What is Cheatgrass, and Why is it so Bad for Mule Deer?

As Aldo Leopold first noted, the public value of wildlife stems from the public understanding of the natural order of the world. A person who is not in tune with this natural order will not find value in wild places and wild things, and a society that does not understand this natural order will eventually let these wild places and wild things drift away.

For this conservation concept, we wrestled Jessie Shallow out of the field for an hour to talk about cheatgrass and why it matters to mule deer.

MDF: Jessie, please tell me a little about yourself and what you do for the Mule Deer Foundation.

Jessie: I am Jessie Shallow. I am a hunter, angler, and public land advocate in Idaho. I’ve focused on mule deer biological research for 21 years, specifically on mule deer nutrition needs. I consider myself a farmer of the mountain.

Currently, I’m a partnered biologist with MDF embedded with the Idaho Department of Fish and Game (IDFG) in the Salmon, Idaho Office. I work on mule deer habitat with the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), U.S. Forest Service (USFS), and IDFG on cultivating wild calorie sources for mule deer.

MDF: What’s your favorite thing about mule deer?

Jesse: It’s not just one thing, it is hundreds of things.

MDF: I can’t write a hundred things.

Jessie: I fell in love with this iconic species of the West when I was 23. I was on my first collaring assignment as a technician. I have since collard hundreds of antelope, bighorn sheep, and elk, but never that day have I seen a wildness like I did in that doe mule deer.

While tussling around in the dust, dirt, and sagebrush, nothing has ever fought me so hard to stay wild. I clung to the deer’s neck with all my body weight trying to wrestle it to submission so we could apply the collar. The doe and I locked eyes, and, in a moment, I felt what I imagine the mountain man John Colter felt when he discovered Yellowstone. Terror, jealousy, and respect all combined into an amalgamation of emotion that can only come from seeing something truly wild.

I knew then that this was the creature I wanted to spend my life around. Mule Deer are truly the wildest thing I have been around and if we lose that wildness, I think a big part of who I am will be lost too.

MDF: That was deep.

Jessie: You said narrow it down to one reason.

MDF: Fair enough, so what is cheatgrass?

Jessie: Cheatgrass is a non-native, pain in the butt, water-sucking monster of a plant that does no good in the world and has become my arch nemesis.

MDF: Can you expand on that.

Jessie: Deer are not like cows or elk, their stomachs cannot ruminate, so cheatgrass being such a fibrous plant provides them no long-term nutrition. This means they can’t grow big antlers; they can’t migrate from summer to winter range, and they can’t make more deer. Cheatgrass is a blanket covering type grass that takes water from all other plants, and it grows so quickly that it out-competes other growth. On top of that, its substandard calories are only edible a few weeks out of the year. It is called cheatgrass because it cheats all other plants out of a chance at life, it’s a bully and I hate it.

MDF: Why is cheatgrass such a problem in the west?

Jessie: A bunch of reasons:

Fire Management: Cheatgrass is a terrible plant for fire management. Cheatgrass doesn’t leave an interstitial space distance like sagebrush or other native plants. What this means for fire management is there is a continuous line of fuel for the fire to burn. Compare this to sage or other native grasses which grow in bunches separated by bare dirt and make it harder for fire to spread and burn as fast.

Cheatgrass also burns hotter than the native plants. That’s important because in a naturally occurring forest fire, native plants will char but survive and, in some cases, use the fire to spread seeds or germinate. But when cheatgrass perpetuates on the landscape the fire burns hotter and faster killing native plants rather than simply char them.

Nutrients for Herd Health Whether we are thinking about food for deer and elk or for domestic cattle operations, cheatgrass doesn’t work well as a long-term food source. This is because it’s only edible for part of the year; it then quickly dies out and doesn’t provide summer-long food. Think of it like only eating celery. You feel like you are eating but you burn more calories expending the energy eating it than it gives the body back in calories.

We need to think about conservation and land management in the west like there is a nutritional value goal for every acre. Whether that acre is designed for wildlife or domestic critters, there is an ideal plant mix that should be growing on that acre to be as productive as possible. Cheatgrass doesn’t contribute to that calorie mix. Instead, it takes aways from the total calories because it actively eliminates natural plants. After years of this invasive plant supplanting the native shrubs, deer will simply stop coming to that area, instead moving and overcrowding herds in other areas of the range, leading to fewer deer overall.

MDF: How do you and the MDF manage cheatgrass?

Jessie: We manage it with money.

MDF: Great Answer, no more questions from me.

Jessie: Really, we’re done, can I go back to work?

MDF: No, please expand on that.

Jessie: To hit cheatgrass, we need to target a large area of around 12,000 acres per project, in an area that can be protected long-term. Think of a large drainage basin of public land that terminates on a fenced cattle operation in the valley.

At MDF, we’re in a unique position to help with every aspect of these projects. The BLM and USFS cannot treat private property. But since we all know how the land is under mixed management in the west and that mule deer migrate hundreds of miles a year over land owned by a dozen or more agencies and private entities, we need to cut through the red tape. That’s where MDF comes in, we can collaborate with fish and game agencies, federal offices, and private land to treat everything.

MDF: Couldn’t we just treat the public land where most of us hunt?

Jesse: As a public land advocate and public land hunter I get your point, but the tough answer is: No! If we treated an entire mountain drainage with 100% effectiveness but didn’t treat the cheatgrass in the valley on the cattle ranches, or private inholdings that border public land, then cheatgrass will spread to the public land within a year.

MDF: So MDF is using donated money to treat private landowners’ ranches?

Jesse: Not exclusively, the landowners of course must pay into the project and many times they are seeking us out because they are hunters as well and enjoy the idea of more mule deer on public or private land.

MDF: But sometimes we pay to improve private land?

Jesse: Yes, sometimes we need to treat the private land to protect the public land, after all deer don’t know the difference. This is chess not checkers! Even if we only treat the boundary where private land and public land meet that barrier of natural vegetation buys us five or more years for the public land to regenerate without cheatgrass breaking through.

MDF: Why should hunters care about cheatgrass?

Jessie: The future of mule deer is dependent on the availability of habitat. The nutrition available to these animals must remain intact. We cannot remove houses from the landscape, or tear up roads, but we can control the quality of habitat available. If you are hunter and you want these critters around for the next generation, you need to be aware of and invested in the fight against cheatgrass.

MDF: What can hunters do to help?

Jessie: The biggest thing is simply being aware of our efforts and our reason why. The most effective time for us to treat an area and spray for cheatgrass is during hunting season. Folks see a controlled burn and say, “you are burning down the forest,” or they see a helicopter spraying cheatgrass and think we are chasing away their deer. Neither is the case.

Yes, the burn or the spray helicopter will make hunting in that area more difficult for a season, but because of these projects, mule deer will still be in this range for decades to come. If you are that upset, please reach out to me, and I can tell you where we are planning projects so you can work around us during your hunting season.

MDF: Thanks for all you do Jesse this was great.

Jesse: So we are really done this time?

MDF: Yes, thanks aga_____ (she hung up and is back at work on the mountain).

For more from Jessie consider watching our short film specifically on her and her work in conservation here. Jesse is an incredible woman in conservation, and we are extraordinarily lucky to have her on the MDF team.