Letters to the Editors: Summer 2006
Coyotes and Wolves
To the Editors:
I have just finished reading Michael Caduto’s brief and interesting piece with its eye-catching headline (“Are Coyotes Decimating Deer?”) in your spring issue. As a writer, I know there’s hardly ever enough room in an article to cover all of the facts, fallacies, and fine points, and of course I can’t help commenting on a few.
Coyotes will take any deer they can get without too long a struggle or too much risk. This can involve a big, healthy buck and usually occurs in deep snow or out on the ice, where the coyotes can get traction but the deer can’t. The latter situation has been witnessed dozens of times by hundreds of people over the course of recent years.
The writer touched on this, but there are too many people out there clinging to the romantic thought that coyotes and other predators take only the sick, old, young, or injured. Not so. Coyotes are responsive breeders. If for some reason their population is hit hard, they respond by having more young. This should be pointed out far and wide whenever we’re out there fighting the latest coyote bounty bill, or (Imagine!) night hunting, but it’s hardly ever mentioned. Coyotes take only their fair share of game but get blamed for alleged outright gluttony. In truth they take no more than the resource can sustain and, in lean times, respond by having fewer pups. We lose far more deer to road kills and free-running domestic dogs. Coyotes account for only a small fraction of annual deer mortality.
Finally, Caduto is dead on about more coyotes moving in if the local bunch is decimated (extremely hard to do, by the way). That’s why we regard the two families of coyotes at our farm the way the Romans viewed the buffer states they allowed to exist to their north. Our resident coyotes know all about our 4,000-volt fences and the big Maremma guard dogs in the sheep pastures that will tear them to pieces. Why persecute our present coyotes and have to educate a whole new bunch? As hunters and farmers, we are presumed to hate coyotes. We do not. We understand their niche in the scheme of things and admire their hard work, even as we well know that they’re always testing. And we like to hear them sing in the night and sometimes steal out onto the deck to sing back.
John Harrigan, Colebrook, New Hampshire
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Coyotes and Wolves
To the Editors:
Thanks to Donald Enman of Milan, New Hampshire, who requested the “other side” of the wolf issue. Mr. Enman’s statement that wolves were “introduced” into the Yellowstone National Park serves to demonstrate the real need for educating the public regarding the wolf issue, especially here in the Northeast. For Mr. Enman’s information, wolves were not “introduced” to Yellowstone. They were brought back to Yellowstone after the last known wolves were killed by humans some 60 years previously.
As far as wolves in the Northeast are concerned, Mr. Enman may be interested to know that the area of New Hampshire in which he lives borders some 19,000 square miles of contiguous potential core wolf habitat that runs from eastern Maine across northern Maine to central New Hampshire. Thousands more square miles of potential wolf habitat are present in southern Quebec from the Eastern Townships to the eastern end of the Gaspé Peninsula and throughout much of New Brunswick.
Wolves are native to the northeastern U.S. and continue to live today very close to the U.S. border. In fact, in recent years, wolves have been killed in Maine, New York, and in Quebec’s Eastern Townships. This is evidence that wolves are trying to recolonize the northeastern U.S. from Canada, where killing wolves is legal.
Wolves are an integral part of the ecosystem. Allowing them to return to the Northeast will help restore the predator-prey relationships that existed for thousands of years. It will also help grow the economy through wildlife-watching, an industry that generated some $346 million in economic activity in Maine in 2001.
Wolves will likely return to the Northeast without benefit of a forced reintroduction. It’s up to us to allow them to live once they get here.
John M. Glowa, Sr., South China, Maine
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Harvesting Biomass
To the Editors:
Congratulations on the Spring 2006 issue and its emphasis on sustainable biomass energy. Vermont-based wood-to-electricity plants adhere to a rigid set of harvesting guidelines imposed by the Vermont Public Service Board when procuring fuel. These standards reduce the impacts of biomass harvesting on soils, water, and wildlife resources while providing for good forest practices. As chief forester for McNeil Generating Station in Burlington, I hope all of the prospective users of biomass that were discussed in your articles will abide by similar standards.
Bill Kropelin, Burlington, Vermont
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Harvesting Biomass
To the Editors:
The articles in the Spring 2006 issue of Northern Woodlands do not have a complete analysis of wood resources. Missing is an analysis of how much energy can be extracted from Vermont woods in a sustainable way. First, how many acres are available and are not locked to loggers or are too poor to provide harvestable yield? Then, what is the replacement growth that exists in available woodlots, and how much of this is needed to be left in place so more trees can be grown to replace what is removed? There is also the problem of how much biomass can be removed without needing added fertilizer to replace removed nutrients. Trees rely on the fallen trees to provide food for the new trees. How much of this can we remove and still have healthy forests? Studies have shown that whole-tree removal depletes forest resources, so using tops and small branches is a negative in forest growth.
