by By Richard M. DeGraaf, Mariko Yamasaki, William B. Leak, and Anna M. Lester
University of Vermont Press and University Press of New England, 2005
This is not the book for you if you want the standard wildlife habitat fare: what kind of viburnum to plant at the edge of your yard, how to make a brush pile for chipmunks and sparrows, or how to set up the hose to drip into a basin that birds will use for bathing.
Though the cover has photos of a lovely, inviting road disappearing into ferny woods, a flying squirrel on a big, old tree, and a handsome deer peeking out through snowy branches, this book is not about prettiness. It is a serious book, and it is about making major changes to the forest overstory in the service of increasing diversity of wildlife habitat.
The primary focus is on creating early successional habitat, a forest type that the authors believe is seriously underrepresented in the New England landscape. They consider the loss of this kind of habitat to be “the most pressing wildlife concern in New England.” The whippoorwill, yellow-bellied cuckoo, chestnut-sided warbler, indigo bunting, towhee, and field sparrow are just a few of the shrubland birds whose populations are decreasing throughout much of the Northeast because the forest is maturing. Sawtimber-sized forests are so widespread that species requiring summer fruits such as strawberries and soft mast from pin cherry, blackberries, and raspberries are having a hard time getting by.
The authors use computer-generated images of what the landscape will look like under different management strategies 10, 20, and 100 years after cutting to demonstrate that even-aged management, with partial or complete overstory removal on 20 percent of the land every 20 years, will produce the most diverse forest, with trees in all age classes. These landscape images are created using real tree data and topographic information, together with computer models of tree growth and programs that produce photo-like images of a dynamic landscape. You can see a clearcut area filling in at years 10 and 20, only to be cut again at age 100.
Though their preferred options for southern New England differ from those for the northern part, periodic clearcutting in hardwoods and shelterwood harvests in softwoods are shown to support the largest number of wildlife species.
At the outset, the authors state that the aim of the book is to put forest management options in the context of “natural forest disturbances that have historically created an array of wildlife habitat conditions in New England.” Opinions vary greatly on how much land was open or young forest in the pre-European era, and there is plenty of disagreement as to whether this percentage – whatever it is – is something that we should work towards recreating.
In this book, “letting nature take its course” is explicitly rejected as a way to benefit wildlife. Except at high elevations or in unusual circumstances, stands left unmanaged in perpetuity are not going to be necessary for animals either: “In New England, no species need stands older than the silvicultural rotation age.” Instead, it’s the many species that rely on early successional habitat that are in danger of being lost. In order to keep these habitats on the landscape, they write, “we need to intentionally and continuously create them.”
This book constitutes a big and bold salvo in the already contentious battles over the value of extensive uncut forests and the ecological effects of significant clearcuts. It is written by highly respected experts, and the goals of the book and of the forest management they advocate are clear – that more wildlife species are better.
Their prescription for increased use of clearcuts, however, is bound to be unappealing to many landowners. Even those who wish to manage their land for wildlife are likely to find the prospect of sizeable clearcuts more than a little daunting.