OUR
COMMENTS - February, 2003
Workshops, Logging, & Lynx
First Educational Workshop at First Mountain
The First Mountain Forest hosted its first educational workshop in February on what proved to be the coldest day of the winter season. The record for coldest spot in the nation went to nearby Whitefield that day based on a 37 degrees below zero morning temperature. In spite of the extreme cold, fourteen Coverts Cooperators, UNHCE staff, and guests attended the day long workshop on winter wildlife. Luckily, the schedule provided for all of the morning and early afternoon sessions to be held inside the cozy cottage. UNHCE staff members were there to offer information about the special needs and the coping strategies of wildlife in New England's harsh winter landscape.
After
a final indoor afternoon session on tracking and identifying sign, participants
bundled up and began a snowshoe trek through the lower elevations of First
Mountain Forest to observe tracks and make other field observations based
upon the earlier training sessions. The mountain had received about
eighteen inches of new snow the week before, but no snow had fallen during
the previous five days. Still, the cold had preserved the many tracks in
the forest and we quickly found signs and tracks for red squirrels, ermine,
deer or white-footed mice, bobcat, porcupine, abundant snowshoe hare, moose,
coyote, numerous deer trails, and past signs of bear revealed by claw marks
in beech trees; all found during a three-quarter mile snowshoe loop hike.
Particularly impressive was a night burrow of a ruffed grouse with detailed
and finely etched wing imprints revealing its morning blast from a comfortable
snow burrow. It was great to have the trio of UNHCE experts there to help
interpret the signs and tracks. A detailed article about the workshop appeared
in the following "Berlin Daily Sun" weekly
column by John Walsh.
First Mountain will host portions of an AMC workshop on Trail Design and Layout in June when White Mountains Trails Supervisor Andrew Norkin brings the group to our mountain forest to practice and hone skills learned during the weekend workshop. We look forward to this and future events where we can share the forest with others and use the land as a teaching tool for conservation issues.
Surrounded by Logging
Our small forest tract is increasingly becoming more valuable as a wildlife-habitat managed forest as the surrounding lands are once again experiencing mechanical harvesting. The 100-acre block of forest on our west boundary, which includes most of First Mountain's west flank, saw the installation last summer of a large log landing next door and an extensive road network that ends at our far back northwest corner. The main logging operation is scheduled to begin this coming summer. Our neighbor there is doing a conscientious job of logging and is using a forester to oversee the operation. He even brought in a Fish and Game biologist to advise on protection of the hemlock ridges where deer yard every winter. The lumbering operation is fascinating to watch, but we would still prefer to see the forest remain uncut. At least we know this job is being done responsibly.
Far more troubling is a timber operation that has just begun on the 130-acre tract on our east boundary. The absentee owners were approached by an independent logger from Dummer, NH and we believe the harvest is being conducted without input from a forester. We have been told that the logger has a good reputation for conducting responsible and environmentally sensitive harvesting, but sometimes economics outweigh ethics in the forest. The harvesting has already come to the very edge of our boundary line and the southerly portions of the old AMC trial along the boundary are already covered in slash. It is too early to tell, but we fear this logging may turn out to be a "cut the best & leave the rest" type of operation. We hope that time will prove us wrong.
On our north boundary, Mead/Westvaco has been quiet the last couple of years. They have been cutting heavily on the Mahoosuc slopes just to the northeast of First Mountain. Rumor has it that Mead will unload vast parts of its New England timberlands later this year. We tried to purchase a thirty acre section on First Mountain summit's lower east flank years ago when the land was held by Boise Cascade. Perhaps we'll eventually be able to acquire that section from Mead/Westvaco and protect the mountain's lower east slope from future logging.
Lynx Sighting
A Shelburne neighbor and owner of Crow Mountain and surrounding large forest tract near the Maine line recently advised that he had seen Canadian Lynx in Shelburne three times this winter. Ben is a retired anthropologist and is well aware of the differences between lynx and bobcat. He is sure that he had seen two separate lynx on the three occasions. Maine wildlife officials and the US Fish & Wildlife Service are currently monitoring breeding populations of lynx in the western mountains of Maine, so it would be no surprise if the lynx began its re-introduction into New Hampshire through the Mahoosuc Mountains in Shelburne. The last verified sighting of lynx in New Hampshire was many decades ago in the White Mountain National Forest.
Larry
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