Site Discussions

Hi Peter,

A difference between us and many of the environmental organizations you cite involves the fact that we focus on the Northeast. Burning wood from a managed woodlot in Vermont, is of course, very different than razing a rainforest, burning the slash, and converting it into a feedlot. On a very simple level, part of what we do is to help people understand the difference.

As to your comment about liking your firewood but not liking the wood McNeil’s burns, I see the two things as connected. The wood industry in the state and region is like an ecosystem, and it functions best when it’s diverse and balanced. You might analogize the big wood consumers like McNeils to wolves. When you take the alpha predators out of a food chain, there are ripples. The logger who sells you two cords of wood needs to move more volume than that to stay in business. The forestland owners in your region need established, consistent markets, as well, so they can afford to own the woods that we all benefit from. Likely, McNeils helps them both.

The goal is to find a healthy balance between utility and forest health. (Best of all is when utility can promote forest health.) We strive for balance in our editorial matters as well, and so I thank you for this contribution. I suspect many readers share your concerns.

I miss my skunks!  I used to have pet ones that had the run of our farmhouse and slept with me at night. 

Hello Deborah in Texas, I am a professional animal damage control agent and I regularly trap skunks for people. I use cooked chicken bones (left over scraps) in my live traps and usually catch them right away. Just be sure to have your trap in a black bag or a blanket because if trap is covered they will not spray when transporting them. I will be posting a video this week on the process start to finish on our HardCore Scripture Outdoors (youth mentoring program) website and Facebook page.

I enjoy all kinds of birds.I had several different kinds. I love watching them while eating breakfast. But when the Wrens came they chased away all my other birds. They are not nice birds at all. I want my others back. Any ideas? Thank you

I found an opossum today here in Massachusetts. Temp was about 40. The tip of its tail is missing but it looks healthy otherwise. Thought maybe it was in distress since it didn’t make much of an attempt to run away….so I put on the work gloves it got it into a pet carrier. Gave it a warm shirt for a bed and some cat food, apple and brussel sprout to eat. It is in The shed out of the direct damp cold for the night. Protective custody. Will check on it in the morning and eventually open carrier door so it can come and go as it pleases if all is well.

I just planted three copper beech trees in my backyard.  This was before I found out about this disease.  I am planning on spraying both fungicides and pesticides on these small young trees to help fight against infection and powdery mildew. I am not sure what brand of fungicide or pesticide to use though.
Any advice would be appreciated.

Have had a single grey jay at our feeders for 3 days now - he stays all day just watching the other birds but not eating. I have never seen one here before so had trouble identifying - he seems larger then he should be!

Dear Mr. Mance,

Two years ago, after being a long-time subscriber to Northern Woodlands, I ended my subscription. Not that your magazine isn’t informative, but it seemed to me you showed the forest/wood industry a somewhat biased favoritism when environmental issues were raised. Perhaps I have drawn the wrong conclusions.

The fact that you are now revisiting the carbon-neutral issue with regard to burning wood gives me some hope that your magazine might deal with it in an unbiased, scientific manner.

Allow me to start by suggesting that your use of several terms/arguments reinforced the notion of a possible bias.

“Again” in the title seems a bit condescending to those for whom this is a very important issue. While we homeowners don’t want to give up burning a few cords of firewood each year (something I do), many of us are concerned that the CO2 levels produced by burning wood chips to generate heat or electricity are enormous. In 2013, the EPA identified the McNeil generating plant in Burlington, VT as the hands-down largest GHG polluter in the state: 355,000 plus metric tons of CO2 per year - up to 30 cords per hour.

Note what Bill McKibben has to say about burning trees to generate electricity:

https://grist.org/climate-energy/burning-trees-for-electricity-is-a-bad-idea/

Another term you use, “provocateur” as applied to Andrew Friedland, I find very unfair. It implies that he wants to raise the negatives regarding burning wood just to get people stirred up. The only problem with what he says is that he has muddied the waters by bringing in the carbon-in-the-soil factor. Even without this possible additional problem, the rationale for not burning biomass in large facilities stands on its own. Personally, I would like Dr. Friedland to take a tougher stand than he does.

Finally, I’m dismayed by your using the statement about loggers and suggesting their need to make a living as a key reason to continue with harvesting large volumes of firewood. Of course there are economic implications in reducing the production levels of wood, but is this relevant to the environmental issue? I think not, anymore than arguing that we should not limit coal mining because it hurts the miners.

In the interest of not complicating the discussion, allow me to deal only with cutting trees for large-scale production of wood chips to burn in thermal or electric facilities.  In doing so, I am not drawing any conclusions regarding the well-to-tank analysis of various fuels.

