REINDEER GRAZIXG INVESTIGATIONS IN ALASKA 29 
stances where an occasional plant base or small plant had been 
left standing, growth was continuing. The new reproduction meas- 
ured a sixteenth to an eighth of an inch high, and the few old 
plants left standing measured 1 or V/ 2 inches high. 
RAXGE RECOVERY 
The beginning of lichen reproduction takes place one or two years 
following denudation. Reproduction comes in best where^ the 
ground has been cleared of the matted growth, giving the young 
plants a chance to develop. Where the top of the plant is cropped, 
a growth of offshoots occurs which will probably result in a bushy, 
deformed top. 
Cutting or cropping the lichen cover results in considerable dam- 
age, by killing a large proportion of the growth. The number of 
plants killed seems to be in direct proportion to the degree of crop- 
ping or grazing. Even light cropping or tramping may result in 
considerable damage. Much trampling in summer when the plants 
are dry and brittle may entirely kill out the cover. This means 
that the winter ranges must have complete protection from grazing 
during late spring, the summer, and early fall, or particularly 
when the surface is thawed and the lichens are dry and brittle. 
During winter, on the other hand, the lichens have regained their 
moist consistency and the ground is frozen with the base of the 
plant, thus offering considerable protection against ready destruction. 
The quadrat observations apply to coast tundras, where it would 
seem that recovery of the lichen range following full cropping may 
take possibly 15 or 20 years. On higher ground, where a dry, rocky 
soil offers less favorable conditions for good growth, undoubtedly 
recovery will take much longer, perhaps as much as 25 or even 30 
years. The rate of recovery of a lichen range depends very much 
on the site conditions. 
RANGE FIRES 
One of the greatest sources of injury to range and losses of forage 
in Alaska is in fires, which in most cases are deliberately set or are 
due to carelessness. Tundra fires along the coast are common, and 
burned-over range areas may be frequently found. Fires are often 
set by prospectors to clear off the vegetation and thus expose the 
underlying ground and rock or by Eskimos in an effort to be rid of 
mosquitoes. They are also caused by carelessly leaving a camp fire 
burning or tossing away a lighted match or cigarette. 
Possibly on account of the immensity of the country and the sparse 
population the injury by fire does not appear very impressive nor a 
need of its suppression important. It has not, perhaps, been called 
sufficiently to people's attention in the past, although a Territorial 
law is in effect providing penalty for the deliberate setting of range 
fires. What is needed for Alaska is a general fire-prevention pro- 
gram, and in that connection a wide, educational propaganda against 
forest and range fires, particularly in the northern and western 
sections of the Territory, reaching the Eskimos through the schools. 
Damage to range by fire involves not only loss of forage and 
trees but also of game and fur animals, since the small ground ani- 
mals as well as the cover of vegetation are destroyed by the fire. 
