After sending bison to Wind River Wind Cave prescribes burn

In 2016 four calves, four yearlings, a 2-year-old female and a 3-year-old female genetically pure bison were trucked from the Neal Smith National Wildlife Refuge in Iowa to the Wind River Reservation as part of a seed herd to begin replacing the millions slaughtered during the European invasion. In 2017 the National Bison Range in Montana sent ten more bison to the Eastern Shoshone. 

Now, with help from the Nature Conservancy Wind Cave National Park in occupied South Dakota has contributed to the reintroduction of bison to the Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho on the Wind River Reservation sending fifty to Wyoming. Bison at Wind Cave are genetically pure having descended from the few that survived in Yellowstone while those from NBR are not.

Planning is underway to burn 676 acres of land surrounding Wind Cave National Park’s developed area this fall and 669 acres adjacent to the Elk Mountain Campground next spring. The project area includes dense and open ponderosa pine forest with a grass understory. Ignition will take place through the utilization of ground resources and the primary carrier of fire will be grass. “Prescribed burns help reduce the threat of wildfires and allow firefighters to better protect homes and structures,” said park superintendent Leigh Welling. “The primary objectives of this burn are to reduce fuel loading in the ponderosa pine forest and to decrease encroachment of young ponderosa pine onto the prairie, improving the flow of water into the cave.” This fire represents a continuation of the park’s prescribed fire program that began in 1972. Prescribed fires maintain the balance between forest and prairie, remove the build-up of dead fuels which reduces the chance of a catastrophic wildfire and rejuvenate the native prairie grasses. [Wind Cave plans prescribed burn]

Wind Cave is home to nine species of bats, including the threatened northern long-eared bat, one species most impacted by White-nose syndrome or WNS—a fatal disease caused by the fungus Pseudogymnoascus destructans. The fungus was detected on a western small-footed bat (Myotis ciliolabrum) in South Dakota in 2018. It's believed insects contaminated by industrial chemicals and pharmaceuticals in water supplies are weakening immune systems and spreading WNS to bats as part of the sixth mass extinction. 

Longtime Custer State Park concessionaire Phil Lampert's house is still standing because of the 2015 Cold Brook Fire that escaped federal fire managers yet proved to be far more effective at reducing fuels. But despite the park having conducted thousands of prescribed fires since its creation in 1903 South Dakota's Republican senior US Senator blamed the superintendent for ordering a burn under nearly perfect conditions. 

The Rocky Mountain Complex and the Black Hills have been home to a much larger aspen community in the fairly recent past. Ponderosa pine sucks millions of gallons from aquifer recharges, needles absorb heat and accelerate snow melt. 

Clear the second growth ponderosa pine, conduct fuel treatments, restore aspen and other native hardwoods, build wildlife corridors and approximate Pleistocene rewilding using bison and cervids.

Learn more about the restoration of bison from WyoFile.

ip photo: a prairie dog peers at the photographer from its burrow at Wind Cave National Park.