Old Growth Forest Management Plan discussion

This is what I received back from my contacts within the DNCR Bureau of Forestry when I requested information on the management plans relative to old growth forest management.
 
Old Growth
Introduction
One hundred years ago, most of the forestlands of Pennsylvania lay in virtual desolation: cutover, repeatedly burned, with eroding mountainsides and silt-choked streams. This was the result of decades of exploitation and little awareness or knowledge of the need for conservation. The state's extensive forests were gone except for small, isolated patches. Today, more than 17-million acres, almost 60 percent of the Commonwealth's land area, are covered with hardwood forests that are dominated by 70 to100 year-old second- and third-growth forest communities.
The department has long-recognized the value and need for protecting old-growth communities on state forest land. As early as 1908, the department recommended preserving several virgin hemlock communities that had been left by lumbermen because of inaccessibility. These virgin tracts were designated as forest monuments in 1921. In 1970, the forest monuments were re-designated as natural areas.
During the development of the 1970-85 State Forest Resource Management Plans, all unique or unusual biological areas, including virgin and old growth tracts, were inventoried for possible natural area designation. All known virgin areas on state forest lands are currently in the state forest natural area system.
As our second- and third-growth forests continue to mature, there is an increased interest in promoting old-growth forested ecosystems. All forest seres or systems are important components of managing state forest lands under an ecosystem management approach. Thus, a strategy to incorporate the development of old-growth forested systems within the state forests is necessary.
An understanding of the components of old-growth forests is a necessary first step in the development of a strategy to conserve or enhance these systems. It is generally agreed that old-growth forests are "biologically" old and have experienced relatively little human disturbance. However, no generic definition of old growth enjoys wide acceptance. This is especially true concerning eastern deciduous forests.
Each ecosystem or biological community is unique due to its biological and physical components, the natural processes acting upon it and the influence of human impacts. Thus, developing regional or local definitions of old growth is the best way to characterize these systems.
Attempts to quantify or characterize old growth can truly be accomplished only on existing systems. As stated previously, there are relatively few of these systems remaining in Pennsylvania. Efforts are currently underway to define existing old-growth systems in some regions of the state.
However, one cannot conclusively define the character of potential old-growth systems that will develop from our second- and third-growth forests. These forests originated under different conditions than did our pre-European settlement forests. They continue to develop under dissimilar natural processes and unprecedented influences such as the chestnut blight, the gypsy moth, fire history, high populations of white-tailed deer, air pollutants and other anthropogenic stresses.
Nevertheless, there are several components or criteria that are usually considered when discussing old-growth forests including: age (biologically mature, late successional, etc.), structure (species composition, dead and down material, canopy gaps, etc.), disturbance (extent of human influences) and size (self-sustaining, allows natural processes and functions).
Perhaps the best way to discuss or describe old-growth forests is in the context of late-successional biological communities or habitats. Although some professionals use the terms "steady state" or "stable communities," old-growth systems, like all systems, are constantly shifting or changing and thus, are unable to be defined.
Historically, old growth forest was much more abundant in Pennsylvania, although it was distributed in a mosaic of forest patches of varying ages (Frelich 1995).   Today, the Pennsylvania Bureau of Forestry administers 1,580 acres of old growth forest on its lands.   In the Allegheny National Forest in northwestern Pennsylvania, the Tionesta Scenic and Research Natural Areas along with Hearts Content encompass 3650 acres of virgin forest.   Old growth in state parks or private lands in patches ranging from 35 to 5000 acres and include large barren areas in the Poconos and elsewhere as well as hemlock-hardwood forests such as the Woodbourne Forest in Susquahanna County (200 acres), and the hemlock forest at Ricketts Glen State Park (2000 acres).   Total old growth acres in the state, including the pine-scrub oak barrens sites, exceeds 30,000 acres total (< 1.0% total forest land) (Davis 1993, Davis 1999)  However, most old growth forest sites occur small patches of less than 500 acres (Davis 1993).

Policy Statement
Old growth systems will be protected and promoted on state forest lands.