Peter Grant, Bristol, Vermont
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“Sharpen Up Your Sharpening Tips”
To the Editors:
I have been sharpening chainsaws for almost 60 years, and I would like to respectfully offer some comments on the “Tricks of the Trade” article on sharpening chainsaw chains in the Spring 2006 issue.
With the file used as demonstrated, the alignment of the vertical face of the tooth will be destroyed.
When filing, first a few passes of the file in the gullet must be made to maintain its curvature and depth; then the tooth is filed, using some upward pressure on the file to catch and sharpen the cutting edge of the tooth.
It is important that the file be level as it passes over the tooth (there is a tendency to hold the outer end of the file too high). Great care should be taken not to cut the rakers too low.
A right-handed person filing a saw will find that when the bar is facing to his left, he will have no problem maintaining the proper angle on the tooth. When he turns the saw around to file the teeth on the opposite side (bar extending to his right), he is likely to have some problem with the tooth angle if he is not careful. Tooth length on both sides should be the same.
If your saw hits a rock, it is turning so fast, it will case-harden the teeth and make them difficult to file. It is then necessary to file through the cadmium layer until the softer material is reached. It is best to do this with the outer end of the file, as otherwise, the file will be ruined.
You should talk about bars with sprockets and maintenance of bar grooves!
I enjoy your magazine and its many subjects.
Randy Kerr, Lyons Falls, New York
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“Sharpen Up Your Sharpening Tips”
To the Editors:
As a “flatlander” living in Boston but owning a tract of land in Vermont for occasional getaways, I have enjoyed the spread of articles in the Northern Woodlands, especially those dealing with the flora and fauna. Good articles on bee flight and hypotheses on aging trees in this issue – I wouldn’t come across such in anything else I subscribe to.
As a carpenter of 30 years’ experience and with a modicum of experience with chainsaws (but not nearly enough) and one or two efforts at sharpening chains, I had hoped to find some extra guidance from the article entitled “Chain Sharpening Tips.” Unfortunately, past the first paragraph, I found the article not written for the inexperienced. There were too many assumptions about tools, terms, and technique. How does the file attach to the guide? Or, in paragraph six: “Look at the corner of the cutting blades on the teeth.” Which corner? There are four. I suspect the author means the leading corner, but it could have been made clear. Or, the drawing directly below that paragraph has a reference to “Depth gauge,” with a line connecting that term to a straight line which runs from the top of the cutting edge of one tooth to the base of the next tooth. Is that the file guide being used as a depth gauge? But the next paragraph identifies the depth gauge as the same as “rakers,” which I presume to be chainsaw teeth. Or is the raker (depth gauge?) that part of the tooth which precedes the cutting part of each tooth? And what file is used to file that down? I assume a flat tail file? And what is the top plate? It probably could have been identified in the first illustration.
This could be a simple article not requiring too much guess work on the part of the reader, especially as most readers don’t have the time to puzzle over such stuff. If my comments make sense, do consider a rewrite by the same author ( I suspect he knows what he is talking about) in a subsequent issue; it will save those of us weekend pruners countless trips to the sharpening shop and increase our respect for the tools we use as well as the larger environment of forest management.
Lloyd Fillion, Boston, Massachusetts
The Editors respond:
Thanks to Randy Kerr for his clarifications on sharpening. We have followed his advice and included in this issue a discussion of bars and nose sprockets. (See page 59.)
In response to Lloyd Fillion, we do of course want Tricks of the Trade to be useful to the inexperienced; that is indeed the major purpose of this column. To clarify, the depth gauge is sometimes called a raker, which is a holdover from the days of cross-cut saws. It is the part of the tooth that precedes the cutter, and its purpose is to determine how deeply the cutter will go into the wood. As the cutters are filed back (thus lowering their height), the height of the depth gauges similarly need to be filed down. Use a flat file for this, in conjunction with the guide that Joe Smith recommended. The line on the drawing should have been labeled “depth gauge guide.” This depth gauge guide is not the same tool as the file guide. Both guides are easy to use, inexpensive, and available from any chainsaw dealer.
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Open S.P.A.C.E.
To the Editors:
I recently received the Spring issue of Northern Woodlands. As always, I enjoyed reading the articles and I keep the issues as resource guides. Chuck Wooster wrote an informative article, “The Current State of Current Use” in the Knots and Bolts section. I was encouraged to see this article, as there are many landowners and municipalities that don’t know about or understand what current use is.
