3.2 Benefitting from fire

Like plants, some animals benefit from the habitats generated by recurrent fires and may even be reliant on them. The new, high quality vegetation regrowth after fires serves as an important food source for many large mammalian herbivores. For example, sable antelope (Hippotragus niger, Figure 16) rely on post-fire regrowth to help cope with limited food availability during the dry season. This regrowth has been shown to be crucial for lactating females, in particular (Parrini and Owen-Smith, 2010).

Figure 16  Male sable antelope. Lactating females are reliant on new growth generated by fires.

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A photo of a male sable antelope. A large predominantly black antelope with a white underbelly and white markings on the face. It has two long and slim backward curved horns and is standing in a savannah landscape.

Figure 16  Male sable antelope. Lactating females are reliant on new growth generated by fires.

Many birds, for example the southern bald ibis (Geronticus calvis, Figure 17) depend on fires by making extensive use of recently burned grassland for foraging for insects and other invertebrates.

Figure 17  The southern bald ibis (Geronticus calvus).

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The ibis is a bird about 75 cm long and weighs about 1 kg. It has glossy dark green plumage and feathers on its wings and shoulders are iridescent green with bronze and purple highlights. The head is bare of feathers. The bill is long and narrow and curved downwards and is adapted to pecking and probing the ground for food that includes insects, worms, snails and frogs as well as small reptiles and mammals that have died (usually in fires).

Figure 17  The southern bald ibis (Geronticus calvus).

Migrating hummingbirds in tropical ecosystems rely on post-fire flowers to fuel migration (Contreras-Martinez and Santana, 1995) and the black-backed woodpecker (Picoides arcticus, Figure 18) inhabits severely burned coniferous forests in North America where it feeds on beetle larvae and nests in trees recently killed by fire (Collard, 2015).

Figure 18  The black-backed woodpecker (Picoides arcticus) feeds and nests in recently burned coniferous forests.

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A medium-sized woodpecker has solid black plumage on its back that camouflages it against the bark of burnt trees. The chin, throat and belly are white. It has a long straight chisel-like bill that it uses to peel back the bark of burned trees and hunt for hidden insects and larvae.

Figure 18  The black-backed woodpecker (Picoides arcticus) feeds and nests in recently burned coniferous forests.

The black-backed woodpecker (Picoides arcticus) is highly dependent on burned coniferous forests in North America with abundant fire-killed trees. They feed primarily on wood boring beetle larvae which are abundant after the adult beetles have laid their eggs on trees killed by fire. It also nests in trees recently killed by fire (Collard, 2015).