Goals




Goal 1:

To protect existing old growth systems on state forest lands.




Objectives:
·                         Protect all existing virgin or old growth remnant forests by including these areas in the state forest natural area system.
·                         Promote research and study on existing virgin and old growth remnant forests to fully understand the characteristics of these systems.


Goal 2:

To develop and implement a strategy to promote future old growth systems on state forest lands.




Objectives:
·                         Advance old growth forested systems on state forests lands using areas zoned to promote a successional pattern toward potential old-growth systems.
·                         Maintain a minimum of 20 percent of state forestlands as potential or existing old-growth areas.
·                         Allow vegetation on natural areas, selected portions of wild areas, special resource management zones, and limited resource management zones to develop into late-successional communities or old-growth systems.
·                         Connect old-growth systems where practical.

Here is what one district forester had to say about selecting areas in his district to be managed as old growth under the current management plan.
 
"Basically this is the really steep ground found in many of the drainages and hollows as well as the main river valley.  In order to log these areas we would need to be bulldozing skid trails every 100 feet along the side of the mountain.  While it may create early successional habitat, it is going to be hard on the trout streams that run at the base of the mountain.  Given the steep slopes, I would expect to have erosion and sedimentation issues with the streams.  This is based on the issues I have seen coming from private property logged in the area.
 
At this point my “old growth” areas are around 115 years old and need at least another 100 years to truly begin approaching old growth status. Also in order for this to work we will need an under story of something other than fern and striped maple. If we get a major blow down we may look at doing some salvage work depending on species involved and stumpage values.  Of major concern is the hemlock wooly algid.  It is heavily infecting trees in the stream valleys and could have a major impact on our abilities to manage for old growth.  We are looking at doing some experimental spraying in one of the stands to see if we can get some cost effective control." 
 
Here is a link to the map showing the State Forests along with the areas to be managed as old growth forest under the current management plan.
 
The light green is state forest land and the dark green are areas to be managed as old growth forest, partly because many of those areas can’t be managed for more active timber management practices.
 
 http://www.dcnr.state.pa.us/forestry/sfrmp/images/oldgrowth.gif

It looks or sounds even less like the Boogieman to me as I continue to learn even more about the current DCNR management plan.
 R.S. Bodenhorn

I don't know why you would feel any differently about it today than you did before. What you were given by your contact and posted was the same thing I posted earlier in this thread. What your contact said about trying to just use existing areas and places too tough to log was exactly what I said earlier in this thread. The fact the greens got them to agree to 25% and do it in such a way the areas would connect one another is documented in the information you yourself had posted. We could have saved a couple pages of back and forth if you wern't so intent on trying to prove me wrong. Oh well, it did pass some time with the same ending.

Do you ever read what anyone posts or do you just make this s//t up as you go. I never said or indicated it's a conspiracy of any kind. What they are trying to do has been well publicised since 1998. You are the one who has denied it and claimed I was just dreaming it up as far back as 2006 on Doc's old site.

The only thing that I have been consistant in pointing out is that is going to mean fewer deer in spite of your claims to the contrary. Old Growth Forests never have and never will support the deer numbers that regular timbering of the forests will. You are well aware of that.

It's not sound resource management but it is what the resource managers have been told to do at this time. It is a politically driven movement to turn back the clock as much as possible to a time where nature is in balance with itself and man is just an observer. Whether you or I like it or not depends on whether we are a hunter or a nature lover first. It's going to happen, it's going to mean fewer deer, it orchestrated by the enviromentalists,and their friends and the deer herd reduction was necessary to get it started.

It's been debated for years, it's been talked about for years, there has been congressional hearings on it, it hasn't been hidden, the only conspiracy is you trying to convince us it is going to allow the hunters to have more deer. Why don't you just admit it and move on to something else.

If there is no conspiracy, can you explain why 2G is being managed at less than 25% of the MSY Carrying capacity of the habitat?

