OUTDOOR    AMERICA 
 
directly on the nests, they 
may become so weakened 
by exposure that they fall 
easy victims to the first 
predator that comes 
along. 
The second most seri- 
ous time of fire hazard in 
the year, and the time 
during which the most 
destructive fires occur, 
just precedes or is coinci- 
dent with the running or 
mating season of deer, 
elk, and other large game 
animals.  The   reduced 
vitality brought about by 
serious exposure or toxic 
conditions renders many 
males nearly sterile. Also, 
females who suffer any 
of the effects of fire, are 
less likely to conceive and 
are more likely to abort. 
This indirect damage is 
difficult, if not impossible, 
to  compute   accurately. 
 
However, it is tremen- 
dous. Careful observers    A sharp-tailed 
have noted many times 
the difficulty most species 
have in "coming back" after a serious fire 
season. 
Among the various species, it is the 
smaller game animals and birds which 
suffer the most. Untold numbers of rab- 
bits perish every year in fires. Prairie 
chickens, sharp-tailed grouse, and partridge 
also fall victims by hundreds of thousands, 
to the red menace. Deer usually suffer 
more from the after effects of the fire 
than they do from the fire itself. It is 
toxic food, the change of range, and attrac- 
tion of predators that wreak the greatest 
havoc with deer, although thousands of 
them are killed directly. Most deer are 
killed in the sections with peat soil where 
not only the surface and above surface 
vegetation burns, but where the very earth 
itself becomes a seething trap. 
It may surprise many people to know that 
thousands upon thousands of fish are killed 
by forest fires. Hot and poisoned ashes 
falling into waters create toxic conditions. 
The very presence of a fire extracts the 
oxygen from water. Frequently fires burn 
to the water's edge and raise the tem- 
perature of a stream or river. All of 
these influences serve to kill untold num- 
bers of fish. 
* I TITII fish as with 
 
VV upland game birds 
and animals, the indirect 
damages are even more 
important than the direct. 
The very nature of water 
supplies is changed by 
fires. Watersheds are 
spoiled. Erosion sets in 
much more rapidly over 
a burned area than it does 
over a green one, so that 
the lye and other poisons 
incident to every fire are 
washed into the streams. 
Without the protecting 
vegetation on the soil, 
water sources are not con- 
stant. Streams are more 
subject to floods and 
droughts. 
The conditions which 
affect fish likewise have 
their influences on the 
waterfowl and animals 
that live in and about 
water courses.     The 
serious droughts of 1930 
 
damage to the waterfowl           A fit 
10 
 
grouse--after a fire. The bird has been liter 
crisp. 
population have been made even more 
serious by fires burning in the marsh areas 
formerly covered by water. These marshes 
usually have a peaty soil, containing a high 
carbon content which makes the soil burn 
readily when dry. 
The beaver, mink, muskrat, and other 
fur bearing animals which live in or near 
water courses, suffer from fire to nearly 
as great an extent as upland animals. 
These swimming fur bearers have a better 
means of escape than do the deer and the 
elk, but their homes, natural ranges, and 
food supplies are ruined by fire, so the 
after effects are as important with them 
as with other species. 
So far we have been discussing the type 
of fires which might be called forest fires. 
There is another type, extremely destruc- 
tive to game populations, which is usually 
intentionally set by malicious people or 
mistaken people. These are the marsh and 
field fires. The malicious sportsman who 
will set fire to a marsh in the fall to drive 
out the rabbits and birds, may attain his 
immediate objective and get a full bag, but 
he is doing untold damage and is ruining 
his sport for future years. These fall 
marsh fires destroy the cover and food 
necessary to small game animals and game 
 
ne pickerel, another mute victim of the red menace, 
 
birds for the ensuing 
winter. After a field or 
marsh has burned over, 
there is no food left. The 
birds and small animals 
that do escape these mali- 
cious fires must concen- 
trate in smaller areas 
where, even though 
predators are absent, the 
food supply soon becomes 
exhausted leaving weak- 
ened or starving game to 
face the rigors of winter. 
If we are honestly in- 
terested in perpetuating 
those great sports of 
hunting and fishing which 
are the inherent birth- 
right of every American 
boy and girl, let us abide 
by the laws set up for 
the protection of these 
creatures of the wild, but 
at the same time let us 
attack in a battle which 
must be victorious those 
 
major things which do so 
ally baked to a  much   to  alter natural 
habitat and    disturb 
natural conditions. Let 
us stop water pollution, unwise drainage 
that ruins the breeding grounds of our 
waterfowl, and above all else, let us halt 
the red menace of fire. 
Fires cause dangerous concentrations of 
game. In an area approximately three 
miles square on the eastern edge of Wood 
County, adjacent to the burned area, ninety- 
three deer were counted in a single after- 
noon early in the winter following the 
fire.  This concentration was not the 
"yarding-up" as deer do not congregate in 
"yards" in mild winters.    Sharp-tailed 
grouse, prairie chickens, and ruffed grouse 
have concentrated by the thousands along 
the ditch banks and in the few unburned 
"islands." Rabbits and other small animals 
have likewise concentrated. 
The very presence of large numbers of 
game animals or birds attracts predators. 
The predator situation becomes particularly 
serious after a fire because the mice and 
other normal food of foxes, coyotes, 
hawks and owls are practically exter- 
minated in burned districts. This makes 
the predators turn more than ever to game 
animals and birds. 
Another disastrous indirect effect of 
forest fires is the destruction of food and 
cover. The beaver situation in this area 
is typical. Few beaver 
 
were actually killed in the 
fire because of their 
ability to escape by their 
water routes, but their 
food has been entirely 
consumed. 
The Conservation Com- 
mission  has established 
many feeding stations for 
birds in the burned area. 
Prairie chickens, sharp- 
tailed grouse, and other 
ground feeding birds have 
fed every day from the 
special automatic feed 
hoppers with which every 
station was equipped. 
Statistics on fire causes 
show that a comparatively 
small percentage result 
from logging activities, 
indicating that men whose 
livelihood depends on the 
woods are more careful 
of them. Similarly there 
are usually fewer fires on 
Indian reservations than 
surrounding them.