Hunting habitat still recovering at Fort Robinson

As hunting seasons get underway, Nebraska Game and Parks Commission officials say habitat conditions at Fort Robinson State Park and adjacent lands have been heavily affected by wildfire and won’t be as productive as usual.

Mike Morava, regional park superintendent for Game and Parks, said the landscape is slowly recovering from the South Fork Fire, which burned about 40,000 acres including most of the park in June.

Rainfall has been limited since the fire, and Morava said the wildlife populations are substantially down in most of the burned areas.

Those who hunt the area should be careful, he said. Some fences and gates with hazardous barbed wire are down in areas of the burn. Trees that were weakened from fire have begun falling over. The lack of vegetation also has increased the risk of flash flooding.

“The ash and dirt are substantial, although some limited recent moisture has greened it up a bit,” he said.

Similar conditions may be found on other public lands where fire occurred, including Fort Robinson Wildlife Management Area, Peterson Wildlife Management Area, the Soldier Creek Wilderness and Nebraska National Forest.

Some areas of Fort Robinson that didn’t burn have been grazed more heavily than usual by the park’s livestock because of the shortage of range forage prompted by drought and the fire.

With much of Nebraska experiencing drought conditions, hunters and other recreationists are being reminded to use extreme caution to avoid starting wildfires as they take to the field in coming months.