BLM LANDS

Drought and fires are impacting values and uses on BLM lands (http://www.blm.gov/nifc/st/en/prog/fire/more/gbri.html) including; livestock grazing, wildlife habitat, and wild horse and burro habitat. The relationships between drought and fires are changing as the cheatgrass fire cycle converts plant communities of relatively long lived perennial species to communities of annual plants. These changes are converting Nevada’s rangelands from a fairly reliable year long source of forages from a mixture of grasses, shrubs, and forbs to a source of spring forage with forage availability during the rest of the year being much less dependable than in the past. A small amount of spring soil moisture, as might occur during a drought, can still produce an abundant cheatgrass crop. Because the cheatgrass completes its annual life cycle before most of the native plants it can use up all the available soil moisture before perennial species start growing. This early flush of cheatgrass can obscure the pending absence of forage during the rest of the spring and summer and maybe through the winter. On the other hand, once it dries out the cheatgrass is very flammable and can perpetuate the cheatgrass fire cycle.

Livestock grazing is a common use of the public lands which can be managed to mitigate to varying degree drought impacts to vegetation, water, and soils. That the permitted livestock use on an allotment needs to be adjusted in response to drought is not a reflection on a permittee’s management of the allotment. Grazing management change is a reaction to drought. Livestock grazing can be controlled; we cannot make it snow or rain when we need the water.

Two different livestock management approaches are often employed on BLM lands that help mitigate the biological impacts and management disruptions of normal drought. The most common is conservative stocking levels. Where stocking levels were based on conservative forage production estimates, normal droughts may not require livestock management adjustments. The other approach is intensive livestock management. On these allotments lower production during drought can often be compensated for by more frequent pasture changes or placing livestock in rested, higher, or wetter pastures. Regardless of management prolonged drought can eventually lead to difficult management choices by livestock owners. During extended droughts, ranchers sometimes have to move or sell a portion of their base livestock herd.