuff is range/forest management 101. Remove the trees so more palatable grasses, forbs, and shrubs can grow in their place. More palatable plants (especially on winter ranges) = more big game.
 
BARF!!!!! I don't know how any of you made it through the entire article, I had to stop 2/3 of the way through cause of how incredibly one sided it all was.


Jake H. BIG BONE HUNTING Page on Facebook.
458738e374dfcb10.jpg
 
LAST EDITED ON Jan-09-16 AT 09:29AM (MST)[p]I still see some chaining going on in my area, but it is super old Sage that is the target.

It is being done in the name of Sage Grouse habitat.

I was pissed when they knocked down a 6 to 7 foot tall pocket close to my house that had been a summer Buck bedding area for ever.

Another thing that pissed me off was the fact that the 2 D-9 Cats set there for 3 weeks before the BLM used them.

They paid the equipment rental company $15,000 for that early delivery of the Cats. What a waste!

And as far as the article this quote shows the real problem. Damm Skinheads.


"The pinyon-juniper encroachment theory is a product of settler colonialism?s historical amnesia. One of the products of the white supremacy brought to the Great Basin by European settlers is a selective memory that ignores guilt-inducing facts of ecological destruction wrought on the Great Basin by Europeans."
 
One thing about it, you can find on the Internet something that will back what you want. Personally I like the idea of chaining and the results that it brings.
 
One of my best Buds pays for yearly landowner tags from a large Northern Cali Ranch that has been very active in controlling the Juniper through the years. Though still plenty of Juniper around, that Ranch has much better buck hunting and is a lot more open than those around it that do nothing and are just packed in solid. just sayin. :)

Joey




"It's all about knowing what your firearms practical limitations are and combining that with your own personal limitations!"
 
They got mess in the west. Fires used to control pinion junipers before white man, not so much anymore. Let fires go now days and you usually have a hot dry cheatgrass mess with nothing else to do but burn over and over.
 
I remember a patch of p/j in the Book Cliffs that was chained in about the early 70's. Through the 70's and early 80's it was loaded with deer. Now the p/j has grown back and looks like it did before. No deer to be found.
 
The claim here in AZ is P-J sucks up all the water before it reaches the aquifers causing springs and seeps to dry up.

"You can fly a helicopter to the top of Everest and say you've been there. The problem with that is you were an a$$hole when you started and you're still an a$$hole when you get back.
Its the climb that makes you a different person". - Yvon Chouinard
 
Yes it is a very biased article. There are people out there that favor "hands-off" management with the premise mother nature will manage the landscape. There are decent points in the article but again they are one sided.

There are ecological sites that function as pinion/juniper woodlands that have been cut/chained/treated that maybe shouldn't have in the past. Knowledge and science is continually evolving and we learn as time goes on, just like any other faucet of life. But also we are losing millions of acres of sage steppe rangelands to PJ encroachment because we've altered natural disturbance (i.e. fire). I can speak for folks who do this and for the most part it is done scientifically driven and ecologically based. Many projects are planned with a lot of mosiac patterns (mimic fire patterns) with slivers and islands untreated to leave some heterogeneity across the landscape for food, shelter, cover, etc.., plus there are species that need PJ woodlands.
 
peak,

Very good information.

Much of the USFS grazing lands here (SW NM) were pushed (not much or any chaining) many years ago and much of it having to be retreated. Pinyon/Juniper and especially the Juniper are nothing but big weeds that have invaded most of the what used to be open mesas and hillsides. All of the pictures from the late 1800's and early 1900's showed a very open landscape. Now pictures of all of the same country show a total and complete invasion by the junipers. We have the "One Seed" (shaggy bark) juniper and the "Alligator" juniper and the later being the most aggressive and invasive and harder to kill. Chainsaw cutting does nothing more than to make them come back thicker. Fires have little effect as the root crown just below the surface has to be taken out to kill them.

Juniper trees send out long roots just below the surface several feet out from the tree and sap the moisture that grass and weeds need to grow. Controlling these invasive weeds is still being used as part of good management and stewardship of the public lands by the USFS and grazing permittees.

I even remember one old timer who thought he remembered reading in a popular science magazine years ago, an article of how the government was seeding juniper trees out of an airplane. I never tried to research that but in this day and age of the internet maybe one could.

I know for a fact that deer and elk benefit from these pushes and juniper controls as well as the livestock.

Now the BLM is treating Creosote Brush in the lower elevations with good results.
 

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