Restoring Life to Squaw Butte

By Mary Dudley, Idaho Department of Fish and Game The 2006 fire season didn't make headlines like this year's, but it was no less significant in its impact. In August 2006 alone, more than 60 square miles of wildlife habitat, on and around Squaw Butte north of Emmett, went up in smoke as a result of lightning strikes. The largest blaze - the Cherry fire - burned more than 60,000 acres from Squaw Butte north beyond Ola on both sides of Butte Ridge. In the fire's aftermath, local volunteers responded, working with Fish and Game to collect seed, plant seedlings and donate time and money to the restoration effort. Gina Thornton of Black Canyon Sporting Goods in Emmett helped publicize the need to restore bitterbrush and sagebrush to the burned areas to the local community. She collected donations to buy native shrub seedlings and organized volunteers to help collect sagebrush seed last November. She also helped organize volunteers to plant bitterbrush and sagebrush seedlings on the burn in March 2007. Squaw Butte and Willow Ridge are well known for providing critical big game winter range for thousands of deer and elk. The "Butte" as locals call the long north-south ridge from Squaw Butte to Mill Creek Summit, provides critical transition range for deer and elk during their fall migration from the higher forested mountains to the east to the lower slopes on the west side of the Butte and Willow Ridge. Each spring, beginning in March, those same animals move back along the ridge to West Mountain and other mountains to the east for the summer. These age-old cycles of movement through transition, summer and winter ranges depend upon healthy native habitats. Emmett-area volunteers joined volunteers from other locations to collect sagebrush seed in November 2006 near Paddock Valley Reservoir. The volunteers produced 46 pounds of sagebrush seed; enough to grow thousands of seedlings at Lucky Peak Nursery, which propagates the seed into young plants that volunteers plant a year later. That same month, 46 Payette High School students collected another 72 pounds of sagebrush seed near New Plymouth. Biology teacher Jerry Lunsford and his students have helped Fish and Game collect sagebrush seed every fall since 1996. Even Payette High School Principal Sam Nelson beat the bushes alongside students and other community volunteers to help the cause. "Students will forget a lot of what they hear in the classroom," Lunsford said. "But they will always remember the day they planted bitterbrush or collected sagebrush seed." As winter retreated from the lowlands, volunteers geared up for the second stage of habitat restoration on Squaw Butte. In March 2007, 140 volunteers worked with Fish and Game staff to plant more than 11,000 bitterbrush seedlings on a large portion of land scorched by the Cherry Fire. Lunsford's sophomore biology students and seven other volunteers planted another 5,000 bitterbrush seedlings later that month, bringing the total number of bitterbrush seedlings planted by Lunsford's students since 1997 to more than 50,000. Also in March, another 60 volunteers, recruited by Gina Thornton, planted 6,000 bitterbrush seedlings among rocks, blackened bitterbrush, sagebrush skeletons and ash. It proved to be a community effort, with the local Albertsons store donating drinks and snacks for weary volunteers. Restoration of Squaw Butte and other wildlife habitats lost to wildfire will continue for years to come. Volunteers will work with Fish and Game again this fall to collect sagebrush seed and follow up those efforts by planting bitterbrush and sagebrush seedlings in March of next year. Fish and Game could not accomplish native habitat restoration projects of this magnitude without the support and workforce provided by volunteers. Individuals can and do make a difference. For anyone who would like to volunteer, Fish and Game has projects available every month of the year. Call 327-7095 or 327-7099 to receive a project schedule and to learn more about volunteering with Fish and Game. Mary Dudley is the volunteer coordinator in the Southwest Region.