Some hopefully undisputed data (EPA): burning biomass produces approximately 206 lbs of CO2 per million BTU’s and far more (620 lbs per mm BTU’s UK data) for wood chips with 50% moisture – common is Britain. Natural gas produces 120 lbs per mm BTU’s but possibly 200 lbs per mm BTU’s if you count the effects of leaked methane.

Secondly, one of your readers states that young trees sequester at a higher rate than old-growth trees. This flies in the face of a good deal of recent research. Prof. Bill Keeton at UVM has done extensive studies on this topic and has concluded that the way to maximize carbon sequestration is to “nudge forests toward old- growth conditions.”

https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/ecs2.1721

Contrary to the claims made by one of your contributors, no one is saying that replanted trees don’t start out sequestering carbon. They do indeed. But if you draw a simple graph to compare the rate of resequestration by these replacement trees vs. leaving in place the ones that were cut, it’s easy to see that the total carbon taken up by the later is much higher over the 30 to 60 yrs. under consideration.

While burning biomass may be carbon neutral if you pick the right definition, i.e. that the cut tree eventually fully regrows (if planted), that doesn’t mean that more carbon would have been sequestered if you hadn’t cut the tree in the first place.

We need to carefully assess the science in all this and avoid anecdotal evidence.

Finally, trees are one of the few things nature provides to resequester carbon. We should fully understand the results of cutting them down and using them as fuel.

The following environmental groups have rejected the notion that burning biomass is carbon-neutral in any meaningful way:

Center for Biological Diversity
Chesapeake Climate Action Network
Clean Air Task Force
Dogwood Alliance
Earthjustice
Environmental Working Group
Friends of the Earth
Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives
Greenpeace
Partnership for Policy Integrity
Rainforest Action Network
Sierra Club
Southern Environmental Law Center
350 .org
Audubon

plus over 80 scientists in many institutions who signed a letter to the EU deploring use of biomass from US forests to fuel Europe’s energy needs. The lead signer was E.O. Wilson at Harvard.

Plus bringing deer ticks to your area…

I’ve been a guide for 50 years and have watched land companies cut every deer yard in northern Maine! This has forced remaining deer population into the town of Allagash foraging for food. Had the people not started to feed them the herd would no longer exist in northern Maine.

Perhaps in other parts of the world, Marvin, where they’ve been introduced. But they’re native here.

If you think that feeding deer is going to stop than you’re wrong law or not!! First of all the clear cutting has to stop!! And the spraying must stop also!! Deer need woods to live in and don’t need to be eating poison food!! Until this stops I will feed deer until I am dead law or not.

When I was raising goats in central MA, I found that they would browse on conifers when there was snow cover. I read that conifers is a natural preventative to parasites infection. I believe that this is also true of deer (I love the deer sketch).

Great info, I really wanted to know about tapping early, because I actually already collected over 60 gallons of sap when we had the January thaw just this year 2019.

I have been torn about pulling all the taps because the sap ran strong for a week and then it has been cold ever since.  I have not pulled my taps, I guess I will see what happens when it starts again.

Are gray squirrels,indeed, an invasive?

According to my mammal book, they’re two different species, Dana. The greys are Sciurus carolinensis, and as of 1981 there were 5 subspecies recognized. The foxes are S. niger, and as of 1981 there were 10 subspecies recognized.

I’m so heartbroken. In southern California, the houses are surrounded by clear glass wind barriers. I just started feeding birds this winter and many finches and a mourning dove couple eat at my feeders.

The male dove got spooked and flew into the glass and died almost instantly. I’m devastated. I can’t believe my carelessness was responsible for killing one of the mates. Will the female be able to find another mate?

I’m so upset. I love animals so much and I can’t believe I’m responsible for a beautiful dove dying. What could I have done to prevent such a horrible tragedy? The feeders are around 4-5 feet from the glass and the glass is around 4 feet tall. I may stop feeding the birds. I feel so bad.

The article is an eye opener. Initially, and with no background on surveying, my assumption was that to verify an acre, you simply take length x width x conversion factor; irrespective of topography. This was until a real case of subdivision of a family parcel measuring 2.8ha; comprising varying gradients at both ends; and slightly wider at one end; into four equal portions after provision of access roads; a family cemetery and a water well came up.

The argument was how to verify that everyone got an equal sized portion, considering the varying slopes and width of the overall land parcel. It is now clear that whereas everyone will get an equal share of approx 1.63 acres, those in the steeper slopy zone will end up with more surface area…I trust my interpretation. of the text captures the concept.

Is the Grey Squirrel a different species from the equally large but reddish colored Eastern Fox Squirrel or just a subspecies?

It’s hard to say without seeing them, Joe. If the reds are north exposure and the sugars are south exposure, it could be as simple as microclimate. Double check your holes on the reds and be sure you didn’t drill into dead wood. When you say they’re smaller than the sugar maples but big enough to tap, what do you mean exactly? What’s the diameter of the respective species?