Importance of young forest habitat for game and non-game alike

[Bucksnbows]

New Jersey is fast approaching total disappearance of its young forest habitat, known as early successional forest.  Many plants flourish in these young forests, made young once again either by natural causes including fire, disease, drought, winds like Hurricane Sandy, or flooding (as is often the case with beaver dams near streams) or by man's manipulation to cut down aging portions of the mature forest to mimic what we have taken out by fighting fires and diseases.  In any healthy forest, you would typically find anywhere from 5% to 10% in young forest habitat.  The trees in the mature forest surrounding these areas would be of a mixed age and not the single aged stands we see throughout NJ which was logged 100% over several times in many cases.  

 

As a direct result of over-harvesting of our forests in the latter 1800s and into the early 1900s, this state has moved too far the other direction, in my opinion and in the opinions of most, if not all foresters and biologists.  We do very little timber harvests for wildlife habitat in NJ on public lands, and efforts to do more are often met with misguided, but well meaning anti-loggers who squelch projects that would actually benefit wildlife which the average New Jersey resident says is important to them for viewing as well as for those of us that hunt, obviously.  The fight we who want more public lands logging are faced with is mostly 1) paranoia about rare and endangered plants for which protocols are already in place to avoid those sensitive areas, as well as 2) fear that invasive plants will move in, 3) that deer will over-browse sites, 4) that this is nothing more than money grab, to name the primary ones.  The main reason for the largely disappeared ruffed grouse, king of upland shooting, is a severe lack of young forest habitat in the Ridge & Valley, Piedmont and Highlands regions.  It is not too many predators although that base has grown and has added to low grouse numbers.  But habitat has always remained king.  Always has and always will.  And early successional forest is critical habitat for many non-game species as well as many game species.  Grouse, woodcock, bobcat, fox, deer, turkeys, and bears all benefit from the edge habitat that young forests provide within a mature or adjacent to a mature forest and/or other habitats such as swamps.  

 

I wonder how well trained we as hunters are in making the case that more forestry work is needed and on an ongoing basis much like states such as PA do on a rotational basis on their public lands.  

 

The arguments against these forestry practices as I outlined above are largely baseless or easily worked around as some are very valid. 1)  As for rare and endangered plants, we have recently seen some botanists (pros and amateurs that know their rare and native plants) take on the task of surveying proposed clear cut sites ahead of formal plans being presented by the state (most wildlife cuts seem to be happening on Division WMA lands, but some also in State Parks and Forestry Lands as well).  If rare plants are encountered and are in harm's way, the cut can easily be altered to work around these vulnerable species.  2) As for invasive plants, they can be a serious issue and virtually dominate a forest if they are opened up to full sunlight.  These areas should be either avoided all together or treated prior to forestry and with plans to treat post tree harvesting if needed to allow native trees and shrubs to reforest instead of invasive foreign plants.  Invasives seem to take much better hold over our native plants in areas that were previously farmed as opposed to previously forested and that remain forested.  But any forestry plan in NJ should include invasive species management.  As for 3) deer over browsing, this is also a serious threat to having your newly logged forest come back in new growth of native vegetation.  Deer densities should be within the capable holding range of the surrounding habitat and a biologist can work with you to let you know herd densities in the area you plan your forestry work.  I've had to manage a lot more does for two years than our property would normally take off it, but only two years until my new clear cut grew up above their browse lines.  4) The money grab for Trenton just can't exist, at least not while we have virtually no timber mills of any size near our state.  Much of our wood goes to NY or PA and sees a lot of trucking costs and not nearly as much profit.  We're talking thousands per large cut, not tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars.  

 

More later with some pictorials.  I'd love to hear others' experiences with forestry work or questions or comments.  It's all good to learn from one another.  I know I certainly don't  have all the answers!    

[Rusty]

Here's one of the cuts they are doing up on Sparta Mountain WMA.  They will be starting a new cut up there next month.      

 

 

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Edited February 14, 2014 by Rusty

[Palawman30]

Ive always heard that in any good forest management plan at least 1%-5% a year should be cut to keep that early succession going. In a lot of areas in Jersey and Pa Timber its not even close to the 1% goal. What ends up happening is the woods become old with nothing new able to come up to support high levels of plants or animals.

 

Does Jersey have a forest management plan in place?

 

Heres Ours http://www.dcnr.state.pa.us/forestry/stateforestmanagement/sfrmp/index.htm

[Palawman30]

Here's one of the cuts they are doing up on Sparta Mountain WMA.  They will be starting a new cut up there next month.      

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When cuts like that are done are seed trees left?

 

Does Jersey do prescribed burns?

[Rusty]

When cuts like that are done are seed trees left?

 

Does Jersey do prescribed burns?

 

These cuts vary from 5 to 15 acres so there are an abundance of seed trees around the perimeter, and there are trees left scattered throughout the cuts but these are more for the golden-winged warbler's needs than they are for seed trees.  Stump shoots will make up most of the new trees in the early successional forest.

 

NJ does do prescribed burns in many areas.

