A bushfire has ‘swept the slate clean’ immediately before this photograph was taken
With Ken Slee
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It is now well-recognised that ‘firestick farming’ was practices by Aborigines right across Australia for many thousands of years prior to European settlement. Burning the country maintained a patchwork that increased animal and plant food sources and made travel through the country easier.
‘Firestick farming’ still occurs in sambar country, but these days is managed by government natural resource managers; burning of logging coupes to grow a new crop of mill logs, and controlled burns to remove ground litter and scrub and thereby reduce the risk of wildfire. Wildfires are definitely not part of ‘firestick farming’ but also dramatically influence the productivity of land. They mostly occur during dry years and those that occurred in 1939 and between 2003 and 2009 devastated most of the sambar range. Other, smaller wildfires, occur much more frequently.
Given what is known about Aboriginal firestick farming, it is perhaps not surprising that fire, whether following logging, controlled burning or wildfire, plays a role in the productivity of the sambar population. Arthur Bentley in his book An Introduction to the Deer of Australia highlighted the boom that occurred in the sambar population in areas devastated by the 1939 fires. Max Downes in his various writings also emphasised the importance of fire in maintaining good sambar hunting. Overseas, the US-based Quality Deer Management Association promotes controlled burns as one method to improve habitat for whitetail deer.
Logging and fire reset the forest vegetation clock by removing undergrowth and reducing the forest canopy. The accumulation of a nutrient-rich ash layer, an increase in soil moisture due to less demand from vegetation and increased penetration of sunlight to the soil surface all contribute to a rapid regrowth of young palatable plants where they can be accessed by the deer.
Within days survivors of fire start putting out new growth
This growth might include mosses, grasses, herbs, shrubs and over-storey species, all jockeying for their place in the sun and the opportunity to set seed. This highly productive phase probably lasts for a few years, but as the understory matures the shrubs and trees generally come to dominate and the quality of the feed decreases and deer numbers decline.
A smallish wildfire in the lower Timbarra River valley in November 1982 convinced me just how influential this can be on sambar numbers and hunting success. From a relatively sparse population before the fire, numbers increased rapidly over a couple of years with much more evidence of feeding, travelling and rutting by deer before this tapered off as dense wattle regrowth started to dominate the vegetation. Almost forty years later the wattles are now mostly dead and a grassy understory is once more prominent.
A major fire in January 2007 involving an enormous area including parts of the Tambo River valley again emphasised how significant fire is in the sambar economy. This fire devastated a wide area but left small unburnt patches to serve as refuge for wildlife including the deer. Growth of grasses and scrub in the burnt areas and on the bulldozed control lines was very rapid and provided a heap of great feed. Deer moved into the burnt area from elsewhere and presumably also bred more successfully, resulting in a local boom in the population.
Although we never took advantage of the deer immediately after the fire, 18 months later the penny dropped that the area was ‘hot’; so hot that over that winter and spring our group shot several deer, including good stags. Unfortunately, we had left our run too late and missed the best of the hunting – by the spring of 2008 the wattles in some places were already too high for stalking and by the following year the area was really beyond stalking due to the massive growth of black wattle scrub. However, the area would still have been a productive hound hunting area for several years after that, but now, ten years after the fire, the area is a deer desert except adjoining private property and in the immediate surrounds of the river.
While these two local areas highlight the importance of fire on sambar, the same impacts will undoubtedly be seen right across the sambar’s range in eastern Victoria and southern New South Wales.
I guess that the message is, pay attention to areas that have been burnt, whether as part of a logging operation, as a control burn or after wildfire, as they can provide very productive hunting. But be quick, as the ‘good times’ are transitory and may only last for a couple of years after the burn unless you hunt with hounds.
In a few months, new growth is everywhere in a burnt area and provides ideal feeding conditions for the deer
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