For 33 years, New Hampshire has had one of the nation’s simplest and most-effective open space taxation programs. The importance of current use has grown over the years; almost 60 percent of the state’s taxable private land is enrolled in the program by nearly 27,000 landowners. For many of these landowners, current use is the vital means by which they can afford to keep their land.
S.P.A.C.E. (Statewide Program of Action to Conserve Our Environment) is New Hampshire’s Current Use Coalition, a nonprofit organization located in Concord. The organization was formed in 1966 to rally for a constitutional amendment to allow land to be taxed based upon its current use value and not on its highest and best use value. In 1973, the General Court enacted the current use taxation law to ensure fair taxation of undeveloped farm and forestlands. I am the organization’s executive administrator.
S.P.A.C.E. has been there to promote an effective current use taxation program through outreach to landowners and to municipalities with compliance of the current use law. The organization supports research efforts to provide scientific data through cost of community services studies to show the economic value of open space. S.P.A.C.E. is recognized as a leading source of information on Current Use. Over the decades, the organization’s successful action has been made possible by the support of thousands of individual voluntary contributions.
In writing about current use, please include S.P.A.C.E. as a resource for landowners in future publications of Northern Woodlands. If your readers own land in New Hampshire and are not familiar with current use or S.P.A.C.E., and would like to learn more and be kept informed of the latest changes to New Hampshire’s Current Use law, contact the office at 54 Portsmouth St. Rm. 117, Concord, NH 03301-5400 or call us at (603) 224-3306 or email: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).
Kathie Fife, Concord, New Hampshire
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Tree Species Clarification
To the Editors:
While reading Bob Henke’s article “Red Oak, Black Cherry, and Great Blue Herons” in the Spring 2006 issue, I came across some obvious errors and confusing information. First, the photos of trees with blue flagging tied around them on pages 30-31 and again on page 32 are both clearly of red oak, not “poplar,” as the picture descriptions label them.
In the article, it’s reported that “the nests were located at the height of the land, in the tallest aspen trees.” But the pictures provided in the article show red oak to be the key nesting species, although the overhead canopy photo on page 30 does show one aspen in the upper left containing a single heron nest. Are the photos provided just not reflective of the true field conditions? Or is the description of aspen use by herons for nest sites overstated, or just wrong?
The article then later asserts “aspen was the key species to keep going.” After researching several reference manuals, I found no information to support this assertion, so where does it come from?
In my limited experience, but with three different heron nesting sites, all were on large ridgetops forested by large-diameter hardwoods similar to what the author describes. One site used several large hard maple and beech trees; the second was located in a single American beech with a very large crown containing about 16-18 nests; the last used red oak and red maple trees holding 28 or 30 nests in total.
I also have a question about the “aspen” described in the article and “poplar” labeled in the photos. I know that these names along with cottonwood are, rightly or wrongly, sometimes interchangeably or loosely used to describe any of the species within the genus Populus, but exactly what species is this article actually referring to? Very little site information is given, but because of the “height of the land” quote, my guess would be bigtooth aspen due to the drier soil conditions associated with these areas and bigtooth aspen’s preference for mesic sites.
Please be more vigilant in providing the reader accurate and factual information in the future without making unsupported claims.
Jason Schoellig, Edmeston, New York
The Editors respond:
The writer is correct that our captions misidentified some of the trees. To set the record straight, we contacted forester Jon Raymond, who confirmed that in this heronry, the birds nest in both species of aspen: quaking aspen (Populus tremuloides) and big-tooth aspen (Populus grandidentata). He also confirmed that the photos, with their seeming preponderance of red oak, are not indicative of the site. In addition, Raymond wrote a follow up note, from which we quote:
“I am jumping at the opportunity to ‘seize the teaching moment’ in the mistake found in the article on the Buskirk rookery.
It really does not matter that the large red oak trees with blue ribbons tied around them are misidentified as poplar; what matters is that the herons will also use these trees for their nests.
The mistake I am concerned with is the use of the word ‘poplar.’ Here in the northern woodlands, we find several soft hardwood species all collectively labeled as ‘popple.’ These species are Populus tremuloides – quaking aspen; Populus grandidentata – big-tooth aspen; Populus deltoides – eastern cottonwood; along with Liriodendron tulipifera – yellow poplar or tuliptree. The colloquial use of the word ‘popple’ is interchanged with the word poplar in almost every market in our forest industry here in the Northeast. The loggers know exactly what popple is but question which one is meant when ‘poplar’ is used.
In the Buskirk heronry, the birds prefer to nest in popple (aspen) but will use the red oak, which is a minor component of the 2-acre heronry area. The veneer red oaks with nests in them were left for the birds to use, thus the blue ribbons to show the logger not to disturb the crowns of these trees.
I hope this corrects the mistake.”
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