Really Really sad discovery. WARNING: GRAPHIC

[dragonboy4578]

That really stinks!!!!

[JamieH]

[Lucas339]

the problem with all of this is humans. we stop fires before they do their job naturally. areas that are prone to fires (cali and florida) need to fires to clear out built up brush and to stimulate growth of certian flora. for example, most pine tree seeds can't spread without a fire to open up the seed cones. by doing a described burn, you limit the amount of brush that has built up on the ground and reduce the amount of hot burning flora. so when a natural fire breaks out, it will burn cooler in temperature and will spread less.

as for the animals in these areas. their populations have developed to cope with frequent fires. even though some have died, they will repopulate later.

as a reference point......i went to USF and studied ecology under a professor that has been studying the effects of prescibed burns to detail their benifits and damages. the research has pointed to florida needing fires every 5 years to prevent large, hot fires and that the flora and fauna bounce back in time.

[mainbutter]

Lucas I'm going to have to disagree with you. There was a fire in the early 1900s here in MN near Kettle River. It was pretty big, but it burned SO hot that it basically sterilized the soil. Pine trees can't grow there anymore, and nearly a century later the entire flora makeup is basically trash species and limited amounts of 15 foot tall aspen, and the fauna is also pretty much nil because of it. This was a fire that ran its course "as nature intended it", and both humans and the local flora and fauna are worse off for it.

Fires are often bad for the non-human life as well.

[The Hedgehog]

i understand the logic behind it but every time i hear it i go "huh? "
they CAUSE a big fire...to PREVENT fires...
to me there's no difference between that and intentionally spilling oil in the ocean and then saying "this will prevent future oil spills!"
i mean...really?
god those poor critters.

Please read up on why they do these fires. There's a huge difference and as a herper, you should be able to understand why they do controlled burns and why they don't "Spill oil into the ocean on purpose".

[Lucas339]

tell that to the researches who have been studying it for 20 or so years....not me.

[Jeremy Browning]

Although in CA and AZ and NV and places like that fauna knows how to deal with fire. Here in IL or most of the Midwest fauna cant cope with that because in my are it naturally occurred once every 15 years. so a fire every year destroys plants and animals. in TX or AZ or NV or CA the fauna know exactly what to do here theyre clueless and even if they could run from fire there still smoke( thats what killed the frogs and toads) and if the snakes found the water they would die of hypothermia because in WILL county, the av. temp in march is really really low.

[loonunit]

Although in CA and AZ and NV and places like that fauna knows how to deal with fire. Here in IL or most of the Midwest fauna cant cope with that because in my are it naturally occurred once every 15 years. so a fire every year destroys plants and animals. in TX or AZ or NV or CA the fauna know exactly what to do here theyre clueless and even if they could run from fire there still smoke( thats what killed the frogs and toads) and if the snakes found the water they would die of hypothermia because in WILL county, the av. temp in march is really really low.

Is your local natural biome prairie?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tallgrass_prairie

While a periodic fire cycle is undeniably hard on wildlife, native prairie wildlife can't exist at all without its ecosystem. And the prairie ecosystem can't exist without a fire cycle.

[Nektu]

They do controlled burns here all the time. Every year. We even started our "fire season" early due to lack of moisture. It sucks knowing that there may be some animals that get caught up in ti and die.

[blushingball419]

It is really sad, and I wish wildlife like the snakes and turtles didn't have to suffer, but, like others have said, fires are an integral part of many ecosystems. I agree that in some areas, doing a prescribed burn every year is a bit extreme and probably does more harm than good for the native wildlife, but I can also understand why it's done. For the most part, I also agree that natural fires are probably the best, since they're... well... natural. I'm sure there are some natural fires that actually end up being detrimental to the ecosystem, but normally nature has its own cycles that care of themselves. If I'm remembering my classes correctly, there are some species of conifer whose cones open at higher temperatures than others as well, so if prescribed burns are done too frequently and not allowed to get too hot, when a natural fire happens there won't be enough brush to get it hot enough to propagate those species.

In short, prescribed burns are unfortunately necessary in some areas, but in others they are usually only done to protect ourselves, which of course is understandable I wish we could just leave it up to nature, but as long as they aren't done to the extreme where the ecosystem can't bounce back, I don't see too much of a problem with them. Those pictures are still awful though necessary "evils" are always hard to deal with, no matter if they happen all the time in nature or not. Just part of being human I suppose.