The political change is to go from managing deer in relation to the carrying capacity of the land to managing deer in relation to other plants and animals with each carrying equal weight in importance. Even though the carrying capacity may be 40 dpsm the deer start to impact some flowers at 8-10 dpsm. In Eco-system management the flower is just as important as the deer.

I think the Carrying capacity of old growth forest is only 10 DPSM.

That seems to be the number most of the experts in the U.S. agree on. Actually, most of the research I've done on the deer numbers when man first arrived on the U.S. soil pegged the number closer to 5-7 dpsm. I'am not sure who counted them back then though.

ORIGINAL: deerfly

If there is no conspiracy, can you explain why 2G is being managed at less than 25% of the MSY Carrying capacity of the habitat?

 
It isn’t being managed at 25% of the carrying capacity. It is being managed at the level where the deer are in balance with their food supply since that is all nature will allow to exist there.
 
R.S. Bodenhorn 

ORIGINAL: RSB

ORIGINAL: deerfly

If there is no conspiracy, can you explain why 2G is being managed at less than 25% of the MSY Carrying capacity of the habitat?

It isn’t being managed at 25% of the carrying capacity. It is being managed at the level where the deer are in balance with their food supply since that is all nature will allow to exist there.
 
R.S. Bodenhorn 

WRONG AGAIN!! The MSY CC of the habitat in 2g is over 40 DPSM. That is what Susan Stout claims , that is what SCS stated and that is what the deer have proven to be true. The herd in 2G is being managed at the diversity CC, not the nutritonal CC.

ORIGINAL: deerfly

ORIGINAL: RSB

ORIGINAL: deerfly

If there is no conspiracy, can you explain why 2G is being managed at less than 25% of the MSY Carrying capacity of the habitat?

It isn’t being managed at 25% of the carrying capacity. It is being managed at the level where the deer are in balance with their food supply since that is all nature will allow to exist there.
 
R.S. Bodenhorn 

WRONG AGAIN!! The MSY CC of the habitat in 2g is over 40 DPSM. That is what Susan Stout claims , that is what SCS stated and that is what the deer have proven to be true. The herd in 2G is being managed at the diversity CC, not the nutritonal CC.

 
Susan’s studies and journals were primarily based in a northern hardwood forest. Most of 2G is NOT made up of northern hard forest types. Plus Susan’s report on the deer carrying capacity is how old now, that was back in the 1980’s wasn’t it? I would say her estimated carrying capacity was probably closer to reality back then but we have had a couple more decades of habitat damage since then.
 
Besides the deer are disagreeing with you on how many deer can live in 2G. If 2G could support more deer the population would have been increasing with all of these years of significantly reduced doe harvests, but it isn’t so that pretty much says it all.
 
R.S. Bodenhorn

ORIGINAL: S-10

But I have seen lots of winter mortality deer within just a few hundred yards of some great clear-cuts loaded with seedling/sapling habitat. You need a mixture of both seedling/sapling and old growth in the deer wintering grounds if you want to have the highest possible sustainable deer populations.

And yet you have told us for years that in your area the deer eat all the seedling/saplings as soon as they sprout and there is no regeneration.That's the reason you have been giving for reducing the deer herd. Now you are telling us that you have great clearcuts loaded with seedling/saplings.

 
Just where did I say that in anything close to that context. You SIR are a master at deception with the way you post things out of context to the point they become totally misleading and even flat out lies.
 
How about if you copy and wasting where I made such statements in the context in which you just used them. You can’t because they don’t exist. That pretty much makes what you say a fraud in my opinion.
 
R.S. Bodenhorn

It's getting to the point it's not much fun debating with him anymore. He makes a B.S. claim, we catch him in it, he denys it and trys to change the focus of the discussion. Repeat, Repeat, Repeat, etc.

Just in the three active topics, he got caught flat footed in a lie on the Managing deer and deer hunters thread he started and tried to change the focus, on the Old growth forests and Eco-System Management thread even the QDMA says he is full of it, and on this thread and many others his whole claim for the reasons there are no deer in 2G is the deer eat all the browse as soon as it sprouts and there is no regeneration to allow for an increase in numbers.

