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Idaho Fish and Game planning sagebrush seed drops to restore Valley Fire area

Idaho Fish and Game is harvesting sagebrush seeds to be dropped over burn scarred area. A wildlife habitat biologist said rehabilitating sagebrush is crucial.

BOISE, Idaho — The land burned by the Valley Fire in the Boise Foothills last month has a long recovery process ahead. 

Idaho Fish and Game is one of the agencies that has already begun its process of rehabilitating the area. 

Though Boise dwellers are likely eager to get back into the wildlife area, the mountains and trails that burned are still closed to the public.

Idaho Fish and Game's Michael Young is a wildlife habitat biologist working on wildlife recovery from the Valley Fire. 

“We're expecting at least five years of rehab efforts on this fire,” Young told KTVB.

Seed planting is a major method for rehabilitating the land. Young said sagebrush seed is what will mostly be planted in the mountains. Some areas can take in seeds planted by hand or tractor, but higher elevations might require aerial seed dropping.

"Aerial seeding has a really good chance of getting sagebrush back onto the landscape on vast acreages," Young said. "It's really hard to do any other way than to throw seed out of a helicopter.”

Young has already been collecting sagebrush seeds with volunteer crews. He said seeds are ideally collected during November and December.

“Sagebrush flowers in the fall, and the seeds ripen as it gets cold, and so we're just starting to see a few ripe seeds now," Young said. "And then over the coming weeks, we hope to find a lot of ripe seed where we're going to be picking seed with volunteers.”

After seeds are gathered, Young said they are taken to Lucky Peak Nursery to be cleaned and dried.

“They're working with us to try to speed up the process for this fire," Young said. "So we'll be getting seed from them as soon as possible, most likely in January.”

Young said winter conditions can actually help the sagebrush seeds take root, being packed down in the snow with moisture. 

After IDFG receives the seeds from the nursery, the seeds are ready to be dropped in aerially – most likely from helicopters – according to Young. 

"We'll be targeting specific areas that we expect wildlife to be using, as well as areas that we really expect that the rehab rehabilitation efforts are going to work," Young said.

Idaho Fish and Game wants to cover between 2,000-2,500 acres of land it owns with aerial seed dropping this year, Young told KTVB. 

Young said in the future, IDFG will continue rehabilitation efforts, including controlling invasive species such as cheatgrass.

"We just ask the public respect the closure," Young said. "Our whole purpose here is to rehab the landscape for wildlife and we do want the public to be able to enjoy that as well, and sometimes it just takes a little bit of time.”

IDFG said it will begin aerial herbicide sometime next week in some of the burned areas to ensure that the ground is clear for aerial sagebrush seeding in the upcoming months. 

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