Gilroy - Humans haven't been the only species affected by the Lick Fire.
The sundry animals and plants that live within Henry Coe State Park's 87,000 acres have dealt with the regenerative effects of natural fires for hundreds of millions of years.
But the accidental burning of 50,000 acres earlier this month has orphaned many species of flora and fauna.
The temporary emigration has resulted in everything from wandering, thirsty deer to plants struggling to reproduce with so much ash and dust covering them.
The fragile equilibrium among Coe Park's thousands of species depends on each one's presence. The lack of deer, for example, means mountain lions have less food and must pursue other habitats.
But biologists say the discord's only temporary.
"In the larger view, this is just another day in the life of Mother Nature," said Jeannine DeWald, an associate wildlife biologist with the California Department of Fish and Game. "There's a reduction in resources now, but what typically happens is that these resources come back richer" with younger growth that's less dense and rife with protein.
Even right now torched hillsides give birds increased visibility, but this assumes their preferred prey have stuck around to be seen.
Since most raptors eat other birds and rodents, and songbird species rely on insects, seeds and nuts, many have fled west due to the lack of food and water and the destruction of their straw and wood nests.
Subterranean creatures such as ground-burrowing squirrels were able to hide until the fire passed, but some areas were too hot for this wait-and-see approach. Either way, most of the protective vegetation that these ground-dwellers relied on burned away, and on top of this year's drought, the Lick Fire evaporated parts of the park's remaining water sources.
All this became apparent Thursday as State Park Ranger John Verhoeven stood on a powdery dirt road that served as a fire line after CalFire trucks and bulldozers pulverized it during the nine-day fire.
Verhoeven gazed eastward toward a fire-torn "mosaic" of brown, green and ashy-black hills whose heat bent the air around them. Behind Verhoeven, in the green, fire-spared hills, a jay screeched. Its strident notes carried eastward through the hot miasma of dust that the ranger's white Dodge Durango had kicked up, and they signaled the fact that this bird, like many others, had probably escaped the fire and was calling home from a new habitat.
A few hours later, a red-tailed hawk circled the cloudless sky while another jay hopped around a blackened hillside peppered with contrasting brown bumps of dirt, which ground squirrels had excavated for new homes since the fire.
To help recreate these homes, CalFire officials tried to limit erosion on their way out by shoveling flour-like dirt into berms along many of the park's windy roads, which DeWald said was all humans could really do to help.
But the resultant, far-traveling dust has covered plants and chaparral throughout the park, inhibiting their reproduction and photosynthesis, Verhoeven said.
Whenever the smell of dust subsided Thursday, the campfire odor of charred oak and blackened branches asserted itself. It became especially intense atop Bear Mountain, a nearly half-mile high peak in the park's north-central region.
"It's pretty empty of life up here right now," Verhoeven said, pointing to the mountain's "moonscape" sides that lacked upturned dirt since the fire there was "too intense" for animals to avoid it in burrows. Abandoned tarantula holes told the same tale.
A few times chilly gusts nearly took Verhoeven's hat off since winds are no longer impeded by a forest blanketed with chaparral.
Mammals, which have an incredible sense of smell compared to reptiles, amphibians and birds, relied on the smoke-laden wind to flee the inferno, said Verhoeven, who recently took over Coe Park after four years as a ranger.
"The deer smelled the smoke and got the heck out of here," he said, adding that fire crews continually reported fleeing deer during the fire.
Screech owls apparently also fled.
As executive director of the nonprofit Wildlife Education and Rehabilitation Center in Morgan Hill, Sue Howell received a small screech owl Sept. 3. The two- to three-ounce bird had suffered severe head and shoulder injuries after a vehicle struck it on East Dunne Avenue in Morgan Hill, the main thoroughfare for fire trucks entering and exiting the park's west side.
Howell is also taking care of an emaciated peregrine falcon with a fractured left wing. She said its starvation was probably fire-related, too.
More than a dozen ranchers and rural residents have called her since the fire ended, Howell said, concerned about roving foxes, raccoons and deer that are seeking out new habitats between Morgan Hill and Gilroy.
"People are going to see more animals, but they're just trying to survive," Howell said, adding that she's heard of deer using people's swimming pools. "These animals are starving. I've never seen anything like this before."
Despite the dire situation, escaping ground animals and birds also left behind stashes of food, such as acorns, which Verhoeven said could actually help trees recover.
Nuts can withstand fire much more than dry, golden grass, so seedlings abandoned in the grasses got a quick heating before the main fuel quickly burned into a black, bristly hair.
Along the desiccated east fork of the Coyote Creek, Verhoeven stumbled upon a small, shallow pool. As he crouched along the pond's rocky bank, baby rainbow trout and tadpoles darted among the algae that looked like slimy green cotton balls pulled apart.
"There's a hotbed of life right in this pocket," Verhoeven said, adding that any California newts in the area would've also burrowed in available mud while the fire raced overhead.
As he stared into the water, Verhoeven's love for the land appeared in his reflection, but aside from erosion control and maintenance of fire lines, time and rain are the only remedies.
"It's hard to know how to intervene without messing things up," DeWald said. "We rely on Mother Nature to take her course, so if you can hold on for a year, things will go back to normal, depending on rainfall."
Chris Bone Chris Bone covers Gilroy government for South Valley Newspapers. Reach him at 847-7109 or e-mail him.
POST A COMMENT
If you are under 13 years of age you may read this message board, but you may not participate.
Here are the full legal terms you agree to by using this comment form.
Gilroy Garlic Festival: City vs. City Challenge