NOW he tells us the clearcuts ARE LOADED WITH BROWSE and when I call him on it he once again tries to deflect who is full of it. As I said before, he changes his version of the facts to support whatever claim he is making at the time.

If the clearcuts are loaded with browse as he now claims then the deer should be going into the winter in good shape. That also means there is no reason not to harvest the timber since the deer aren't impacting the seedlings as we have been told. If the deer are not impacting the seedlings then they shouldn't have destroyed the winter habitat in 2003-04. By the way Carl Roe said the collard deer study for that area showed survival rates those two years at 95% and 98%. His whole debate with you is based on his claim the deer are not allowing regeneration in 2G. Now he even counterdicts himself on that. I wonder which version we will hear tonight.

ORIGINAL: S-10

It's getting to the point it's not much fun debating with him anymore. He makes a B.S. claim, we catch him in it, he denys it and trys to change the focus of the discussion. Repeat, Repeat, Repeat, etc.

Just in the three active topics, he got caught flat footed in a lie on the Managing deer and deer hunters thread he started and tried to change the focus, on the Old growth forests and Eco-System Management thread even the QDMA says he is full of it, and on this thread and many others his whole claim for the reasons there are no deer in 2G is the deer eat all the browse as soon as it sprouts and there is no regeneration to allow for an increase in numbers.

NOW he tells us the clearcuts ARE LOADED WITH BROWSE and when I call him on it he once again tries to deflect who is full of it. As I said before, he changes his version of the facts to support whatever claim he is making at the time.

If the clearcuts are loaded with browse as he now claims then the deer should be going into the winter in good shape. That also means there is no reason not to harvest the timber since the deer aren't impacting the seedlings as we have been told. If the deer are not impacting the seedlings then they shouldn't have destroyed the winter habitat in 2003-04. By the way Carl Roe said the collard deer study for that area showed survival rates those two years at 95% and 98%. His whole debate with you is based on his claim the deer are not allowing regeneration in 2G. Now he even counterdicts himself on that. I wonder which version we will hear tonight.

 
I guess people will have to be their own judge on whom the deceptive posters are and which ones are simply trying to provide some factual and objective information.
 
I also think perhaps your problem is that you can’t see anything as being some good habitat and some poor habitat. You can’t seem to understand that even good habitat in the wrong places is often worthless to deer when it isn’t where they can use it during the harsh winter months. Sometimes it simply doesn’t matter how much food deer have for seven, eight, nine or even ten months of the year. If they don’t have enough food those other two, three, four or five months of the winter and spring they might just die and those that don’t die probably aren’t going to recruit a fawn into the herd the next summer.
 
You seem to be one of those people that only relates to things being all the way to one extreme or all the way over to the other extreme without being able to see anything in the variable range.
 
The fact is we have some areas where clear-cuts of the past totally failed and some where they regenerated pretty well. There was typically a host of variable that played into and influenced which it was going to be. In more recent years there has been some improvement but that doesn’t mean all is well and deer numbers are start to skyrocket, it simply means there is a chance for habitat recovery that will allow for higher deer numbers in the future.  
 
R.S. Bodenhorn  

I guess people will have to be their own judge on whom the deceptive posters are and which ones are simply trying to provide some factual and objective information.

I'll agree with that statement and leave it at that.

ORIGINAL: deerfly

As for your comments on 2G deer harvests, we have been over it and over time and again. This isn’t the right forum for it. Are you so single minded that is where you have to drag every thread?

If you want to prove that I am wrong,all you have to do is post the recruitment rates and harvest rates for 2G from 1995 to 2010. You won't do it because it will show you have now idea what you are talking about.

 
This isn’t the place for it besides I don’t have the recruitment rates and either do you.
 
If you go to the thread where they would be appropriate you will find my comments and the supporting data to prove you absolutely don’t have a clue what your talking about.
 
R.S. Bodenhorn

Do you realize the Mann-Kendall test the PGC is using as part of their NEW Science Based Deer Management for estimating deer numbers was developed in 1975?