[Bucksnbows]

The state lacks a forestry plan and we're fighting an uphill battle against the plant extremists at times over small projects like the one Rusty showed.  But we are making strides.  Yes, those were either seed trees or both the state/NJ Audubon and I have certain species we consider do-not-cut for various reasons.  I won't cut white oak because we have so few of them and they are often the preferred mast crop when they throw a lot of acorns.  I don't cut shagbark hickory but do the other hickory species.  When a mature shagbark hickory gets over 75 years, it becomes good bat habitat during the daytime and white nosed syndrome has decimated our bat populations which are important eaters of insects.  And lastly, we don't cut hemlocks because our hemlocks were mostly lost to woolly adelgids and those that remain have reached an equilibrium with the disease.  We even see some young trees sprouting in our forest.

 

I manage the adjacent property to the WMA Rusty showed in the above pictures and I have a few year jump on the Division/NJ Audubon cuts because it was easy for me to file a Forest Stewardship Management Plan and get cutting as a private landowner (my good friend is the owner, I just manage it) and because it takes the state so much longer to go through internal red tape.

[Bucksnbows]

I don't know of any state burns in the Highlands or Ridge & Valley regions.  They do at times do some in the Pines.  Possibly elsewhere that I am not aware of.  But fire is critical to certain habitats and we don't allow enough to burn each year or do controlled burns ourselves. 

[Rusty]

 I won't cut white oak because we have so few of them and they are often the preferred mast crop when they throw a lot of acorns.  

 

The gypsy moths wiped out a lot of the white oaks on Sparta Mountain 15-20 years ago.  

[Rusty]

I don't know of any state burns in the Highlands or Ridge & Valley regions.  They do at times do some in the Pines.  Possibly elsewhere that I am not aware of.  But fire is critical to certain habitats and we don't allow enough to burn each year or do controlled burns ourselves. 

 

I've seen burns at Flatbrook and the Wallkill Refuge.

[Bucksnbows]

Stump sprouts, also known as copus growth, shown here from a chestnut white oak (not Quercas alba, the white oak which I don't cut).

This is the forest regeneration you worry most about because it has the very best chance to overcome deer browse pressure.  The reason is that you have lots of sugar stored in the tree's root system and it can only push out that energy if it successfully shoots up and is not eaten to the ground by deer.

 

Successful forest regeneration of an oak/hickory forest.  Some botanists will tell you that this is next to impossible due to deer and invasive species without first fencing out deer.  We prefer to eat them    That's how I deal with deer browse issues.  Now that my trees are doing so well, we have backed off and only shot one doe last year and a single buck off 117 acres.  But we were taking about 9 baldies per year and a few bucks on top of that for a few years to keep pressure off our regenerating forest.  

 

 

One of our remaining hemlocks and this one is doing well.  Gone are our 100 year old trees.  

 

This is the kind of lush understory you'll begin to see a year or two after a clear cut is made.

[Bucksnbows]

Some more shots.  Once you bring in full sunlight, you get a massive number of acorns that suddenly sprout successfully and their shear numbers cannot be kept up with by the deer, so many then grow above the browse line and become trees in a few short years.

 

And here's what the forest looks like adjacent to this 5 year old clear cut.  Ignore the bears, they're like so many gnats up there.  See how much less ground vegetation and shrub layer exists within the canopy of a mature forest?  

 

And another shot of how thick it becomes by year 5.  Find the spike who seems lost in the thicket.

Edited February 14, 2014 by Bucksnbows

[Haskell_Hunter]

Those photos have me somewhat concerned.  I see a bunch of chestnut oak, but not a diverse white or red oak.  Chestnut oak grows well in north Jersey because of the stone piles left over from the ice age.  But deer prefer white oaks over red oaks because of tannins in the darker oaks.

 

Where are the oaks and elms?

[Bucksnbows]

Actually, red oaks dominate this particular forest followed by various hickories and then chestnut white, scarlet oak, red/scarlet hybrids (naturally occurring) and some maple, tulip poplars,  and black birch.  White oaks prefer moister soils than we have up on this high ridge and that is one reason we chose this location, because it has the poorest soil conditions of most any on the property.  The 3 white oaks that stood within this 5 acre clear cut were not cut and are now growing wider, fuller crowns and dropping their acorns into new production around them with a little help from the squirrels and chipmunks.  As for elms, they died off 100 years ago due to Dutch Elm Disease.  Chestnuts would have outnumbered even the oaks at one time, but they too are long gone due to introduced disease many decades ago.  I have thought of planting some of the more recent blight-free chestnuts, but have not to date.  Again, the main trees growing in this clearcut by far are northern red oaks and that is what was there before.  Chestnut white oak is distant second and is our predominant oak after northern red.  The hickories vary from shagbark to mockernut to pignut, and others.  In certain areas we also have sugar maple and, as I mentioned, plenty of black birch and also tulip poplars in spots.     

[Rusty]

Those photos have me somewhat concerned.  I see a bunch of chestnut oak, but not a diverse white or red oak.  

 

I'm impressed, the man knows his trees.  Most guys wouldn't know a chestnut oak if you hit them with it.  

[Haskell_Hunter]

I'm impressed, the man knows his trees.  Most guys wouldn't know a chestnut oak if you hit them with it.  

 

Someone posted a link about acorns as a food source earlier this year.  So I decided to educate myself on the kinds of trees we have in the former Wanaque WMA while I was scouting this fall.  That forest is dominated by chestnut oaks, hence why I can recognize them right away.  Once you know their leaves, you see them everywhere.

 

And to BnB's point, they grow in rough places.  Northern NJ is ideal for them with all of the scraggly ridges.

Edited February 15, 2014 by Haskell_Hunter