Utah Issues
What Can You Do?
Volunteer with the Grand Canyon Trust and help us extend our reach and positive influence on the ground. We need your help with measuring elk and livestock browse of cottonwood, aspen, and willow, and stubble height of riparian plants at the end of the season.
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A silent decline
Aspen, willow, and cottonwood share something more than their silky-haired seeds and a common family name (Salicaceae, the willow family): All three are declining throughout the West.
One of the main stresses is that too often the sprouts and saplings of these water-loving plants are being eaten repeatedly by cattle, sheep, elk, and deer. If the topmost branches (the leaders and subleaders within about 6 vertical inches of the leaders) are repeatedly browsed, then the aspen, cottonwood, and tall species of willow cannot exceed the browse height of 5 to 6 feet. Eventually, entire willow patches, cottonwood galleries, and aspen stands can — and do — disappear from the landscape
This is a major loss because they support an unusually high number of native animal species and, especially in the case of aspen, provide habitat for a diversity of understory plants. Willows and cottonwood trees hold riparian banks together with their deep roots, and aspen provide far higher water yields than conifer stands. Aspen stands are second only to riparian areas in the West for supporting the greatest number of native species.
Curiously, the three national forests of southern Utah have only rarely (if at all) been measuring the intensity of browsing or height structure of aspen, and none have been measuring the browsing/height structure of cottonwood or willow, despite the thousands of cattle and sheep that are permitted for four months each year on these forests. Yet it’s common to see aspen stands with only one, old-age class of trees and little browsed sprouts; old, hedged willows with no young willows in sight; and grand old cottonwoods with sprouts no more than 1 or 2 feet in height. This means no recruitment of youngsters into the overstory.
Click here to see our 2011 cottonwood, aspen, and willow project activities.
Your donations and membership dues make our research, monitoring, and restoration work in Utah possible.
