Utah Master Naturalists Help Restore Sagebrush at Great Basin National Park

Utah Master Naturalists removing pinyon pines and junipers that were invading sagebrush steppe. Image from the National Park Service's page.

By Gretchen Baker, Ecologist, Great Basin National Park. First published in The Midden, volume 18, number 2, Winter 2018.

At the end of August, Mark Larese-Casanova brought about ten people to Great Basin National Park through the Utah Master Naturalist program of Utah State University, a continuing education program open to all ages. Over three days, they hiked to the bristlecone pines, helped with bat trapping and data collection at Rose Guano Cave, took a cave tour, and camped by Baker Creek at Grey Cliffs. They also offered to do a service project.

Why remove trees?

Ecologist Gretchen Baker met the group at the Gravel Pit on the Scenic Drive and explained conifer encroachment:

• Pinyon pines are relative newcomers, arriving only about 6,000 years ago. Over the last 150 years they have spread, and now cover 18 million acres of the Great Basin.
• They grow in the thermal belt — above winter inversions but below other conifers such as ponderosa pine and Engelmann spruce.
• Fire suppression, rising carbon dioxide and a changing climate — all driven by people — are letting pinyons spread into sagebrush.
• Sagebrush steppe is rich in life, including specialists such as sage grouse, sage thrashers, sage sparrows, sagebrush lizards and pronghorn. Pinyon-juniper woodland has less biodiversity and very few habitat specialists.
• Pinyon-juniper woodland also carries heavier fuel loads, which can feed catastrophic wildfires that leave behind cheatgrass monocultures.

For these reasons, the park has carried out several conifer removal projects to restore its shrinking sagebrush habitat.

The work

Each volunteer got gloves, loppers and instructions for cutting small pinyon and juniper trees. The group fanned out across the meadow above the historic park road and, in about an hour and a half, cut and scattered many small trees. Most were growing in or beside sagebrush, because young pinyons prefer a nurse plant such as sagebrush for protection. The volunteers covered the whole 15-acre meadow — about a day and a half of work — advancing the park's Wildrye Restoration project. A win for both sides.

Volunteer

Projects like this suit groups of 6–12 people, teenagers or older, looking for about two hours of service. Interested groups can contact Bryan Hamilton at the park.

Sources

Based on Gretchen Baker, "Utah Master Naturalists Help with Restoration," The Midden — Great Basin National Park, National Park Service; a work of the United States government in the public domain. The source's misspellings "Englemann" and "wildlifes" are corrected.