this post was submitted on 02 Apr 2025
767 points (99.4% liked)
Animals with Jobs
4073 readers
121 users here now
Is it an animal? Does it have a job? Then it belongs here!
Our rules for posting and commenting, besides the rules defined here for lemmy.world, are as follows:
Our Rules
Rule 1- Be respectful and inclusive.
Everyone should feel welcome here.
Rule 2- No illegal or NSFW or NSFL content.
Violation of this rule will not be tolerated.
Rule 3- No advertisement or spam.
Violation of this rule will not be tolerated.
Rule 4- No inflammatory or controversial content.
Please stay away from politics and other divisive topics. This is meant to be a lighthearted community.
Community Moderation
For inquiry on becoming a moderator of this community, you may comment on the pinned post of the time, or simply shoot a message to the current moderators.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Not an expert on this but...
Forests usually recover just fine after a fire. They're a natural process after all. You don't need to go throw seeds around to help it recover.
Of course, with the advent of climate change that's no longer true in all cases, with drier areas burning hotter than previously and destroying old growth forests.
The thing is, you can't just throw around "big old tree" seeds - you raise seedlings / saplings and then plant them in appropriate places.
Additionally, even if you were trying to spread seeds around, IDK whether a dog could achieve an even or even a random spread. Unpredictable yes, but not random.
So, cute dogs and stuff, bit I think this is a pretty niche application and not often required in forestry.
Yeah, also I don't know if they are biologists/foresters but hopefully they use native or at least compatible seeds for the areas. There are lots of grass types which can become invasive and destroy habitat for the local wildlife if they use the wrong species.
Where I live we just use helicopters, and mostly only because it's mountainous so we want to establish the grass back as quickly as possible before the rain hits and washes all the soil away into the rivers.
I didn't read the article, so correct me if I'm wrong, but the title says "plant seeds" not "tree seeds", so it's probably a variety of plants. And my guess is none of them are "tree seeds", not only for the reasons you already stated, but also for the simple fact that "tree seeds" are too big for the bags those dogs are carrying in the thumbnail.
Yeah I got a bit side tracked talking about how fires have been more intense in recent years and now "big, old, trees" are dying in fires where they didn't in the past.
Still, and I don't know how applicable this is to other places, but here in Australia fires are an important part of plant life cycles.
First Nations people used to burn areas for a variety of reasons, one of which is that it would attract marsupials in the coming weeks and days coming to eat the new shoots bursting through the ground after a fire. So you could burn an area within walking distance from your camp, and over the next few weeks have a ready herd of kangaroos hanging around from which to cull a few.
Not really relevant but firehawks aparently spread fires. Also a lot of Australian plants are stimulated to germinate after being exposed to heat and smoke.
I guess my point is, spreading seeds after a fire isn't a problem that needs solving. Fire is a natural process and the bush generally bounces right back quicker than you'd expect.
My understanding is that Australia gets a lot of rain certain parts of the year, California does not
Ok well, I'm sure these dogs will be incredibly useful in California and one wonders how it didn't turn into a dusty wasteland without them.
As an aside, Australia is a big place mate. Some areas have loads of rain some have none.
It didn't turn into a dusty wasteland because global warming wasn't as severe as it now, bud
Could be used as a way to prevent erosion on hillsides. The plants will die out once native species are established. They just have to hold on to the soil for the native species to grow.