Collaborative effort creates seed islands to restore desert tortoise habitat
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ELY, Nev. – State and county agencies and a non-profit organization are establishing “seed islands” around wildlife guzzlers to restore desert tortoise habitat on southeastern Nevada’s fire-scarred public lands.
“We’re taking advantage of birds and small mammals to disperse seed produced by newly-outplanted native species to enhance the surrounding desert,” said Matt Flores, wildlife biologist for the Nevada Department of Wildlife, or NDOW.
This fall, NDOW relocated or outplanted 800-plus nursery-grown native plants to approximately eight acres of Bureau of Land Management-administered lands surrounding four small game guzzlers burned in the 2005 Duzak Fire, about 25 miles southeast of Caliente, in Lincoln County.
The post-fire landscape is dominated by non-native and invasive annual grasses that provide poor forage for the threatened tortoise. Non-native, grass-dominated ecosystems also lack the taller perennial shrubs that provide the tortoise with shade they need during the summer. Younger tortoises are especially vulnerable to the change in ecosystem composition.
“The Mojave ecosystem is not fire adapted. Invasive species, such as red brome – a relative of cheatgrass – interrupt the natural succession process and lacking a native plant component will reburn before natural succession can occur. We transplanted 12 native species that have strong lateral root systems in an attempt to outcompete red brome,” Flores said.
The year-old plants were cultivated at a Nevada Division of Forestry state tree nursery in Las Vegas from seed collected just outside the burned area. The seed was purchased by the Southeastern Lincoln County Habitat Conservation Office with renumeration fees collected by the county for the purpose of mitigating impacts to desert tortoise. “This desert tortoise conservation project is the county’s first since the Southeastern Lincoln County Habitat Conservation Plan, or HCP, was signed in 2010,” said HCP Administrator Ronda Hornbeck.
The outplanting was conducted over four consecutive Saturdays beginning in October by Friends of Nevada Wilderness and federal, state and county agency volunteers.
The BLM manages more than 245 million acres of public land located primarily in 12 western states, including Alaska, on behalf of the American people. The BLM also administers 700 million acres of sub-surface mineral estate throughout the nation. Our mission is to sustain the health, diversity, and productivity of America’s public lands for the use and enjoyment of present and future generations.